英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

confine [confine 词源字典]: confine: see fine
[confine etymology, confine origin, 英语词源]
confiscate: confiscate: [16] Confiscate’s etymological connotations are financial: the Latin verb confīscāre meant ‘appropriate to the public treasury’. It was formed from the collective prefix com- and fiscus. This meant originally ‘rush-basket’; it was applied to the baskets used by tax collectors, and hence came to mean ‘public treasury’ (English gets fiscal from it). The looser sense of confiscate, ‘seize by authority’, dates from the early 19th century.
=> fiscal
conflagration: conflagration: see flagrant
conflict: conflict: see profligate
confound: confound: [13] Latin confundere literally meant ‘pour together’; it was a compound verb formed from the prefix com- ‘together’ and fundere ‘pour’ (source of English found ‘melt’ and fuse). This sense was later extended figuratively to ‘mix up, fail to distinguish’, a meaning which passed via Old French confondre into English. Meanwhile, the Latin verb’s past participle, confusus, came to be used as an adjective; in Old French this became confus, which English acquired in the 14th century as confuse.

This was soon assimilated to the normal pattern of English past participial adjectives as confused, from which the new verb confuse, was coined.
=> confuse, found, fuse
confute: confute: see beat
congratulate: congratulate: see grateful
congregation: congregation: [14] Etymologically, a church’s congregation is comparable to a pastor’s flock. The word comes from Latin congregātiō, a noun derivative of congregāre ‘flock together’. This was a compound verb formed from the collective prefix com- and grex ‘flock, herd’ (source of English egregious and gregarious). Congregation was thus originally simply a ‘meeting, assembly’; its religious connotations arose from its frequent use in the 1611 translation of the Bible to render ‘solemn public assembly’. The verb congregate was independently borrowed in the 15th century.
=> aggregate, egregious, gregarious, segregate
congress: congress: [16] A congress is literally a ‘coming together’ – hence, a ‘meeting’. The word comes from Latin congressus, which was based on the past participial stem of congredī ‘come together’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix com- ‘together’ and gradī ‘go, walk’ (a derivative of gradus ‘step’, from which English gets grade, gradual, and graduate). The application of the word to the US legislature dates from the 1770s.
=> grade, gradual, graduate, progress, transgress
congruent: congruent: [15] Etymologically, triangles that are congruent ‘come together’ or ‘agree’ – that is, are similar. The word comes from congruēns, the present participle of Latin congruere ‘come together, meet, agree’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix com- ‘together’ and a verb, *gruere, not found elsewhere (some have linked it with Latin ruere ‘fall’ – ultimate source of English ruin – in which case congruere would have meant literally ‘fall together’, but others have seen a connection with Greek zakhrēēs ‘attacking violently’). Incongruous is a 17thcentury adoption from Latin incongruus.
coniferous: coniferous: see cone
conjecture: conjecture: [14] A conjecture is, etymologically speaking, simply something ‘thrown together’. The word comes, perhaps via Old French, from Latin conjectūra ‘conclusion, interpretation’, a noun derived from the past participle of conicere ‘throw together’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix com- ‘together’ and jacere ‘throw’ (source of English jet, jettison, and jetty). The notion behind the word’s semantic development is that facts are ‘thrown together’ in the mind and (provisional) conclusions drawn.
=> jet, jettison, jetty
conjugal: conjugal: [16] The notion underlying conjugal is of ‘joining together’. It comes from Latin conjugālis, an adjective derived from conjux ‘spouse’. This is turn was derived from conjugāre ‘join together (in marriage)’, a compound verb formed from the prefix com- ‘together’ and jugāre ‘yoke’ (a derivative of jugum ‘yoke’, which is related to English yoke and yoga). (The grammatical connotations of English conjugate [16] arise from the notion of a ‘connected’ set of verb forms.) The base of jugum, *jug-, also produced jungere ‘join’, whose derivative conjungere ‘join together’ is responsible for the parallel set of English words conjoin [14], conjunct [15], and conjunction [14].
=> conjugate, conjunction, join, yoga, yoke
conker: conker: [19] A conker was originally a ‘snail shell’. Small boys tied them on to pieces of string and played a game involving trying to break their opponent’s shell (another method of playing was simply to press two shells together and see which one broke). The first record of the use of horse chestnuts instead of snail shells is from the 1880s, but in the succeeding century this has established itself as the word’s sole application.

It is not entirely clear where it originally came from. The connection with molluscs has inevitably suggested a derivation from conch (itself ultimately from Greek kónkhē), but early 19th-century spellings of the game as conquering, and of conker as conqueror, point to a simpler explanation, that the stronger snail shell defeated, or ‘conquered’, the weaker.
connect: connect: [17] Etymologically, connect means ‘tie together’. It comes from Latin connectere, a compound verb formed from the prefix com- ‘together’ and nectere ‘bind, tie’ (whose past participial stem, nex-, is the ultimate source of English nexus [17]). The derived noun connection first appeared, in the spelling connexion, in the 14th century.
=> nexus
connubial: connubial: see nubile
conquer: conquer: [13] Latin conquīrere originally meant ‘seek something out’. It was a compound verb formed from the intensive prefix com- and quaerere ‘seek’ (source of English query, quest, question, inquire, and require). Bit by bit, ‘searching for something’ slid into ‘acquiring it’, including by force of arms: hence the sense ‘vanquish’, already current in the 13th century. The term Conqueror appears first to have been applied to William I of England around 1300.
=> enquire, inquest, query, quest, question, require
conscience: conscience: [13] Latin conscīre meant ‘be mutually aware’. It was a compound verb formed from the prefix com- ‘with, together’ and scīre ‘know’ (source of English science). To ‘know something with oneself’ implied, in a neutral sense, ‘consciousness’, but also a moral awareness, a mental differentiation between right and wrong, and hence the derived noun conscientia carried both these meanings, via Old French, into English (the more general, amoral, ‘consciousness’ died out in the 18th century).

A parallel Latin formation, using *sci-, the base of scīre, was conscius ‘aware’, acquired by English in the 17th century as conscious. Conscientious is also a 17th-century borrowing, ultimately from Latin conscientiōsus.
=> science
consecutive: consecutive: see sequence
consent: consent: [13] The notion underlying ‘giving one’s consent’ is ‘feeling together’ – that is, ‘agreeing’, and hence ‘giving approval or permission’. The word comes from Old French consente, a derivative of the verb consentir. This was a descendant of Latin consentīre ‘agree’, a compound verb formed from the prefix com- ‘together’ and sentīre ‘feel’ (source of English sense, sentence, sentiment, etc). Consensus, originally the past participle of Latin consentīre, was borrowed into English in the 19th century.
=> consensus, sense, sentence, sentiment