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capon [capon 词源字典]: capon: [OE] Capon, a ‘castrated male chicken’, is probably literally a ‘cut cockerel’. The word comes via Anglo-Norman capun from Latin capō, which is probably ultimately derived from a word for ‘cut’ – Greek kóptein, for example – the underlying reference of course being to the cutting off of the unfortunate bird’s testicles.
[capon etymology, capon origin, 英语词源]
cappuccino: cappuccino: [20] Frothy coffee was given the name cappuccino in Italian from its supposed resemblance to the habit of Capuchin monks, which is the colour of lightly milked coffee. The Order of Friars Minor Capuchins, an independent branch of Franciscans, was founded in 1528. In emulation of St Francis they wear a pointed cowl, in Italian a cappuccio (from late Latin cappa ‘hood’, source of English cap and cape), from which the name Cappuccino ‘Capuchin’ (literally ‘little hood’) was derived.

The term Capuchin itself arrived in English in the late 16th century, and the order’s vestimentary arrangements have gifted other items of vocabulary to English, notably capuchin [18] for a woman’s cloak and hood and capuchin monkey [18] for a type of South American monkey with a tuft of hair on its head resembling a monk’s cowl.
=> cap, cape
caprice: caprice: [17] Etymologically, caprice means ‘hedgehog-head’. It comes, via French caprice, from an Italian noun capriccio, formed from capo ‘head’ (from Latin caput) and riccio ‘hedgehog’ (from Latin ericeus, source of English urchin). Originally this meant ‘horror, shuddering’, the reference being to the hair of a terror-stricken person standing on end. The word’s present-day meaning ‘whim, fickleness’ seems to be partly due to association with Italian capra ‘goat’, from the animal’s frisky behaviour.
=> urchin
capsicum: capsicum: see case
capstan: capstan: [14] Capstan is a borrowing from Old Provençal. There the word was cabestan. Its earlier form capestran was a derivative of capestre ‘rope, noose’, which came from Latin capistrum ‘halter’. This in turn came from capere ‘take’, a prolific source of English words, and related to English heave.
=> capture, heave
capsule: capsule: see case
captain: captain: [14] Etymologically, a captain is someone who is at the ‘head’ of an organization, team, etc. It derives ultimately from late Latin capitāneus ‘chief’, a derivative of caput ‘head’, which came to English via Old French capitain. A parallel but earlier formation was chieftain, which also came from late Latin capitāneus, but along a different route, by way of Old French chevetaine.
=> chieftain
capture: capture: [16] Along with its relatives captive, captivity, captivate, and captor, capture is the English language’s most direct lineal descendant of Latin capere ‘take, seize’ (others include capable, case for carrying things, cater, and chase, and heave is distantly connected). First to arrive was captive [14], which was originally a verb, meaning ‘capture’; it came via Old French captiver from Latin captīvus, the past participle of capere.

Contemporary in English was the adjectival use of captive, from which the noun developed. (The now archaic caitiff [13] comes from the same ultimate source, via an altered Vulgar Latin *cactivus and Old French caitiff ‘captive’.) Next on the scene was capture, in the 16th century; originally it was only a noun, and it was not converted to verbal use until the late 18th century, when it replaced captive in this role.

Also 16th-century is captivate, from the past participle of late Latin captivāre, a derivative of captīvus; this too originally meant ‘capture’, a sense which did not die out until the 19th century: ‘The British … captivated four successive patrols’, John Neal, Brother Jonathan 1825.
=> captive, cater, chase, cop, heave
car: car: [14] Car seems first to have been used as an independent term for a road vehicle powered by an internal-combustion engine in 1896, in the publication Farman’s Auto-Cars (the compounds autocar and motorcar are a year earlier). But the word is of course of far longer standing as a general term for a wheeled conveyance. It comes ultimately from an unrecorded Celtic *karros, via Latin carrus ‘two-wheeled wagon’, Vulgar Latin *carra, and Anglo-Norman carre or car; it is probably linked with current and course, giving an underlying meaning ‘move swiftly’.

