英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

cachexia (n.)[cachexia 词源字典]: "bad general state of health," 1540s, from Latinized form of Greek kakhexia "bad habits," from kakos "bad" (see caco-) + -exia, related to exis "habit or state," from exein "to have, be in a condition," from PIE root *segh- "to hold, hold in one's power, to have" (see scheme (n.)). Related: cachexic.[cachexia etymology, cachexia origin, 英语词源]
cachinnate (v.): "to laugh loudly or immoderately," 1824, from Latin cachinnatum, past participle of cachinnare (see cachinnation). Related: Cachinnated; cachinnating.
cachinnation (n.): "loud laughter," 1620s, from Latin cachinnationem (nominative cachinnatio) "violent laughter, excessive laughter," noun of action from past participle stem of cachinnare "to laugh immoderately or loudly," of imitative origin. Compare Sanskrit kakhati "laughs," Greek kakhazein "to laugh loudly," Old High German kachazzen, English cackle, Armenian xaxanc'.
cack: "act of voiding excrement; to void excrement," mid-15c., from Latin cacare (see caca). Related: Cacked; cacking.
cackle (v.): early 13c., imitative (see cachinnation); perhaps partly based on Middle Dutch kake "jaw." Related: Cackled; cackling. As a noun from 1670s. Cackleberries, slang for "eggs" is first recorded 1880.
caco-: before vowels cac-, word-forming element meaning "bad, ill, poor" (as in cacography, the opposite of calligraphy), from Latinized form of Greek kako- a hard-working prefix in ancient Greek, from kakos "bad, evil," considered by etymologists probably to be connected with PIE *kakka- "to defecate" (see caca).
cacoethes (n.): "itch for doing something," 1560s, from Latinized form of Greek kakoethes "ill-habit, wickedness, itch for doing (something)," from kakos "bad" (see caco-) + ethe- "disposition, character" (see ethos). Most famously, in Juvenal's insanabile scribendi cacoethes "incurable passion for writing."
cacoon (n.): large, flat bean from an African shrub, 1854, from some African word.
cacophony (n.): 1650s, from Greek kakophonia, from kakophonos "harsh sounding," from kakos "bad, evil" (see caco-) + phone "voice, sound," from PIE root *bha- (2) "to speak, tell, say" (see fame (n.)). Related: Cacophonous.
cactus (n.): c. 1600, from Latin cactus "cardoon," from Greek kaktos, name of a type of prickly plant of Sicily (the Spanish artichoke), perhaps of pre-Hellenic origin. Modern meaning is 18c., because Linnaeus gave the name to a group of plants he thought were related to this but are not.
cad (n.): 1730, shortening of cadet (q.v.); originally used of servants, then (1831) of town boys by students at British universities and public schools (though at Cambridge it meant "snob"). Meaning "person lacking in finer feelings" is from 1838.
A cad used to be a jumped-up member of the lower classes who was guilty of behaving as if he didn't know that his lowly origin made him unfit for having sexual relationships with well-bred women. [Anthony West, "H.G. Wells: Aspects of a Life," 1984]
cadastral (adj.): 1858, from French cadastral, from cadastre "register of the survey of lands" (16c.), from Old Italian catastico, from Late Greek katastikhos "register," literally "by the line" (see cata-, stair). Gamillscheg dismisses derivation from Late Latin capitastrum "register of the poll tax."
cadaver (n.): c. 1500, from Latin cadaver "dead body (of men or animals)," probably from a perfective participle of cadere "to fall, sink, settle down, decline, perish" (see case (n.1)). Compare Greek ptoma "dead body," literally "a fall" (see ptomaine); poetic English the fallen "those who died in battle."
cadaverous (adj.): "looking like a corpse," early 15c., from Latin cadaverosus "corpse-like," from cadaver (see cadaver). Related: Cadaverously; cadaverousness.
caddie (n.): 1630s, Scottish form of French cadet (see cadet). Originally "person who runs errands;" meaning of "golfer's assistant" is 1851. A letter from Edinburgh c. 1730 describes the city's extensive and semi-organized "Cawdys, a very useful Black-Guard, who attend ... publick Places to go at Errands; and though they are Wretches, that in Rags lye upon the Stairs and in the Streets at Night, yet are they often considerably trusted .... This Corps has a kind of Captain ... presiding over them, whom they call the Constable of the Cawdys."
caddis (n.): "larva of the May-fly," 1650s, of unknown origin, perhaps a diminutive of some sense of cad.
caddy (n.): "small box for tea," 1792, from Malay kati a weight equivalent to about a pound and a third (in English from 1590s as catty), adopted as a standard mid-18c. by British companies in the East Indies. Apparently the word for a measure of tea was transferred to the chest it was carried in.
cade (adj.): "pet, tame," mid-15c., used in reference to young animals abandoned by their mothers and brought up by hand; of unknown origin.
cadence (n.): late 14c., "flow of rhythm in verse or music," from Middle French cadence, from Old Italian cadenza "conclusion of a movement in music," literally "a falling," from Vulgar Latin *cadentia, from neuter plural of Latin cadens, present participle of cadere "to fall" (see case (n.1)). In 16c., sometimes used literally for "an act of falling." A doublet of chance (n.).
cadenza (n.): "ornamental passage near the close of a song or solo," 1836, from Italian cadenza (see cadence).