英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

frolic [frolic 词源字典]: frolic: [16] Like its source, Dutch vrolijk, and the related German fröhlich, frolic was originally an adjective meaning ‘happy’. This usage had died out by the end of the 18th century, but in the meantime the adjective had been converted into a verb, and thence into a noun, both of which are still with us. (Dutch vrolijk was formed from the adjective vro ‘happy’, which probably goes back ultimately to a prehistoric Indo-European source which meant primarily ‘spring upwards, move swiftly’.)
[frolic etymology, frolic origin, 英语词源]
mountain: mountain: [13] Latin mōns ‘mountain’ could well go back ultimately to a variant of the base *min- ‘jut’ which produced English eminent, imminent, menace, and prominent. English acquired it originally direct from Latin as a noun, mount [OE], which is now used only in the names of mountains. The verb mount followed in the 14th century, via Old French munter.

Latin mōns had a derived adjective montānus ‘mountainous’, which was adapted in Vulgar Latin to the noun *montānea ‘mountainous area’. This made its way into Old French as montaigne, by which time it meant simply ‘mountain’ – whence English mountain. Amount [13] comes ultimately from the Latin phrase ad montem ‘to the mountain’, hence ‘upwards’; and paramount [16] in turn derives from an Old French phrase par amont ‘by above’, hence ‘superior’.
=> amount, eminent, imminent, menace, mount, paramount, prominent, tantamount
odd: odd: [14] The etymological idea underlying odd is of ‘pointing upwards’. Its ultimate ancestor is a prehistoric Indo-European *uzdho-, a compound formed from *uz- ‘up’ and *dho- ‘put, place’ (source of English do). From the notion of a ‘pointed vertical object’ developed ‘triangle’, which in turn introduced the idea of ‘three’ and ‘one left over from two’, hence ‘indivisible by two’. This is the meaning odd had when English borrowed it from Old Norse oddi, and the modern sense ‘peculiar’ (as if the ‘odd one out’) did not emerge until the late 16th century.
=> do
sum: sum: [13] Latin summus meant ‘highest’ (a meaning preserved in English summit [15], which is ultimately derived from it); it evolved from an earlier *supmus, a superlative form based on the stem of Latin super ‘above’ (source of English super). When the Romans counted up columns of figures they worked from the bottom upwards, and put the total on top – whence the use of the expression rēs summa, literally ‘highest thing’, for ‘total’. This was eventually shortened to summa, which reached English via Old French summe. Other derivatives in English include consummate [15] and summary [15].
=> consummate, summary, summit
supine: supine: [15] Supine means literally ‘lying on one’s back’. It comes from Latin supīnus. This was derived from a prehistoric base *sup- ‘up’ which also produced Latin super ‘above, over’ (and summus, source of English sum), so the word’s etymological meaning is presumably ‘with the front of one’s body upwards’. The metaphorical sense ‘inactive’ evolved in Latin. The origins of the use of supine as a noun, to designate a type of ‘verbal noun’, are not known.
acclivity (n.): 1610s, from Latin acclivitatem (nominative acclivitas) "an ascending direction, an upward steepness," from acclivis "mounting upwards, ascending," from ad- "up" (see ad-) + clivus "hill, a slope," from PIE *klei-wo-, suffixed form of *klei- "to lean" (see lean (v.)).
evection (n.): 1650s, literal, from Late Latin evectionem (nominative evectio) "a carrying upward, a flight," from Latin evehere, from assimilated form of ex- "upwards" (see ex-) + vehere "to carry" (see vehicle). Astronomy sense is from 1706.
ex-: word-forming element, in English meaning usually "out of, from," but also "upwards, completely, deprive of, without," and "former;" from Latin ex "out of, from within," from PIE *eghs "out" (cognates: Gaulish ex-, Old Irish ess-, Old Church Slavonic izu, Russian iz). In some cases also from Greek cognate ex, ek. PIE *eghs had comparative form *eks-tero and superlative *eks-t(e)r-emo-. Often reduced to e- before -b-, -d-, -g-, consonantal -i-, -l-, -m-, -n-, -v- (as in elude, emerge, evaporate, etc.).
Hobbit (n.): 1937, coined in the fantasy tales of J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973).
On a blank leaf I scrawled: 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.' I did not and do not know why. [Tolkien, letter to W.H. Auden, dated 1955]
The word also turns up in a very long list of folkloric supernatural creatures in the writings of Michael Aislabie Denham (d.1859), printed in volume 2 of "The Denham Tracts" [ed. James Hardy, London: Folklore Society, 1895], a compilation of Denham's scattered publications. Denham was an early folklorist who concentrated on Northumberland, Durham, Westmoreland, Cumberland, the Isle of Man, and Scotland.
What a happiness this must have been seventy or eighty years ago and upwards, to those chosen few who had the good luck to be born on the eve of this festival of all festivals; when the whole earth was so overrun with ghosts, boggles, bloody-bones, spirits, demons, ignis fatui, brownies, bugbears, black dogs, specters, shellycoats, scarecrows, witches, wizards, barguests, Robin-Goodfellows, hags, night-bats, scrags, breaknecks, fantasms, hobgoblins, hobhoulards, boggy-boes, dobbies, hob-thrusts, fetches, kelpies, warlocks, mock-beggars, mum-pokers, Jemmy-burties, urchins, satyrs, pans, fauns, sirens, tritons, centaurs, calcars, nymphs, imps, incubuses, spoorns, men-in-the-oak, hell-wains, fire-drakes, kit-a-can-sticks, Tom-tumblers, melch-dicks, larrs, kitty-witches, hobby-lanthorns, Dick-a-Tuesdays, Elf-fires, Gyl-burnt-tales, knockers, elves, rawheads, Meg-with-the-wads, old-shocks, ouphs, pad-foots, pixies, pictrees, giants, dwarfs, Tom-pokers, tutgots, snapdragons, sprets, spunks, conjurers, thurses, spurns, tantarrabobs, swaithes, tints, tod-lowries, Jack-in-the-Wads, mormos, changelings, redcaps, yeth-hounds, colt-pixies, Tom-thumbs, black-bugs, boggarts, scar-bugs, shag-foals, hodge-pochers, hob-thrushes, bugs, bull-beggars, bygorns, bolls, caddies, bomen, brags, wraiths, waffs, flay-boggarts, fiends, gallytrots, imps, gytrashes, patches, hob-and-lanthorns, gringes, boguests, bonelesses, Peg-powlers, pucks, fays, kidnappers, gallybeggars, hudskins, nickers, madcaps, trolls, robinets, friars' lanthorns, silkies, cauld-lads, death-hearses, goblins, hob-headlesses, bugaboos, kows, or cowes, nickies, nacks necks, waiths, miffies, buckies, ghouls, sylphs, guests, swarths, freiths, freits, gy-carlins Gyre-carling, pigmies, chittifaces, nixies, Jinny-burnt-tails, dudmen, hell-hounds, dopple-gangers, boggleboes, bogies, redmen, portunes, grants, hobbits, hobgoblins, brown-men, cowies, dunnies, wirrikows, alholdes, mannikins, follets, korreds, lubberkins, cluricauns, kobolds, leprechauns, kors, mares, korreds, puckles korigans, sylvans, succubuses, blackmen, shadows, banshees, lian-hanshees, clabbernappers, Gabriel-hounds, mawkins, doubles, corpse lights or candles, scrats, mahounds, trows, gnomes, sprites, fates, fiends, sibyls, nicknevins, whitewomen, fairies, thrummy-caps, cutties, and nisses, and apparitions of every shape, make, form, fashion, kind and description, that there was not a village in England that had not its own peculiar ghost. Nay, every lone tenement, castle, or mansion-house, which could boast of any antiquity had its bogle, its specter, or its knocker. The churches, churchyards, and crossroads were all haunted. Every green lane had its boulder-stone on which an apparition kept watch at night. Every common had its circle of fairies belonging to it. And there was scarcely a shepherd to be met with who had not seen a spirit!
[Emphasis added] It is curious that the name occurs nowhere else in folklore, and there is no evidence that Tolkien ever saw this. The word also was recorded from 1835 as "a term generally used in Wales to express a quantity made up of four Welsh pecks." Hobbitry attested from 1947.
space (n.): c. 1300, "extent or area; room" (to do something), a shortening of Old French espace "period of time, distance, interval" (12c.), from Latin spatium "room, area, distance, stretch of time," of unknown origin (also source of Spanish espacio, Italian spazio).

