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challenge [challenge 词源字典]: challenge: [13] The original notion contained in challenge in English was of ‘accusation’. The word comes, via Old French chalenge or calenge, from Latin calumnia ‘false charge, deception’ (source of English calumny [15]). By the early 14th century, the modern, more neutral sense of ‘inviting to a contest’ had emerged, however, and before the end of the 17th century the word’s accusatory connotations had virtually died out.

Latin calumnia probably came from the verb calvī ‘deceive’. This may, via an unrecorded intermediary *calvilla, be related to Latin cavilla ‘raillery’, whose derived verb cavillārī was the source of English cavil [16].
=> calumny[challenge etymology, challenge origin, 英语词源]
chamber: chamber: [13] The ultimate source of chamber is Greek kamárā ‘something with an arched cover, room with a vaulted roof’. This passed into Latin as camara or camera (source of English camera), and in Old French became transformed into chambre, the immediate source of the English word. Related forms in English include comrade (from Spanish camarada), originally ‘someone sharing a room’; chamberlain [13], which was originally coined in the West Germanic language of the Franks as *kamerling using the diminutive suffix -ling, and came into English via Old French chamberlenc; and chimney.
=> camera, chamberlain, chimney
chamelion: chamelion: [14] Etymologically, a chamelion is a ‘ground lion’. The word comes from Greek khamailéōn, a compound formed from khamaí ‘on the ground’ (English humus and humble are related to it) and léōn ‘lion’. Until the 19th century the word was usually spelled camelion, which led to popular association of the first element with camel; this is turn encouraged an identification with camelopard, a now obsolete word for ‘giraffe’, and in the 14th and 15th centuries camelion was used for ‘giraffe’.
=> humble, humus, lion
chamois: chamois: [16] The word chamois (the name of a species of Alpine antelope) probably goes back to a language spoken in the Alps before the Romans penetrated northwards. They adopted it as late Latin camox, and in the local Romansch language it is kamuotsch, but the source of the English word is the related French chamois. Its use in the sense ‘soft wash-leather’, as originally made from the skin of the chamois, dates from the 16th century, although the spelling shammy is not recorded before the 17th century.
champagne: champagne: [17] Champagne comes (as does campaign) from late Latin campānia, a derivative of Latin campus ‘open field’ (source of English camp). This passed into Old French as champagne ‘open country’, a word borrowed into English in the 14th century as champaign (now archaic). It came to be applied specifically to a province of northeastern France (an area largely of open rolling countryside) and hence to the wine produced in that area.

There are references to ‘brisk Champagne’ and ‘sparkling Champagne’ in English from the 1660s and 1670s, but it was not until about two hundred years ago that modern champagne, produced by secondary fermentation in bottle, was invented (according to legend, by the monk Dom Perignon).
=> camp, campaign, champion
champion: champion: [13] Etymologically, a champion is someone who fought in the campus or arena. Latin campus (source of English camp) meant, among other things, ‘field of battle’ – both a fullscale military battlefield and an area for staged battles between gladiators. Those who fought in such battles – the gladiators – were called in medieval Latin campiones.

The word passed into English via Old French champion. The word’s original meaning survives historically in such phrases as ‘king’s champion’, someone who will fight on behalf of the king, and by extension in ‘supporter’, as in ‘a champion of prisoners’ rights’. The modern sense ‘winner’ did not develop until the early 19th century. The abbreviated form champ is 19th-century American.

An alternative and now obsolete form of the word is campion, from Old Northern French, and it has been speculated that this is the origin of the plant-name campion [16], on the basis that it was used to make garlands for fighters.
=> camp, campion, champagne, champion
chance: chance: [13] Like the related case, chance originally meant ‘that which befalls (by accident, also a relative)’. It comes ultimately from Vulgar Latin *cadēre, a descendant of Latin cadere ‘fall’ (source of English cadence and cadenza). This passed into Old French as cheoir, whose noun derivatives included cheoite (source of English chute) and cheance, acquired by English via Anglo-Norman chaunce.
=> accident, cadence, case, chute
chancellor: chancellor: [11] Etymologically, a chancellor was an attendant or porter who stood at the cancellī, or ‘lattice-work bar’, of a court in Roman times – hence the Latin term cancellārius. Over the centuries the cancellārius’s status rose to court secretary, in due course with certain legal functions. The word came into English, via Anglo-Norman canceler or chanceler, in the time of Edward the Confessor, denoting the king’s official secretary, a post which developed into that of Lord Chancellor, head of the English judiciary.

The court over which he presides, Chancery, gets its name by alteration from Middle English chancellerie, which came from an Old French derivative of chancelier ‘chancellor’. The word’s ultimate source, Latin cancellī ‘cross-bars, lattice, grating’ (a diminutive form of cancer ‘lattice’), came to be applied to the part of a church or other building separated off by such a screen: hence, via Old French, English chancel ‘part of a church containing the altar and choir’ [14].

