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co-opt [co-opt 词源字典]: co-opt: see opinion
[co-opt etymology, co-opt origin, 英语词源]
cope: cope: There are two distinct words cope in English. The now more familiar one, ‘deal with’ [14], comes from Old French coper, and originally meant ‘hit, punch’. The Old French verb was a derivative of the noun cop ‘blow’, which in turn was a variant of colp (from which modern French gets coup, borrowed into English in the 18th century). This came via medieval Latin colpus (ultimate source of English coppice) and Latin colaphus from Greek kólaphos ‘blow, punch’.

The modern English sense of the verb developed via ‘come to blows with’ and ‘contend with’ to ‘handle successfully’. Cope ‘cloak’ [13] was borrowed from medieval Latin cāpa, a variant of cappa, which produced English cap and cape as well as chapel and chaperone. It may ultimately be descended from Latin caput ‘head’.
=> coppice, coup; cap, cape, chapel, chaperon
copious: copious: [14] Copious comes, either directly or via Old French copieux, from Latin copiōsus, a derivative of copia ‘abundance’ (from which English also gets copy). Copia itself was originally a compound noun, formed from the intensive prefix com- and ops ‘wealth, power’.
=> copy, opulent
copper: copper: [OE] A major source of copper in the ancient world was the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, so the Romans called it cyprium aes ‘metal of Cyprus’. This became cuprum in late Latin, from which it was borrowed into prehistoric West and North Germanic as *kupar, source of Old English coper. (Copper the slang term for ‘policeman’ [19] is simply the agent noun formed from the verb cop ‘seize’, which probably comes via Old French caper from Latin capere ‘seize, take’, source of English capture.)
coppice: coppice: [14] The notion underlying coppice is of ‘cutting’. Its ultimate source is the Greek noun kólaphos ‘blow’, which passed via Latin colaphus into medieval Latin as colpus (source of English cope and coup). From colpus was derived a verb colpāre ‘cut’, which formed the basis of Vulgar Latin colpātīcium ‘having the quality of being cut’. Its Old French descendant copeïz came to be applied to an area of small trees regularly cut back. English borrowed this as coppice (and in the 16th century spawned a new contracted form copse).
=> cope, copse, coup
copulate: copulate: see couple
copy: copy: [14] Copy has a very devious semantic history. It comes from Latin copia ‘abundance’ (source also of English copious), and came into English via Old French copie. In addition to its central sense ‘abundance’, Latin copia could also mean ‘power, right’, and it appears that its use in such phrases as ‘give someone the right to transcribe’ led to its application to ‘right of reproduction’ and ultimately to simply ‘reproduction’.
=> copious
coral: coral: [14] Coral may ultimately be of Semitic origin (Hebrew gōrāl ‘pebble’ has been compared), but the first record we have of it is as Greek korállion, which came to English via Latin corallum or corallium and Old French coral. Until the 17th century, the word was applied exclusively to the red coral (Corallium nobile); hence its use, since the early 16th century, for a ‘rich red colour’.
cord: cord: [13] Cord ‘string’ and chord ‘straight line’ were originally the same word. They go back to Greek khordé ‘string’, which came into English via Latin chorda and Old French corde. In English it was originally written cord, a spelling which included the sense ‘string of a musical instrument’. But in the 16th century the spelling of this latter sense was remodelled to chord, on the basis of Latin chorda, and it has been retained for its semantic descendants ‘straight line joining two points on a curve’ and ‘straight line joining the front and rear edges of a wing’. (Chord ‘combination of musical notes’ [15] is no relation: it is a reduced version of accord, which comes via Old French acorder from Vulgar Latin *accordāre, a compound verb based on Latin cors ‘heart’, and ironically was originally spelled cord.) Related words include cordon [16], from the French diminutive form cordon, and cordite [19], so named from its often being shaped into cords resembling brown twine.
=> chord, cordite, cordon, yarn
corduroy: corduroy: [18] Popular etymology usually associates corduroy with a supposed French corde du roy ‘cord of the king’ or even couleur du roy ‘king’s colour’ (the original corduroy having according to this theory been purple), but in fact there is no concrete evidence to substantiate this. A more likely explanation is that the word’s first syllable represents cord in the sense ‘ribbed fabric’, and that the second element is the now obsolete noun duroy ‘coarse woollen fabric’ [17], of unknown origin.
core: core: [14] The origins of core are a mystery, over which etymologists disagree. Several candidates have been put forward, including Old French cor ‘horn’, on the grounds that two of core’s earliest applications were to the horny central part of apples and pears and to corns on the foot, and Latin cor ‘heart’, on the grounds that an apple’s core is its ‘heart’.
corgi: corgi: see hound
cork: cork: [14] The earliest ascertainable ancestor of cork is Spanish alcorque ‘cork sole’, which passed into English via Dutch kork. The initial al-, of course, suggests that this was of Arabic origin (al being the Arabic definite article), and it seems likely that it represents Arabic al-qūrq, which some have suggested came from Latin cortex ‘bark’, source of English cortex [17]. The use of cork for a bottle-stopper made from cork dates from the early 16th century.
=> cortex
cormorant: cormorant: [13] In early medieval times the cormorant was named ‘sea raven’ – that is, in Latin, corvus marīnus. This passed into Old French first as cormareng, which later became cormaran. English adopted it and added a final t. The word’s origins are still evident in Portuguese corvo marinho ‘cormorant’.
=> marine
corn: corn: [OE] The underlying sense of corn is of grinding down into small particles. The word comes ultimately from the Indo-European base *ger-, which meant ‘wear away’. From it was derived *grnóm ‘worn-down particle’, which in Latin produced grānum (source of English grain) and in prehistoric Germanic produced *kurnam, which developed into Old English corn.

