英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

corral [corral 词源字典]: corral: [16] English acquired corral from Spanish corral, but its previous history is disputed. Some etymologists consider that it is of southern African origin, from the language of the Hottentot people, but others derive it from Vulgar Latin *currale ‘enclosure for vehicles’, which would have been based on Latin currus ‘two-wheeled wagon’ (source of English car and carry). Kraal [18] originated as an Afrikaans adaptation of Portuguese curral, corresponding to Spanish corral.
=> kraal[corral etymology, corral origin, 英语词源]
correct: correct: [14] Correct is etymologically related to rectitude and rightness. It comes from the past participle of Latin corrigere ‘make straight, put right’, a compound verb formed from the intensive prefix com- and regere ‘lead straight, rule’. This regere (source of English regent, régime, regiment, and region) goes back to an Indo-European base *reg- ‘move in a straight line’, which also produced English right, rectitude, regal, royal, and rule. In English the verb correct by a long time predates the adjective, which first appeared (via French) in the 17th century.
=> escort, regal, region, right, royal, rule
corridor: corridor: see current
corroborate: corroborate: see robust
corrode: corrode: see rostrum
corrupt: corrupt: [14] The Latin verb rumpere meant ‘break’ (it is etymologically related to English bereave and rob). It (or rather its past participial stem rup-) was the source of English rupture [15], and it entered into partnership with the intensive prefix com- to produce corrumpere ‘destroy completely’. This was the ancestor (either directly or via Old French) of English corrupt, both adjective and verb.
=> bereave, curse, rob, rupture
corsage: corsage: see corpse
corsair: corsair: [15] Etymologically, a corsair is someone who goes on a ‘course’. Latin cursus (source of English course) was a derivative of Latin currere ‘run’, and meant originally a ‘run’. From this it developed to ‘journey’ and ‘expedition’ to ‘hostile or predatory expedition’, and eventually to the proceeds of such a raid, the ‘plunder’ or ‘booty’. In medieval Latin the term cursārius was derived from it to denote someone who took part in such raids, and this passed into English via Old Italian corsaro, Provençal corsari, and Old French corsaire.
=> course, hussar
corset: corset: see corpse
cortege: cortege: see court
cortex: cortex: see cork
cosmos: cosmos: [17] Cosmos is a learned borrowing from Greek kósmos. The underlying meaning of this was ‘order’, and it appears originally to have been applied to the world and the universe by Pythagoras and his school in reference to the orderliness of creation. In the mid 20th century the word provided a useful linguistic distinction between Western and Soviet activities in space, cosmonaut (from Russian kosmonavt) contrasting with astronaut.

Somebody who is cosmopolitan [19] is literally a ‘citizen of the world’, from Greek kosmopolítēs, a compound of kósmos and polítēs. From Greek kósmos ‘order’ was derived the verb kosmein ‘arrange, adorn’. This in turn provided the basis of the adjective kosmētikós ‘skilled in adornment’, which passed into English as cosmetic [17].
=> cosmetic, cosmopolitan
cossack: cossack: see cassock
cosset: cosset: [17] Cosset may originally have meant ‘someone who lives in a cottage’. Old English had a word cotsǣta ‘cottager’, which was formed from cot ‘cottage’ and *sǣt-, an element related to the verb sit. This disappeared from the language after the Old English period, but not before it was adopted into Anglo-Norman as cozet or coscet (forms which appear in Domesday Book).

It has been suggested that this is the same word as turns up in local dialects from the 16th century meaning ‘lamb reared by hand, pet lamb’ (that is, a lamb kept by a cottager rather than at liberty with the flock), and further that the notion of pampering a pet lamb gave rise to the verb cosset.
cost: cost: [13] In Latin, something that cost a particular price literally ‘stood at or with’ that price. The Latin verb constāre was formed from the prefix com- ‘with’ and stāre ‘stand’ (a relative of English stand). In Vulgar Latin this became *costāre, which passed into English via Old French coster (the derived noun arrived first, the verb a couple of decades later). The adjective costly is a 14th century formation.
=> stand, statue
coster: coster: [19] Coster is short for costermonger, a term dating from the 16th century. Since the 19th century, and perhaps before, it has been a general term in Britain, and particularly in London, for a street trader with a barrow or stall, but further back in time it meant ‘fruiterer’, and originally, more specifically still, a ‘seller of apples’. The first element, coster, was an alteration of costard, a word of Anglo-Norman origin for a type of large apple.

This was derived from coste ‘rib’ (a descendant of Latin costa, source of English coast), and the costard was apparently so called because of its prominent ‘ribs’. (Monger ‘dealer’ [OE], now used in English only in compounds, comes from a prehistoric Germanic *manggōjan, a borrowing from Latin mangō ‘dealer’.)
=> coast
costive: costive: see constipation
costume: costume: [18] Ultimately, costume and custom are the same word. Both come from Latin consuētūdō ‘custom’. But whereas custom was an early borrowing, from Old French, costume took a lengthier and more circuitous route via Italian costume ‘custom, fashion, dress’ and French costume. In the early 18th century the word referred to the custom or fashion of a particular period as it related to the representation of the clothes, furniture, etc of that period in art.

In the 19th century this passed into ‘mode of dress appropriate to a particular time or place’, and thence (completing a semantic development rather similar to that of habit) into simply ‘garments, outfit’.
=> custom
coterie: coterie: [18] In Old French, coterie was a term for an association of peasant tenants under the feudal system. It was probably derived from an unrecorded *cote ‘hut’. This would have been borrowed from Middle Low German kote, a relative of English cote and cot. In French the word gradually broadened out in meaning to ‘group of people sharing a common interest’, the sense in which English borrowed it in the mid- 18th century.
cottage: cottage: [14] The Old English words for a small house or hut were cot and cote, both of which survive – just: cot as an archaic term for ‘cottage’ and cote in dovecote and sheepcote. (Cot ‘child’s bed’ [17], incidentally, is of Hindi origin.) They both derive ultimately from a Germanic base *kut-. Then, probably in the 12th century, one or both of them seem to have been taken up by the language of the gentry, Anglo- Norman, and had the suffix -age added, giving *cotage, which was eventually adopted by English as cottage.

Originally this simply denoted any small humble country dwelling; it was not until the mid-18th century that it began to acquire modern connotations of tweeness.
=> cot, cote