英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

adultery [adultery 词源字典]: adultery: [14] Neither adultery nor the related adulterate have any connection with adult. Both come ultimately from the Latin verb adulterāre ‘debauch, corrupt’ (which may have been based on Latin alter ‘other’, with the notion of pollution from some extraneous source). By the regular processes of phonetic change, adulterāre passed into Old French as avoutrer, and this was the form which first reached English, as avouter (used both verbally, ‘commit adultery’, and nominally, ‘adulterer’) and as the nouns avoutery ‘adultery’ and avouterer ‘adulterer’.

Almost from the first they coexisted in English beside adult- forms, deriving either from Law French or directly from Latin, and during the 15th to 17th centuries these gradually ousted the avout- forms. Adulter, the equivalent of avouter, clung on until the end of the 18th century, but the noun was superseded in the end by adulterer and the verb by a new form, adulterate, directly based on the past participle of Latin adulterāre, which continued to mean ‘commit adultery’ until the mid 19th century.
=> alter[adultery etymology, adultery origin, 英语词源]
inveigh: inveigh: [15] Inveigh originally meant ‘carry in, introduce’ (‘In them are two colours quarterly put: the one into the other, and so one colour is inveighed into another’, Book of Saint Albans 1486). Its second syllable comes from Latin vehere ‘carry’ (source of English vector, vehicle, and vex). Invehere meant simply ‘carry in’, but its passive infinitive form invehī denoted ‘be carried into’, ‘go into’, and hence ‘attack (physically or verbally)’. This latter sense was imported into English inveigh in the early 16th century, and into the derivative invective [15].
=> invective, vehicle, vex
bad-mouth (v.): "abuse someone verbally," 1941, probably ultimately from noun phrase bad mouth (1835), in Black English, "a curse, spell," translating an idiom found in African and West Indian languages. Related: Bad-mouthed; bad-mouthing.
bash (v.): "to strike violently," 1640s, perhaps of Scandinavian origin, from Old Norse *basca "to strike" (cognates: Swedish basa "to baste, whip, flog, lash," Danish baske "to beat, strike, cudgel"); or the whole group might be independently derived and echoic. Figurative sense of "abuse verbally or in writing" is from 1948. Related: Bashed; bashing.
insult (v.): 1560s, "triumph over in an arrogant way," from Middle French insulter (14c.) and directly from Latin insultare "to assail, to leap upon" (already used by Cicero in sense of "insult, scoff at, revile"), frequentative of insilire "leap at or upon," from in- "on, at" (see in- (2)) + salire "to leap" (see salient (adj.)). Sense of "to verbally abuse, affront, assail with disrespect" is from 1610s. Related: Insulted; insulting.
literal (adj.): late 14c., "taking words in their natural meaning" (originally in reference to Scripture and opposed to mystical or allegorical), from Old French literal and directly from Late Latin literalis/litteralis "of or belonging to letters or writing," from Latin litera/littera "letter, alphabetic sign; literature, books" (see letter (n.1)). Meaning "of or pertaining to alphabetic letters" is from late 15c. Sense of "verbally exact" is attested from 1590s, as is application to the primary sense of a word or passage. Literal-minded is attested from 1791.
profer (v.): c. 1300, "to utter, express," from Old French proferer (13c.) "utter, present verbally, pronounce," from Latin proferre "to bring forth, produce," figuratively "make known, publish, quote, utter." Sense confused with proffer. Related: Profered; profering.
verbal (adj.): early 15c., "dealing with words" (especially in contrast to things or realities), from Old French verbal (14c.) and directly from Late Latin verbalis "consisting of words, relating to verbs," from Latin verbum "word" (see verb). Related: Verbally. Verbal conditioning is recorded from 1954. Colloquial verbal diarrhea is recorded from 1823. A verbal noun is a noun derived from a verb and sharing in its senses and constructions.
iambus: "A metrical foot consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable", Late 16th century: Latin, from Greek iambos 'iambus, lampoon', from iaptein 'attack verbally' (because the iambic trimeter was first used by Greek satirists).