英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

code [code 词源字典]: code: [14] ‘System of secret communication signs’ is a relatively recent semantic development of the word code, which emerged in the early 19th century. It derived from an earlier sense ‘system of laws’, which was based on a specific application to various sets of statutes introduced by the Roman emperors. The word itself came from Old French code, a descendant of Latin cōdex, whose meaning ‘set of statutes, book of laws’ derived from a broader sense ‘book’.

This in turn came from an earlier ‘piece of wood coated with wax for writing on’, which was based ultimately on ‘tree trunk’, the word’s original meaning. Codex itself was borrowed into English in the 16th century. Its Latin diminutive form, cōdicillus, produced English codicil [15].
=> codex, codicil[code etymology, code origin, 英语词源]
coerce: coerce: [17] The underlying etymological meaning of coerce is ‘restraining’ or ‘confining’. It comes from the Latin compound verb coercēre ‘constrain’, which was formed from the prefix co- ‘together’ and the verb arcēre ‘shut up, ward off’ (possibly a relative of Latin arca ‘chest, box’, from which English gets ark). An earlier, 15th-century, form of the English word was coherce, which came via Old French cohercier.
=> ark
coffee: coffee: [16] The word coffee first reached us in a form which we would now recognize in the 17th century, probably via Italian caffè. It is ultimately, however, of Middle Eastern origin, and the earliest spellings recorded in English reflect this: chaoua, cauwa, kahue, cahve, etc are modelled closely on Turkish kahveh and its source, Arabic qahwah.

Where the Arabic word came from is not known for certain: probably it is based in some way on Kaffa, the name of an area in the south Abyssinian highlands from which the coffee tree is said to originate, but it has also been claimed to have signified originally some sort of wine. Café [19] comes of course from French café, whose source was Italian caffè. From the French word was derived caféine, from which English gets caffeine [19], while Spanish café produced cafetero ‘coffeeseller’, source of English cafeteria [20].
=> café, caffeine, cafeteria
coffin: coffin: [14] Greek kóphinus meant ‘basket’. It passed via Latin cophinus into Old French, where it split into two words. Cofin came to mean ‘box, chest’ as well as ‘basket’, and it was with these senses that it was borrowed into English. The specific application to boxes for burial is not recorded before the early 16th century. The other Old French descendant of Latin cophinus was coffre, which gave English coffer [13].
=> coffer
cogent: cogent: see squat
cognate: cognate: see native
cognizance: cognizance: [14] Latin gnōscere meant ‘know’ (it is related to know and notion). From it was derived the compound verb cognōscere ‘get to know, recognize, acknowledge’. Its present participial stem cognōscent- formed the basis of a Vulgar Latin noun *connōscentia, which passed into Old French as connoissance. English borrowed this as conisance, restoring the Latin g to the spelling in the 15th century, which eventually affected the word’s pronunciation.

Also from the Latin present participle came Italian conoscente, which in its latinized form was borrowed into English as cognoscente in the 18th century. Meanwhile, the past participial stem of the Latin verb, cognit-, produced the noun cognitiō, source of English cognition [15]. The infinitive form of the Latin verb passed into Old French as connoître, from which was derived the agent noun connoisseur, borrowed into English in the 18th century (modern French has connaisseur).
=> cognition, connoisseur, know, notion, recognize, reconnaissance, reconnoitre
cohort: cohort: [15] Etymologically, cohort is an ‘enclosed yard’. It comes via Old French cohorte from Latin cohors, a compound noun formed from the prefix com- ‘with’ and an element hortwhich also appears in Latin hortus ‘garden’ (source of English horticulture) and is related to English garden, yard, and the second element of orchard.

From the underlying sense of ‘enclosed place’ it came to be applied to a crowd of people in such a place, and then more specifically to an infantry company in the Roman army. Its meaning has spread figuratively in English to ‘band of associates or accomplices’, whose frequent use in the plural led to the misapprehension that a single cohort was an ‘associate’ or ‘accomplice’ – a usage which emerged in American English in the mid 20th century.