And a metaphorical application of the notion of a lattice or bars crossing each other has given English cancel [14], via Latin cancellāre and Old French canceller, which originally meant ‘cross something out’.
=> cancel, chancel
change: change: [13] Change goes back ultimately to Latin cambīre ‘barter’, which is probably of Celtic ancestry. A later form of the verb was cambiāre, whose most readily recognizable descendants are probably Italian cambio, which appears outside currency-exchange shops, and English cambium ‘layer of plant tissue’ [17], coined from the notion that it ‘changes’ into new layers. Another branch of development, however, was to Old French changier, source of English change.
=> cambium
channel: channel: [13] Channel and canal are ultimately the same word. Their common ancestor was Latin canālis ‘groove, channel’, a derivative of canna ‘pipe’ (source of English cane). This passed into Old French as chanel, which English took over as channel. But then in the 15th century English acquired canal, either directly from Latin, or from French canal, which was itself remodelled on the Latin form – it is not clear which.
=> canal, cane
chant: chant: [14] The Latin verb for ‘sing’ was canere (possibly related to English hen). A form derived from it to denote repeated action was cantāre ‘keep on singing’, a rich source of English words. From its French descendant chanter we have chant and the derived chantry [14]; from Italian, cantata [18], originally a past participle; and from the Latin noun cantus ‘song’ the derivatives accent, descant, and canticle [13], as well as (via Italian) canto [16]. Cant ‘hypocritical talk’ is probably from the same source, and shanty or chanty ‘sailor’s song’ is also related.
=> accent, cant, cantata, canto, chanty, descant, hen, incantation, recant
chaos: chaos: see gas
chap: chap: There are four distinct words chap in English. The oldest, ‘sore on the skin’ [14], originally meant more generally ‘crack, split’, and may be related to Middle Low German kappen ‘chop off’; it seems ultimately to be the same word as chop ‘cut’. Chap ‘jaw’ [16] (as in Bath chaps) is probably a variant of chop (as in ‘lick one’s chops’). Chap ‘fellow’ [16] originally meant ‘customer’; it is an abbreviation of chapman ‘trader’ [OE] (source of the common surname, but now obsolete as an ordinary noun), whose first element is related to English cheap. Chaps ‘leggings’ [19] is short for Mexican Spanish chaparreras, a derivative of Spanish chaparro ‘evergreen oak’; they were named from their use in protecting the legs of riders from the low thick scrub that grows in Mexico and Texas (named with another derivative of chaparro, chaparral). Chaparro itself probably comes from Basque txapar, a diminutive of saphar ‘thicket’.
=> chop; cheap; chaparral
chapel: chapel: [13] Chapel has a very specific source: it was originally applied to the shrine built to preserve the cloak (late Latin cappa) of St Martin of Tours as a holy relic. The diminutive form of cappa was cappella, and this came to be applied to the building itself, gradually being broadened out subsequently to any moderately sized place of worship. The word reached English via Old French chapele. The church functionary who guarded St Martin’s cloak was known by the derivative term cappellānus, source of English chaplain [12].
=> chaplain
chaperon: chaperon: [14] A chaperon was originally a ‘hood’. The word comes from Old French chaperon, a derivative of chape, whose variant cape was the source of English cape, and goes back ultimately to late Latin cappa ‘hood, cloak’. The word’s modern sense, ‘companion safeguarding propriety’, which first appears in English in the 18th century, arose from the general notion of a ‘hood’ as something that gives protection.
=> cape
chaplain: chaplain: see chapel
chapter: chapter: [13] Ultimately, chapter is the same word as capital. Both came via Old French from Latin capitulum ‘small head’, a diminutive form of caput ‘head’, but whereas capital represents a late, 12th-century borrowing into French in ecclesiastical and legal contexts, chapter is far earlier and therefore shows more differences: in Old French, capitulum became chapitle, later chapitre.

Already in Latin the word was used for ‘section of a book’; the semantic development seems to parallel English head ‘category, section’ (as in ‘heads of agreement’) and the derived heading. The ecclesiastical use of chapter, as a collective term for the canons of a cathedral, originated in the canons’ practice of meeting to read a chapter of Scripture. Latin capitulum in the sense ‘head of a discourse, chapter’ produced the derivative capitulāre ‘draw up under separate headings’.

When its past participle passed into English in the 16th century as the verb capitulate, it was still with this meaning, and it did not narrow down to the more specific ‘make terms of surrender’ until the 17th century.
=> capital, capitulate, cattle, recapitulate
char: char: see charcoal
character: character: [14] The ultimate source of character is Greek kharaktér, a derivative of the verb kharássein ‘sharpen, engrave, cut’, which in turn came from kharax ‘pointed stake’. Kharaktér meant ‘engraved mark’, and hence was applied metaphorically to the particular impress or stamp which marked one thing as different from another – its ‘character’. The word came into English via Latin charactēr and Old French caractere. Characteristic followed in the 17th century.
=> gash
charcoal: charcoal: [14] The words char and charcoal are related, but not in the way commonsense might lead one to suppose: for the verb char [17], originally apparently a charcoal-burner’s term, appears to derive from charcoal. So etymologically, the element char has nothing to do with ‘burning’. There are two main suggestions as to charcoal’s origins: firstly that it comes from Old French charbon ‘charcoal’ (related to English carbon); and secondly that it represents the now obsolete English verb chare (see CHARWOMAN), which in Old English times (cerran) meant ‘turn’.

On the basis of this theory, the etymological meaning of the word would be ‘turning into charcoal’ (for in Old English, coal meant ‘charcoal’ as well as ‘coal’).