quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- chess-board (n.)



[chess-board 词源字典] - mid-15c., from chess + board (n.1).[chess-board etymology, chess-board origin, 英语词源]
- chessmen (n.)




- also chess-men, late 15c., from chess + men.
- chest (n.)




- Old English cest "box, coffer, casket," from Proto-Germanic *kista (cognates: Old Norse and Old High German kista, Old Frisian, Middle Dutch, German kiste, Dutch kist), an early borrowing from Latin cista "chest, box," from Greek kiste "a box, basket," from PIE *kista "woven container." Meaning extended to "thorax" 1520s, replacing breast (n.), on the metaphor of the ribs as a box for the organs. Chest of drawers is from 1590s.
- Chester




- Cestre (1086), from Old English Legacæstir (735) "City of the Legions," from Old English ceaster "Roman town or city," from Latin castrum "fortified place" (see castle (n.)). It was the base of the Second Legion Adiutrix in the 70s C.E. and later the 20th Legion Valeria Victrix. But the town's name in Roman times was Deoua (c. 150 C.E.), from its situation on the River Dee, a Celtic river name meaning "the goddess, the holy one."
- Chesterfield




- Derbyshire town, Old English Cesterfelda, literally "open land near a Roman fort," from ceaster "fort" (see Chester) + feld "open land" (see field (n.)). The cigarette brand was named for Chesterfield County, Virginia, U.S. As a kind of overcoat and a kind of sofa (both 19c.), the name comes from earls of Chesterfield. Philip Stanhope, the fourth Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773) was the writer on manners and etiquette.
- chestnut (n.)




- 1560s, from chesten nut (1510s), with superfluous nut (n.) + Middle English chasteine, from Old French chastain (12c., Modern French châtaigne), from Latin castanea "chestnut, chestnut tree," from Greek kastaneia, which the Greeks thought meant either "nut from Castanea" in Pontus, or "nut from Castana" in Thessaly, but probably both places are named for the trees, not the other way around, and the word is borrowed from a language of Asia Minor (compare Armenian kask "chestnut," kaskeni "chestnut tree"). In reference to the dark reddish-brown color, 1650s. Applied to the horse-chestnut by 1832.
Slang sense of "venerable joke or story" is from 1885, explained 1888 by Joseph Jefferson (see "Lippincott's Monthly Magazine," January 1888) as probably abstracted from the 1816 melodrama "The Broken Sword" by William Dimond where an oft-repeated story involving a chestnut tree figures in an exchange between the characters "Captain Zavior" and "Pablo":
Zav. Let me see--ay! it is exactly six years since that peace being restored to Spain, and my ship paid off, my kind brother offered me a snug hammock in the dwelling of my forefathers. I mounted a mule at Barcelona and trotted away for my native mountains. At the dawn of the fourth day's journey, I entered the wood of Collares, when, suddenly, from the thick boughs of a cork-tree--
Pab. [Jumping up.] A chesnut, Captain, a chesnut!
Zav. Bah, you booby! I say, a cork!
Pab. And I swear, a chesnut. Captain, this is the twenty-seventh time I have heard you relate this story, and you invariably said, a chesnut, till now.
Jefferson traced the connection through William Warren, "the veteran comedian of Boston" who often played Pablo in the melodrama.
- chesty (adj.)




- "aggressively self-assured," 1898, American English slang, from chest (n.) in the body sense + -y (2). Of a woman, "bosomy, full-breasted," by 1955.
- chetnik (n.)




- "member of a Balkan guerrilla force," 1904, from Serbian četnik, from četa "band, troop."
- cheval de frise (n.)




- 1680s, from French, literally "horse of Frisia," supposedly because it was first employed there as a defense against cavalry; from French cheval "horse" (see cavalier (n.)). Plural chevaux de frise.
- chevalier (n.)




- late 13c., Anglo-French chivaler "mounted knight," Old French chevalier "knight, horseman, knight in chess" (12c., Modern French chevaler), from Late Latin caballarius "horseman" (source of Provençal cavallier, Spanish caballero, Portuguese cavalleiro, Italian cavaliere; see cavalier (n.)). The word formerly was nativized, but has been given a French pronunciation since 16c.
- Cheviot (n.)




- range of hills between Scotland and England, named for one of them, The Cheviot, attested from 12c. as Chiviet; of uncertain origin; the second element is perhaps Old English geat "gate."
- chevron (n.)




- late 14c., from Old French chevron "rafter; chevron" (13c.), the accent mark so called because it looks like rafters of a shallow roof, from Vulgar Latin *caprione, from Latin caper "goat" (see cab); the hypothetical connection between goats and rafters being the animal's angular hind legs. Compare Latin capreolus "props, stays, short pieces of timber for support," lit. "wild goat, chamoix."
- Chevy (n.)




- by 1938, popular form of Chevrolet, U.S. automobile brand, which was founded by Louis Chevrolet and William Durant in 1911; acquired by General Motors in 1917.
- chew (v.)




- Old English ceowan "to bite, gnaw, chew," from West Germanic *keuwwan (cognates: Middle Low German keuwen, Dutch kauwen, Old High German kiuwan, German kauen), from PIE root *gyeu- "to chew" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic živo "to chew," Lithuanian žiaunos "jaws," Persian javidan "to chew").
Figurative sense of "to think over" is from late 14c.; to chew the rag "discusss some matter" is from 1885, apparently originally British army slang. Related: Chewed; chewing. To chew (someone) out (1948) probably is military slang from World War II. Chewing gum is by 1843, American English, originally hardened secretions of the spruce tree. - chew (n.)




- c. 1200, "an act of chewing," from chew (v.). Meaning "wad of tobacco chewed at one time" is from 1725; as a kind of chewy candy, by 1906.
- chewable (adj.)




- 1827, from chew (v.) + -able.
- Cheyenne




- 1778, from French Canadian, from Dakota Sahi'yena, a diminutive of Sahi'ya, a Dakotan name for the Cree people.
- chez




- 1740, from French chez "at the house of," from Old French chiese "house" (12c.), from Latin casa "house." Used with French personal names, meaning "house of _____."
- chi (n.)




- 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet, representing a -kh- sound (see ch). The letter is shaped like an X, and so the Greek letter name was used figuratively to signify such a shape or arrangement (as in khiasma "two things placed crosswise;" khiastos "arranged diagonally; marked with an X;" khiazein "to mark with an 'X', to write the letter 'X'"). Some dialects used chi to represent the -ks- sound properly belonging to xi; Latin picked this up and the sound value of chi in Latin-derived alphabets is now that of English X.
- chi-chi (adj.)




- also chichi, "extremely chic, sophisticated," also "pretentious fussiness," 1908, from French chichi "airs, fuss." Perhaps, like frou-frou, imitative.