quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- cyber[cyber 词源字典]
- as an element in word formation, ultimately from cybernetics (q.v.). It enjoyed explosive use with the rise of the Internet early 1990s. One researcher (Nagel) counted 104 words formed from it by 1994. Cyberpunk (by 1986) and cyberspace were among the earliest.
Cyber is such a perfect prefix. Because nobody has any idea what it means, it can be grafted onto any old word to make it seem new, cool -- and therefore strange, spooky. ["New York" magazine, Dec. 23, 1996]
As a stand-alone, it is attested by 1998 as short for cybersex (which is attested by 1995).[cyber etymology, cyber origin, 英语词源] - Nielsen
- in reference to popularity ratings of TV and radio programs, 1951, named for U.S. market researcher Arthur Clarke Nielsen (1897-1980), founder of A.C. Nielsen Co., which evaluates viewership based on samplings of receiving sets.
- rating (n.)
- 1530s, "a fixing of rates," verbal noun from rate (v.2). Meaning "a classification according to rates" is from 1764. Ratings of TV programs, originally radio programs, began 1930 in U.S. under system set up by U.S. pollster and market researcher Archibald M. Crossley (1896-1985), and were called Crossley ratings or Crossleys until ratings began to be preferred c. 1947.
- reovirus (n.)
- 1959, coined by U.S. medical researcher Dr. Albert B. Sabin (1906-1993), acronym for respiratory enteric orphan virus; "orphan" because it was not connected to any of the diseases it is associated with.
- sabbatical (adj.)
- 1640s, "of or suitable for the Sabbath," from Latin sabbaticus, from Greek sabbatikos "of the Sabbath" (see Sabbath). Noun meaning "a year's absence granted to researchers" (originally one year in seven, to university professors) is from 1934, short for sabbatical year, etc., first recorded 1886 (the thing itself is attested from 1880, at Harvard), related to sabbatical year (1590s) in Mosaic law, the seventh year, in which land was to remain untilled and debtors and slaves released.
- undine (n.)
- female water spirit, 1821, from Modern Latin Undina (1650s), coined by Paracelsus ("De Nymphis") in his alchemical system, from Latin unda "a wave, billow" (see water (n.1)). Popularized by German romance "Undine, eine Erzählung" (1811) by Baron F.H.C. La Motte Fouqué. Undinism (1928) was coined by sex researcher Havelock Ellis to describe the fetish for urine (which Ellis had); nowadays it would be called urophilia.