英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

plane [plane 词源字典]: plane: English has five distinct planes, four of which are essentially the same word as plain. These come ultimately from Latin plānus, but preserve its ‘flat’ meanings rather than (like plain) its ‘clear’ meanings. Plane ‘flat surface’ [17] comes from Latin plānum, a noun use of the neuter form of the adjective; it is the plane from which aeroplane, and hence its abbreviation plane, were formed. Plane ‘carpenter’s smoothing tool’ [14] comes via Old French plane from late Latin plāna, a derivative of the verb plānāre ‘make level’, itself a derivative of plānus. Plane ‘flat’ [17] is an alteration of plain, on the model of French plan ‘flat’.

And plane ‘glide, soar’ [17] comes from French planer, a derivative of plan ‘level surface’ (the underlying notion being of a bird soaring with level wings). The odd man out is plane the tree-name [14], which comes via Old French plane and Latin platanus from Greek plátanos, a derivative of platús ‘broad’ (source of English place, plaice, and platypus) – the reference being to its broad leaves. Platanus probably also underlies English plantain, as applied to the banana-like vegetable.
=> piano, plain; place, plaice, plantain, plate, platypus[plane etymology, plane origin, 英语词源]
ace (n.): c. 1300, "one at dice," from Old French as "one at dice," from Latin as "a unit, one, a whole, unity;" also the name of a small Roman coin ("originally one pound of copper; reduced by depreciation to half an ounce" [Lewis]), perhaps originally Etruscan and related to Greek eis "one" (from PIE *sem- "one, as one"), or directly from the Greek word.

In English, it meant the side of the die with only one mark before it meant the playing card with one pip (1530s). Because this was the lowest roll at dice, ace was used metaphorically in Middle English for "bad luck" or "something of no value;" but as the ace is often the highest playing card, the extended senses based on "excellence, good quality" arose 18c. as card-playing became popular. Ace in the hole in the figurative sense of "concealed advantage" is attested from 1904, from crooked stud poker deals.