The original form of the Latin word is well preserved in cohort, but it has also reached us, more thickly disguised, as court.
=> court, garden, horticulture, orchard, yard
coil: coil: [16] Ultimately, coil, cull, and collect are the same word. All come from Latin colligere ‘gather together’. Its past participial stem produced collect, but the infinitive form passed into Old French as coillir, culler, etc, and thence into English. In the case of coil, its original general sense ‘gather, collect’ (of which there is no trace in English) was specialized, no doubt originally in nautical use, to the gathering up of ropes into tidy shapes (concentric rings) for stowage.
=> collect, cull
coin: coin: [14] Latin cuneus meant ‘wedge’ (from it we get cuneiform ‘wedge-shaped script’). It passed into Old French as coing or coin, where it developed a variety of new meanings. Primary amongst these was ‘corner-stone’ or ‘corner’, a sense preserved in English mainly in the now archaic spelling quoin. But also, since the die for stamping out money was often wedge-shaped, or operated in the manner of a wedge, it came to be referred to as a coin, and the term soon came to be transferred to the pieces of money themselves.
=> quoin
coitus: coitus: see exit
colander: colander: [14] Colander probably comes ultimately from Latin colum ‘sieve’. From this was derived the verb cōlāre ‘strain’, which produced a Vulgar Latin noun *cōlātor. This is assumed to have passed into Old Provençal as colador, which appears to have been the source of early English forms such as culdor- and culatre. The n is a purely English innovation.
=> percolate, portcullis
cold: cold: [OE] Cold is a word of ancient roots. It can be traced back to the Indo-European base *gel-, *gol-, which also produced Latin gelu ‘frost’, ultimate source of English congeal, gel, and jelly. Its prehistoric Germanic descendant was *kal-, *kōl-, from which English gets cool, probably chill, and, via a past participial adjective *kaldaz, cold. The noun use of the adjective dates back to Old English times, but the sense ‘viral infection of the nose, throat, etc’ is a 16th- century development.
=> chill, congeal, cool, gel, jelly
coleslaw: coleslaw: [18] Cole is an ancient and now little used English word for plants of the cabbage family, such as cabbage or rape (it comes ultimately from Latin caulis ‘cabbage’, whose underlying meaning was ‘hollow stem’ – see CAULIFLOWER). It was used in the partial translation of Dutch koolsla when that word was borrowed into English in the late 18th century. Kool, Dutch for ‘cabbage’, became cole, but sla presented more of a problem (it represents a phonetically reduced form of salade ‘salad’), and it was rendered variously as -slaugh (now defunct) and -slaw. (Interestingly enough, the earliest record of the word we have, from America in the 1790s – it was presumably borrowed from Dutch settlers – is in the form cold slaw, indicating that even then in some quarters English cole was not a sufficiently familiar word to be used for Dutch kool. Coldslaw is still heard, nowadays as a folketymological alteration of coleslaw.)
=> cauliflower, cole, salad
collar: collar: [13] Etymologically, a collar is simply something worn round one’s ‘neck’. The word comes via Anglo-Norman coler from Latin collāre, which meant ‘necklace’ as well as ‘part of a garment that encircles the neck’ (both senses have come through into English, although the latter has predominated). Collāre was a derivative of collum ‘neck’, which came from an earlier base *kols- that also produced German and Swedish hals ‘neck’.

It has been speculated that it goes back ultimately to Indo-European *qwelo- ‘go round’, the root from which we get English wheel – the underlying notion being that the neck is that on which the head turns.
=> décolleté, hauberk, wheel
colleague: colleague: [16] A colleague is literally ‘one chosen or delegated to be or work with another’. It comes via French collègue from Latin collēga, a compound noun formed from com- ‘with’ and lēg-, the stem of lēgāre ‘choose’ (whence also English legation and delegate) and lēx ‘law’ (source of English legal, legitimate, etc). Despite the similarity in spelling, it is not related to English league.
=> college, delegate, legal, legitimate
collect: collect: [16] Collect comes via French collecter or medieval Latin collēctāre from collēct-, the past participial stem of Latin colligere ‘gather together’, a compound verb formed from com- ‘together’ and legere ‘gather’ (source also of English elect, neglect, and select and, from its secondary meaning ‘read’, lecture and legible).

The specialized noun use of collect, ‘short prayer’, pronounced with its main stress on the first syllable, antedates the verb in English, having arrived via Old French in the 13th century. It comes from late Latin collēcta ‘assembly’, a nominalization of the past participle of colligere, which was used in medieval times in the phrase ōrātiō ad collēctam ‘prayer to the congregation’. Collect comes from the past participle of Latin colligere, but its infinitive form is the source of English coil and cull.
=> coil, cull, elect, lecture, legible, ligneous, neglect, select
college: college: [14] College comes from the same source as colleague. Latin collēga, literally ‘one chosen to work with another’, a compound based on the stem of lēgāre ‘choose’. An ‘association of collēgae, partnership’ was thus a collēgium, whence (possibly via Old French college) English college. For many hundreds of years this concept of a ‘corporate group’ was the main semantic feature of the word, and it was not really until the 19th century that, via the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge universities, the notion of ‘academic institution’ overtook it.
=> colleague, delegate, legal, legitimate
collide: collide: [17] Collide comes from Latin collīdere, a compound verb formed from com- ‘together’ and laedere ‘injure by striking’. Other English descendants of laedere are elide and lesion.
=> elide, lesion
collie: collie: see coal