英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

contaminate [contaminate 词源字典]: contaminate: [15] Contaminate appears to come from the same ultimate source as contact, a base *tag- ‘touch’, which produced the Latin verb tangere ‘touch’ (whence English tactile, tangent, and tangible). It seems also to have formed the basis of a compound Latin noun *contagmen ‘contact, pollution’, which became altered to contāmen. From this was derived the verb contamināre, whose past participle gave English contaminate.
=> contact, tactile, tangible[contaminate etymology, contaminate origin, 英语词源]
contemplate: contemplate: [16] Etymologically, to contemplate something is to observe it in a ‘temple’. The word comes from the past participle of Latin contemplārī, a compound verb formed from the intensive prefix com- and templum. This word, source of course of English temple, originally signified a space marked out by augurs (priests in ancient Rome who interpreted omens) for making observations. Hence contemplārī originally meant ‘observe omens carefully’, but its application soon became more general.
=> temple
contend: contend: see tend
content: content: The adjective and noun content come ultimately from the same source, but as their divergent pronunciations suggest, they reached English via different routes. Their common original is Latin contentus, past participle of continēre ‘hold together, enclose, contain’ (source of English contain, continent, continue, and countenance). The more recent borrowing, the noun content [15], comes directly from medieval Latin contentum, and retains the original meaning of the Latin verb.

The adjective content [14], however, comes via Old French content, and reflects a metaphorical change in the Latin past participle from ‘contained’ via ‘restrained’ and ‘self-restrained’ to ‘satisfied’.
=> contain, continent, continue, countenance, retentive
contest: contest: [16] The idea underlying contest, unlikely as it may seem, is of ‘bearing witness’. It goes back to Latin contestārī, a compound verb formed from the prefix com- ‘together’ and testārī ‘bear witness’, which in turn was derived from testis ‘witness’ (whence English testament, testicle, and testimony). This verb signified the bringing of a lawsuit by ‘calling witnesses together’ from both sides.

Hence was introduced the adversarial or competitive notion that passed into English, probably via Old French contester (although in the 16th and 17th centuries traces of the original Latin sense ‘bear joint witness, attest’ survived in English, presumably as a scholarly reintroduction).
=> testament, testicle, testimony
context: context: see text
continent: continent: [14] Continent comes via Old French from Latin continēns, the present participle of continēre ‘hold together, enclose, contain’ (source of English contain). From the beginning it meant in general ‘exercising self-restraint’; of the more specific senses, ‘chaste’ developed in the 14th century and ‘able to retain urine and faeces’ apparently in the early 19th century.

The word’s noun use developed from the Latin phrase terra continēns ‘continuous land’ (for this sense of Latin continēre see CONTINUE). It was at first applied in the 16th century to any large continuous expanse of territory, and from the early 17th century specifically to any of the Earth’s major landmasses (the English use of ‘the Continent’ for mainland Europe is roughly contemporary with this).
=> contain, content, continue, countenance
continue: continue: [14] Latin continēre in its transitive sense (with an object) meant ‘hold together, contain’, and led to English contain. However, it was also used intransitively in the sense ‘hang together’. From it was derived the adjective continuus ‘uninterrupted’ (source of English continuous [17]), which formed the basis of a new verb continuāre ‘make or be continuous’. English acquired this via Old French continuer. (The derivative continual entered English in the 14th century.)
=> contain, content, continent, countenance
contort: contort: see torment
contraband: contraband: [16] Contraband means literally ‘proclamation against’ – hence ‘prohibition’. It comes via French contrebande from Italian contrabbando, a compound formed from contra ‘against’ (see CONTRARY) and bando ‘proclamation’ (whose source was late Latin bannus, bannum, a relative of English ban). The sense ‘dealing in prohibited goods’ had already developed before English acquired the word, and rapidly developed through ‘smuggling’ to ‘smuggled goods’.
=> ban, contrary
contract: contract: [14] English acquired the word contract in stages, although in all cases the ultimate source was contractus, the past participle of Latin contrahere, a compound verb formed from the prefix com- ‘together’ and trahere ‘pull, draw’ (source of English traction and tractor). This meant literally ‘pull together’, but it had a variety of metaphorical senses, including ‘bring about’ and ‘enter into an agreement’, and it was the latter which first passed into English via Old French as a noun meaning ‘mutual agreement’.

The arrival of the verb contract did not happen until the 16th century; it developed from an earlier adjective contract, which came again from Old French contract. This introduced a further sense of Latin contrahere; ‘become narrowed, get smaller’.
=> distract, retract, traction, tractor
contrary: contrary: [14] Contrary originated as a Latin adjectival formation based on the preposition contrā ‘against’, which historically was a derivative of com or cum ‘with’. Latin contrārius passed into English via Old French contraire and Anglo-Norman contrarie. Originally contrary was pronounced with the main stress on its middle syllable, but this survives only in the sense ‘obstinately self-willed’; from the 18th century onwards, the stress has usually been placed on the first syllable.
contrast: contrast: see statue
contribute: contribute: see tribe
contrition: contrition: see throw
contrive: contrive: [14] In Middle English, contrive was controve; it was not transformed into contrive (perhaps under the influence of Scottish pronunciation) until the 15th century. It came via Old French controver from Latin contropāre ‘represent metaphorically, compare’, a compound verb based on the prefix com- ‘too’ and tropus ‘figure of speech’ (source of English trope). The word’s meaning has progressed through ‘compare via a figure of speech’ and Old French ‘imagine’ to ‘devise’.
=> trope
control: control: [15] Implausible as it may seem, control’s closest relative in English is contrarotating. It has its origins in a medieval method of checking accounts which involved a duplicate register, or ‘counter-roll’, as it was known (contrārotulus in medieval Latin, contrā meaning ‘opposite’ and rotulus being the diminutive of rota ‘wheel’).

From the medieval Latin noun a verb was formed, contrārotulāre, meaning ‘check accounts by such means’, and hence ‘exert authority’. This passed into English via Anglo-Norman contreroller. The spelling of the agent noun controller as comptroller, still encountered in certain official designations, arises from an erroneous 16th-century association of the first syllable with count, from late Latin computus.
=> rota, rotate
controversy: controversy: see verse
contumely: contumely: [14] The idea underlying contumely ‘insolence’ is ‘swelling up’. It comes, via Old French contumelie, from Latin contumēlia ‘insult, reproach’, a compound noun formed from the intensive prefix com- and (probably) tumēre ‘swell’ (source of English tumour). The sense development – from being ‘puffed up’ and ‘angry’, ‘proud’, or ‘stubborn’ through ‘overbearing’ to ‘insulting’ – appears also to be reflected in contumacy ‘insubordination’ [14], whose Latin source contumācia likewise probably came from tumēre.
=> contumacy, tumour
contusion: contusion: [14] Latin tundere meant ‘beat, hit’ (it may be related to English stint and stunt). Addition of the intensive prefix com- produced contundere ‘beat hard, pound’, and from its past participle contūsus was formed the noun contūsiō, which passed into English via Old French contusion. Apart from isolated instances in the 17th and 18th centuries when it was used for ‘beating’ generally (probably scholarly archaisms), contusion has always had the physiological connotation of ‘bruising’ in English.
=> stint, stunt, toil