Already in Germanic times the word had developed in meaning from simply ‘particle’ to ‘small seed’ and specifically ‘cereal grain’, but English corn was not of course applied to ‘maize’ before that plant came to Europe from America in the 16th century. The original sense ‘particle’ survives in corned beef, where corned refers to the grains of salt with which the meat is preserved.

The meaning ‘hackneyed or sentimental matter’ is a 20th-century development, based on the supposedly unsophisticated life of country areas. Kernel comes from an Old English diminutive form of corn. Corn ‘hardening of the skin’ [15] is a completely different word, coming via Anglo- Norman corn from Latin cornū ‘horn’.
=> grain; horn
corner: corner: [13] The idea underlying corner is of a ‘projecting part’ or ‘point’. It came via Anglo- Norman corner from Vulgar Latin *cornārium, a derivative of Latin cornū ‘point’ (‘point’ was in fact a secondary sense, developed from an original ‘horn’ – and Latin cornū is related to English horn). Other English descendants of cornū are corn ‘hard skin’, cornea [14], cornet [14], originally a diminutive form, and cornucopia [16], literally ‘horn of plenty’.
=> cornea, cornet, horn
corollary: corollary: [14] Latin corolla was a ‘little crown or garland’, typically made from flowers (the word was a diminutive form of corōna ‘crown’, source of English crown). Hence a corollārium was ‘money paid for such a garland’, and by extension ‘gratuity’. Later it developed the meaning ‘deduction’, applied in geometry to a subsidiary proposition dependent on a previous proof, the sense in which it was first borrowed into English. (English acquired corolla itself in the 17th century.)
=> coronary, crown
coronary: coronary: [17] Coronary comes from Latin coronārius, an adjectival derivative of corōna ‘garland, crown’. It was applied in the later 17th century to any anatomical structure, such as an artery, nerve, or ligament, that encircles another like a crown. A leading example of such a conformation is the heart, with its encircling blood vessels, and gradually coronary came to be used for ‘of the heart’.

Its application as a noun to ‘heart attack’ appears to be post-World War II. Other English descendants of Latin corōna (which came from Greek korónē ‘something curved’) include coronation [14], the diminutive coronet [15], coroner [14], originally an ‘officer of the crown’, crown, and of course corona [16] itself.
=> corollary, coronation, coroner, crown
corporal: corporal: [14] Corporal comes via Old French corporal from Latin corporālis ‘bodily’, an adjective derived from corpus ‘body’. The noun corporal ‘non-commissioned officer’ [16] was probably originally a completely different word. It was borrowed from French corporal, which appears to have been an alteration of caporal; this in turn came from Italian caporale, a derivative of capo ‘head’ (the change to corporal seems to have been based on the notion of the corporal as being in charge of a ‘body’ of troops).
=> corpse
corpse: corpse: [14] Latin corpus ‘body’ has two direct descendants in English: corpse, which came via Old French cors, and corps [18], which came via modern French corps. The former first entered English in the 13th century as cors, and during the 14th century it had its original Latin p reinserted. At first it meant simply ‘body’, but by the end of the 14th century the current sense ‘dead body’ was becoming firmly established.

The idea originally underlying corps, on the other hand, was of a small ‘body’ of troops. Other English derivatives of corpus include corporal, corporate [15], from the past participle of Latin corporāre ‘make into a body’, corpulent [14], two diminutives corpuscle [17] and corset [14], and corsage [15]. Corpus itself was acquired in the 14th century.
=> corporal, corporate, corpulent, corset