quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- wool[wool 词源字典]
- wool: [OE] Wool goes back to Indo-European *wlná, which also produced Latin lāna (source of English lanolin [19]), Czech vlna, Polish wełna, and Welsh gwlān (probable source of English flannel). In prehistoric Germanic it had become *wullō, which evolved into German wolle, Dutch wol, Swedish ull, Danish uld, and English wool.
=> flannel, lanolin[wool etymology, wool origin, 英语词源] - wool (n.)
- Old English wull "wool, fine soft hair which forms the coat of some animals," from Proto-Germanic *wulno (cognates: Old Norse ull, Old Frisian wolle, Middle Dutch wolle, Dutch wol, Old High German wolla, German wolle, Gothic wulla), from PIE *wele- (1) "wool" (cognates: Sanskrit urna; Avestan varena; Greek lenos "wool;" Latin lana "wool," vellus "fleece;" Old Church Slavonic vluna, Russian vulna, Lithuanian vilna "wool;" Middle Irish olann, Welsh gwlan "wool").
Figurative expression pull the wool over (someone's) eyes is recorded from 1838, American English. To be literally dyed in the wool (1725, as opposed to dyed in the piece) is to be so before spinning, while the material is in its raw state, which has a more durable effect; hence the figurative sense "from the beginning; most thoroughly," attested from 1809, and especially, in U.S. politics, from 1830.