English words derived at some point or other from the same source include career, carriage, carry, charge, and chariot.
=> career, caricature, carriage, carry, charge, chariot, course, current
carat: carat: [16] The carat gets its name from the use of carob beans as standard weights for measuring the heaviness of small quantities. The Greek name for the elongated seed pod of the carob tree was kerátion, a derivative of kéras ‘horn’ (related to English horn). This passed into Arabic as qīrāt, where it became formalized in a system of weights and measures as ‘four grains’. It passed into English via Italian carato and French carat.
=> horn
caravan: caravan: [16] Caravans have no etymological connection with cars, nor with char-a-bancs. The word comes ultimately from Persian kārwān ‘group of desert travellers’, and came into English via French caravane. Its use in English for ‘vehicle’ dates from the 17th century, but to begin with it referred to a covered cart for carrying passengers and goods (basis of the shortened form van [19]), and in the 19th century it was used for the basic type of thirdclass railway carriage; its modern sense of ‘mobile home’ did not develop until the late 19th century. Caravanserai ‘inn for accommodating desert caravans’ [16] comes from Persian kārwānserāī: serāī means ‘palace, inn’, and was the source, via Italian, of seraglio ‘harem’ [16].
=> caravanserai, van
caraway: caraway: [14] The ultimate source of caraway is probably Greek káron ‘cumin’ (caraway and cumin seeds are very similar). Arabic borrowed the word as alkarāwiyā ‘the cumin’, and it subsequently diverged along different branches. Borrowed into medieval Latin it became carvi, which was the source of carvy, the Scottish word for ‘caraway’ since the 17th century. The source of English caraway, however, was most likely Old Spanish alcarahueya.
carbon: carbon: [18] The notion underlying carbon is probably that of ‘burning’; it has been tentatively traced back to a base *kar- ‘fire’. The word’s immediate source was French carbone, coined in the 1780s on the basis of Latin carbō ‘coal, charcoal’ (supplementing an earlier borrowing charbon ‘coal, charcoal’). It is not certain whether char and charcoal are related to it.
carbuncle: carbuncle: [13] Etymologically, a carbuncle is a ‘small piece of coal’. It comes ultimately from Latin carbunculus, a diminutive form of carbō ‘coal’ (source of English carbon). This reached English via Old French carbuncle. The Latin word had two main metaphorical meanings, based on the idea of a glowing coal: ‘red gem’ and ‘red inflamed spot’, both of which passed into English.

The latter achieved some notoriety in British English in the 1980s following a remark by the Prince of Wales in 1984 comparing a piece of modern architecture unfavourably to a ‘carbuncle’, although ironically from the 15th to the 17th centuries the word was used for ‘something of great splendour’.
=> carbon
carburettor: carburettor: [19] Carburettor is a derivative of carburet, an obsolete term for what is now known as carbide ‘a carbon compound’. It was originally used for a device for adding carbon to a gas for enhancing its power of illumination; the current application to a device for producing air/fuel vapour in an engine dates from the 1890s. Carburet itself was a later form of carbure, borrowed in the 1790s from French; its ultimate origin was in Latin carbō, source of English carbon.
=> carbon
carcass: carcass: [14] English first acquired this word from Anglo-Norman carcois, and early forms were carcays and carcoys. Spellings similar to modern English carcass begin to emerge in the 16th century, and may be due to reborrowing from French carcasse, to association with the noun case ‘container’, which meant ‘body’ in the 16th century, or to a combination of both. The usual current spelling throughout the English-speaking world is carcass, but British English also uses carcase. The word’s ultimate origin is unknown.
carcinoma: carcinoma: see cancer
card: card: [16] English borrowed card from French carte, for some unknown reason changing t to d in the process. The French word (source also of English carton) came from Latin charta, which originally denoted ‘leaf of the papyrus plant’; and since papyrus leaves were used for making paper, the word in due course came to mean ‘paper’ (Latin charta also gave English chart and charter). The Latin word in turn came from Greek khártēs, which is probably of Egyptian origin.
=> carton, chart, charter, discard
cardiac: cardiac: see heart
cardigan: cardigan: [19] The cardigan was named after James Thomas Brudenell, 7th earl of Cardigan (1797–1868), an early sporter of button-through woollen jackets. His other, but less successful, claim to fame was that he led the Charge of the Light Brigade (1854) at Balaclava during the Crimean War.