Meaning "outstanding pilot" dates from 1917 (technically, in World War I aviators' jargon, one who has brought down 10 enemy planes, though originally in reference to 5 shot down), from French l'ace (1915), which, according to Bruce Robertson (ed.) "Air Aces of the 1914-1918 War" was used in prewar French sporting publications for "top of the deck" boxers, cyclists, etc. Sports meaning of "point scored" (1819) led to that of "unreturnable serve" (1889).
air raid (n.): 1914, from air (n.1) + raid (n.); originally in reference to British attacks Sept. 22, 1914, on Zeppelin bases at Cologne and Düsseldorf in World War I. The German word is Fliegerangriff "aviator-attack," and if Old English had survived into the 20th century our word instead might be fleogendeongrype.
One didn't dare to inhale for fear of breathing it in. It was the sound of eighteen hundred airplanes approaching Hamburg from the south at an unimaginable height. We had already experienced two hundred or even more air raids, among them some very heavy ones, but this was something completely new. And yet there was an immediate recognition: this was what everyone had been waiting for, what had hung for months like a shadow over everything we did, making us weary. It was the end. [Hans Erich Nossack, "Der Untergang," 1942]
aircraft (n.): 1851, originally in reference to airships and balloons, from air (n.1) + craft (n.); a term from boating, as were many early aviation words. Of airplanes from 1907 and since 1930s exclusively of them. Aircraft carrier is attested from 1919 (H.M.S. Hermes, launched September 1919, was the first ship to be built from the hull up as an aircraft carrier).
battleship (n.): 1794, shortened from line-of-battle ship (1705), one large enough to take part in a main attack (formerly one of 74-plus guns); from battle (n.) + ship (n.). Later in U.S. Navy in reference to a class of ships that carried guns of the largest size. The last was decommissioned in 2006. Battleship-gray as a color is attested from 1916. Fighter and bomber airplanes in World War I newspaper articles were sometimes called battleplanes, but it did not catch on.
biplane (n.): airplane with two full wings, one above the other, 1874, as a theoretical notion; first attested 1908 in reference to the real thing; from bi- + plane (n.1). So called from the two "planes" of the double wings.
blow job (n.): also blowjob, 1961, from blow + job. Exactly which blow is meant is the subject of some debate; the word might have begun as a euphemism for suck (thus from blow (v.1)), or it might refer to the explosive climax of an orgasm (thus blow (v.2)). Unlike much sex slang, its date of origin probably is pretty close to the date it first is attested in print: as recently as the early 1950s, military pilots could innocently talk of their jet planes as blow jobs according to the "Thesaurus of American Slang." Compare blow (v.1).
cockpit (n.): 1580s, "a pit for fighting cocks," from cock (n.1) + pit (n.1). Used in nautical sense (1706) for midshipmen's compartment below decks; transferred to airplanes (1914) and to cars (1930s).
crash (n.): 1570s, from crash (v.); sense of "financial collapse" is from 1817, "collision" is from 1910; references to falling of airplanes are from World War I.
drone (n.): Old English dran, dræn "male honeybee," from Proto-Germanic *dran- (cognates: Middle Dutch drane; Old High German treno; German Drohne, which is from Middle Low German drone), probably imitative; given a figurative sense of "idler, lazy worker" (male bees make no honey) 1520s. Meaning "pilotless aircraft" is from 1946.
Drones, as the radio-controlled craft are called, have many potentialities, civilian and military. Some day huge mother ships may guide fleets of long-distance, cargo-carrying airplanes across continents and oceans. Long-range drones armed with atomic bombs could be flown by accompanying mother ships to their targets and in for perfect hits. ["Popular Science," November, 1946]
Meaning "deep, continuous humming sound" is early 16c., apparently imitative (compare threnody). The verb in the sound sense is early 16c.; it often is the characteristic sound of airplane engines. Related: Droned; droning.
hangar (n.): 1852, "shed for carriages," from French hangar "shed," which is of uncertain origin. Probably from Middle French hanghart (14c.), which is perhaps an alteration of Middle Dutch *ham-gaerd "enclosure near a house" [Barnhart, Watkins], from a Proto-Germanic compound *haimgardaz of the elements that make home (n.) and yard (n.1). Or the Middle French word might be from Medieval Latin angarium "shed in which horses are shod" [Gamillscheg, Klein]. Sense of "covered shed for airplanes" first recorded in English 1902, from French use in that sense.
helicopter (n.): 1861, from French hélicoptère "device for enabling airplanes to rise perpendicularly," thus "flying machine propelled by screws." The idea was to gain lift from spiral aerofoils, and it didn't work. Used by Jules Verne and the Wright Brothers, the word transferred to helicopters in the modern sense when those were developed in the 1920s. From Greek helix (genitive helikos) "spiral" (see helix) + pteron "wing" (see pterodactyl). Nativized in Flemish as wentelwiek "with rotary vanes."
hydroplane (v.): by 1908, "to skim the surface of water by use of hydroplanes," from hydroplane (n.). Meaning "skid on a thin layer of water" (especially of automobile tires) first recorded 1962, properly aquaplane (itself from 1961 in this sense). Related: Hydroplaned; hydroplaning.
leaflet (n.): 1787 as a term in botany; 1867 as a term in printing and publication; diminutive of leaf (n.) with -let.
A newspaperman asked the British authorities for a copy of the leaflets distributed in Germany by British airplanes. According to the London Daily Herald, his request was refused with the following answer: "Copies are not given out, as they might fall into enemy hands." ["The Living Age" magazine, Sept. 1939-Feb. 1940]
mayday (interj.): distress call, 1923, apparently an Englished spelling of French m'aider, shortening of venez m'aider "come help me!" But possibly a random coinage with coincidental resemblance:
"May Day" Is Airplane SOS
ENGLISH aviators who use radio telephone transmitting sets on their planes, instead of telegraph sets, have been puzzling over the problem of choosing a distress call for transmission by voice. The letters SOS wouldn't do, and just plain "help!" was not liked, and so "May Day" was chosen. This was thought particularly fitting since it sounds very much like the French m'aidez, which means "help me." ["The Wireless Age," June 1923]
MiG: in name of various Russian fighter planes, so called in honor of aircraft designers Mikoyan and (Russian i) Gurevitch.
monoplane (n.): 1907, a hybrid coined from mono- + second element of aeroplane. In old planes the wings formed a single surface running across the fuselage.
rat-race (n.): also rat race, 1934 in reference to aviation training, from rat (n.) + race (n.1). Rat-run is from 1870 in a literal sense.
A rat race is ... a simple game of "follow the leader" in fighter planes. The leader does everything he can think of -- Immelmanns, loops, snap rolls, and turns, always turns, tighter and tighter. ["Popular Science," May 1941]
Meaning "competitive struggle" is from 1945.
rollout (n.): also roll-out, 1957, originally of airplanes, from verbal phrase, from roll (v.) + out (adv.). As a type of U.S. football play from 1959.
seat (n.1): "thing to sit on; act of sitting," c. 1200, from Old Norse sæti "seat, position," from Proto-Germanic *sæt- (cognates: Old High German saze, Middle Dutch gesaete "seat," Old High German gisazi, German Gesäß "buttocks"), from PIE root *sed- (1) "to sit" (see sit). Meaning "posterior of the body" (the sitting part) is from c. 1600; sense of "part of a garment which covers the buttocks" is from 1835. Seat belt is from 1915, originally in airplanes.
taxi (v.): 1911, of airplanes, from slang use of taxi (n.) for "aircraft," or from or reinforced "in allusion to the way a taxi driver slowly cruises when looking for fares" [Barnhart]. Related: Taxied; taxiing.
turbulence (n.): early 15c., from Late Latin turbulentia "trouble, disquiet," from Latin turbulentus (see turbulent). In reference to atmospheric eddies that affect airplanes, by 1918. Related: Turbulency.
homaloidal: "Of or relating to straight lines and planes; satisfying the axioms of Euclidean geometry, flat", Mid 19th cent.; earliest use found in James Joseph Sylvester (1814–1897), mathematician. From ancient Greek ὁμαλός + -oidal.