From early 14c. as "a place," also "amount or extent of time." From mid-14c. as "distance, interval of space;" from late 14c. as "ground, land, territory; extension in three dimensions; distance between two or more points." From early 15c. as "size, bulk," also "an assigned position." Typographical sense is attested from 1670s (typewriter space-bar is from 1876, earlier space-key, 1860).

Astronomical sense of "stellar depths, immense emptiness between the worlds" is by 1723, perhaps as early as "Paradise Lost" (1667), common from 1890s. Space age is attested from 1946. Many compounds first appeared in science fiction and speculative writing, such as spaceship (1894, "A Journey in Other Worlds," John Jacob Astor); spacecraft (1928, "Popular Science"); space travel (1931); space station (1936, "Rockets Through Space"); spaceman (1942, "Thrilling Wonder Stories"). Space race attested from 1959. Space shuttle attested by 1970.
Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards. [Sir Fred Hoyle, "London Observer," 1979]
upward (adv.): also upwards, Old English upweard, upweardes "up, upward, toward heaven;" see up (adv.) + -ward. Similar formation in Middle Low German upwart, Middle Dutch opwaert, Dutch opwaart, Middle High German ufwart. As an adjective from c. 1600 (also in Old English). Phrase upward mobility first recorded 1949; mainly restricted to sociologists' jargon until 1960s.
waive (v.): c. 1300, "deprive of legal protection," from Anglo-French weyver "to abandon, waive" (Old French guever "to abandon, give back"), probably from a Scandinavian source akin to Old Norse veifa "to swing about," from Proto-Germanic *waif- (see waif). In Middle English legal language, used of rights, goods, or women.
If the defendant be a woman, the proceeding is called a waiver; for as women were not sworn to the law by taking the oath of allegiance in the leet (as men anciently were when of the age of twelve years and upwards), they could not properly be outlawed, but were said to be waived, i.e., derelicta, left out, or not regarded. [from section subtitled "Outlawry" in J.J.S. Wharton, "Law-Lexicon, or Dictionary of Jurisprudence," London, 1867]
Related: Waived; waiving.
welterweight (n.): 1831, "heavyweight horseman," later "boxer or wrestler of a certain weight" (1896), from earlier welter "heavyweight horseman or boxer" (1804), possibly from welt (v.) "beat severely" (c. 1400).
... but at the end of the first German mile, Nature gave way, and this excellent mare was obliged to "knock under" to the extraordinary exertions she had made, and to the welter weight she carried, upwards of 13 stone. ["The Sporting Magazine," September 1831]
resupine: "Lying on the back; inclined backwards. Also occasionally figurative and as adverb Now rare", Mid 17th cent.; earliest use found in Kenelm Digby (1603–1665), natural philosopher and courtier. From classical Latin resupīnus lying face upwards, lying flat on one's back, inert, passive, indifferent, leaning back, tilted back from re- + supīnus. Compare Middle French, French †resupin, Spanish resupino, Portuguese resupino, Italian resupino, all rare. Compare earlier supine.