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bayonet (n.)[bayonet 词源字典]

1610s, originally a type of dagger; as a steel stabbing weapon fitted to the muzzle of a firearm, from 1670s, from French baionnette (16c.), said to be from Bayonne, city in Gascony where supposedly they first were made; or perhaps it is a diminutive of Old French bayon "crossbow bolt." The city name is from Late Latin baia "bay" + Basque on "good." As a verb from c. 1700.[bayonet etymology, bayonet origin, 英语词源]

bayou (n.)

1766, via Louisiana French, from Choctaw bayuk "small stream."

bazaar (n.)

1580s, from Italian bazarra, ultimately from Persian bazar (Pahlavi vacar) "a market."

bazar (n.)

alternative spelling of bazaar.

bazooka (n.)

"metal tube rocket launcher," 1942, from name of a junkyard musical instrument used (c. 1935) as a prop by U.S. comedian Bob Burns (1896-1956); extension of bazoo, slang for "mouth" or "boastful talk" (1877), probably from Dutch bazuin "trumpet."

bazooms (n.)

"woman's breasts," especially when deemed prominent, 1955, American English slang alteration of bosoms.

BBC

see B.B.C.

BBQ

abbreviation of barbecue, by 1956, American English.

BCE

see B.C.E.

be (v.)

Old English beon, beom, bion "be, exist, come to be, become, happen," from Proto-Germanic *biju- "I am, I will be." This "b-root" is from PIE root *bheue- "to be, exist, grow, come into being," and in addition to the words in English it yielded German present first and second person singular (bin, bist, from Old High German bim "I am," bist "thou art"), Latin perfective tenses of esse (fui "I was," etc.), Old Church Slavonic byti "be," Greek phu- "become," Old Irish bi'u "I am," Lithuanian bu'ti "to be," Russian byt' "to be," etc. It also is behind Sanskrit bhavah "becoming," bhavati "becomes, happens," bhumih "earth, world."

The modern verb to be in its entirety represents the merger of two once-distinct verbs, the "b-root" represented by be and the am/was verb, which was itself a conglomerate. Roger Lass ("Old English") describes the verb as "a collection of semantically related paradigm fragments," while Weekley calls it "an accidental conglomeration from the different Old English dial[ect]s." It is the most irregular verb in Modern English and the most common. Collective in all Germanic languages, it has eight different forms in Modern English:

BE (infinitive, subjunctive, imperative)
AM (present 1st person singular)
ARE (present 2nd person singular and all plural)
IS (present 3rd person singular)
WAS (past 1st and 3rd persons singular)
WERE (past 2nd person singular, all plural; subjunctive)
BEING (progressive & present participle; gerund)
BEEN (perfect participle).

The paradigm in Old English was:

	SING.	PL.
1st pres.	ic eom ic beo	we sind(on) we beoð
2nd pres.	þu eart þu bist	ge sind(on) ge beoð
3rd pres.	he is he bið	hie sind(on) hie beoð
1st pret.	ic wæs	we wæron
2nd pret.	þu wære	ge waeron
3rd pret.	heo wæs	hie wæron
1st pret. subj.	ic wære	we wæren
2nd pret. subj.	þu wære	ge wæren
3rd pret. subj.	Egcferð wære	hie wæren

The "b-root" had no past tense in Old English, but often served as future tense of am/was. In 13c. it took the place of the infinitive, participle and imperative forms of am/was. Later its plural forms (we beth, ye ben, they be) became standard in Middle English and it made inroads into the singular (I be, thou beest, he beth), but forms of are claimed this turf in the 1500s and replaced be in the plural. For the origin and evolution of the am/was branches of this tangle, see am and was.

That but this blow Might be the be all, and the end all. ["Macbeth" I.vii.5]

be-

word-forming element with a wide range of meaning: "thoroughly, completely; to make, cause seem; to provide with; at, on, to, for," from Old English be- "on all sides" (also used to make transitive verbs and as a privative or intensive prefix), from weak form of Old English bi "by," probably cognate with second syllable of Greek amphi, Latin ambi and originally meaning "about" (see ambi-).

This sense naturally drifted into intensive (as in bespatter "spatter about," therefore "spatter very much"). Be- can also be privative (as in behead), causative, or have just about any sense required. The prefix was productive 16c.-17c. in forming useful words, many of which have not survived, such as bethwack "to thrash soundly" (1550s), betongue "to assail in speech, to scold" (1630s).

be-all (n.)

see be.

be-in (n.)

"a public gathering of hippies" [OED], 1967, from be + in.

beach (n.)

1530s, "loose, water-worn pebbles of the seashore," probably from Old English bæce, bece "stream," from Proto-Germanic *bakiz. Extended to loose, pebbly shores (1590s), and in dialect around Sussex and Kent beach still has the meaning "pebbles worn by the waves." French grève shows the same evolution. Beach ball first recorded 1940; beach bum first recorded 1950.

beach (v.)

"to haul or run up on a beach," 1840, from beach (n.). Related: Beached; beaching.

beach-comber (n.)

1840, from beach (n.) + agent noun from comb (v.).

beachfront (adj.)

also beach-front, 1903, American English, from beach (n.) + front (n.). The beach front was a standard way in late 19c. to express "the seashore of a town" such as Atlantic City.

beachhead (n.)

1940, in reference to German military tactics in World War II, from beach (n.) + head (n.), on the model of bridgehead, but the image doesn't quite work.

beacon (n.)

Old English beacen "sign, portent, lighthouse," from West Germanic *baukna "beacon, signal" (cognates: Old Frisian baken, Old Saxon bokan, Old High German bouhhan); not found outside Germanic. Perhaps borrowed from Latin bucina "a crooked horn or trumpet, signal horn." But more likely from PIE *bhew-, a variant of the base *bha- (1) "to gleam, shine" (see phantasm). Figurative use from c. 1600.

bead (n.)

mid-14c., bede "prayer bead," from Old English gebed "prayer," with intensive or collective prefix *ge- + Proto-Germanic *bidam "entreaty" (cognates: Middle Dutch bede, Old High German beta, German bitte, Gothic bida "prayer, request"), from PIE *gwhedh- "to ask, pray."

Shift in meaning came via beads threaded on a string to count prayers, and in phrases like to bid one's beads, to count one's beads. German cognate Bitte is the usual word for conversational request "please." Also related to bid (Old English biddan) and Gothic bidjan "to ask, pray." Sense transferred to "drop of liquid" 1590s; to "small knob forming front sight of a gun" 1831 (Kentucky slang); hence draw a bead on "take aim at," 1841, U.S. colloquial.