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cataract [cataract 词源字典]: cataract: [15] Greek kataráktēs meant literally ‘swooping down, rushing down’; it was a derivative of the verb katarássein, a compound formed from the prefix katá- ‘down’ (which appears in a wide range of English words, including cataclysm, catalepsy, catalogue, catapult – literally ‘hurl down’ – and catastrophe) and the verb rássein ‘strike’.

Hence it was applied metaphorically to various things that ‘rush down’, including waterfalls and portcullises. The word passed into English via Latin cataracta, and the sense ‘opacity of the eye’s lens’ developed in the 16th century, probably as a metaphorical extension of the now obsolete ‘portcullis’.
[cataract etymology, cataract origin, 英语词源]
catarrh: catarrh: [16] Etymologically, catarrh is ‘something that flows down’. It comes via French catarrhe and late Latin catarrhus from Greek katárrhous, a derivative of the verb katarrhein, a compound formed from the prefix katá- ‘down’ (as in cataract) and the verb rhein ‘flow’ (a relative of English rheumatism and stream).
=> diarrhoea, rheumatism, stream
catastrophe: catastrophe: see apostrophe
catch: catch: [13] Originally catch meant ‘chase, hunt’ (and in fact it is etymologically related to the English word chase). However, it remarkably quickly moved on to be applied to the next logical step in the procedure, ‘capture’, and by the early 16th century ‘chase’ was becoming obsolete (although it remains the only sense of related words in other languages, such as French chasser and Italian cacciare).

Looked at from another point of view, however, catch might be said to be harking back to its ultimate roots in Latin capere ‘take’, source of English capture. Its past participle, captus, provided the basis for a new verb captāre ‘try to seize, chase’. In Vulgar Latin this became altered to *captiāre, source of Old French chacier (whence English chase) and the corresponding Anglo-Norman cachier (whence English catch).
=> capture, chase
catechism: catechism: [16] Etymologically, catechism is ‘teaching by the spoken word’. It is a derivative of catechize [15], which comes ultimately from the Greek verb katēkhein, a compound formed from the prefix katá- ‘thoroughly’ and the verb ēkhein ‘sound, resound’ (related to English echo). Thus originally to ‘catechize’ someone was literally to ‘din’ instruction into them, hence ‘instruct orally’. The word came into English via a later ecclesiastical Greek derivative katēkhízein and Latin catēchīzāre.
=> echo
category: category: [15] The word category has a rather complicated semantic history. It comes ultimately from Greek katēgorein ‘accuse’, a compound formed from the prefix katá- ‘against’ and agorá ‘public assembly’ (source of English agoraphobia and related to gregarious) – hence ‘speak against publicly’. ‘Accuse’ gradually became weakened in meaning to ‘assert, name’, and the derived noun katēgoríā was applied by Aristotle to the enumeration of all classes of things that can be named – hence ‘category’. The word reached English via late Latin catēgoria or French catégorie.
=> agoraphobia, gregarious, panegyric
cater: cater: [16] Cater is related to French acheter ‘buy’, and originally meant ‘buy provisions’. It comes ultimately from Vulgar Latin *accaptāre, a compound verb formed from the Latin prefix ad- ‘to’ and the verb captāre ‘try to seize’ (source of English catch and chase). This provided the basis for the Anglo-Norman agent noun acatour ‘buyer, purveyor’, which gave English the now obsolete acater.

Losing its a-, this became cater, which until the early 17th century was the word for what we would now call a ‘caterer’. At around the same time cater began to be used as a verb; the first known example of this is in Shakespeare’s As You Like It II, iii: ‘He that doth the ravens feed, yea providently caters for the sparrow’.
=> capture, catch, chase
caterpillar: caterpillar: [15] Etymologically, a caterpillar is a ‘hairy cat’. The word comes ultimately from late Latin *catta pilōsa: catta is the source of English cat, while pilōsus ‘hairy’ is a derivative of Latin pilus ‘hair’, from which English gets pile of a carpet. In Old French *catta pilōsa became chatepelose, which passed into English as catyrpel.

The present-day form arose in the 16th century, probably from association with the now obsolete piller ‘plunderer’ (related to English pillage) – caterpillars being regarded, of course, as plunderers of leaves. The notion that caterpillars resemble small furry mammals is also reflected in such names as pussmoth and woolly bear.
=> cat, pile
caterwaul: caterwaul: [14] The earliest known use of this word comes in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Prologue 1386: ‘If the cat’s skin be slick and grey, forth she will, ere any day be dawned, to show her skin, and go a-caterwauling’. The first element of the word is generally accepted to be cat, while the second (in Middle English it was usually -wawe or -wrawe) is presumably onomatopoeic, imitating the sound of a cat wailing or yowling. It is not clear whether it was a purely native creation, or whether English borrowed it from Low German katerwaulen (where kater means ‘tom cat’).
cathedral: cathedral: [13] Cathedral is a shortening of cathedral church, which was originally the ‘church housing the bishop’s throne’. For ultimately cathedral comes from Greek kathédrā (source also of English chair), a compound noun meaning ‘seat’, formed from katá- ‘down’ and *hed- ‘sit’. The adjectival form was created in late Latin as cathedrālis, and reached English via Old French. The notion of the bishop’s authority residing in his throne recurs in see, which comes from Latin sēdem ‘seat’, a relative of English sit.
=> chair
cathode: cathode: [19] The term cathode, meaning ‘negative electrode’, appears to have been introduced by the English philosopher William Whewell around 1834. It was based on Greek káthodos ‘way down’, a compound formed from katá- ‘down’ and hodós ‘way’ (also represented in exodus ‘way out’ and odometer ‘instrument for measuring distance travelled’, and possibly related to Latin cēdere, source of English cede and a host of derived words). It specifically contrasts with anode, which means literally ‘way up’.
=> exodus, odometer
catholic: catholic: [14] Etymologically, the Catholic Church is the universal church, comprising all Christians. For catholic comes ultimately from a Greek word, katholikós, meaning ‘relating to all, general’. It was a derivative of kathólou, a compound formed from katá ‘relating to’ and hólos ‘whole’ (source of English holism and holistic). It passed into English via Old French catholique or ecclesiastical Latin catholicus. Its original meaning is preserved today in such contexts as ‘catholic tastes’ – that is, ‘wideranging tastes’.
=> holistic
cattle: cattle: [13] Ultimately, cattle is the same word as chattel [13], and when it first entered English it had the same meaning, ‘property’. From earliest times, however, it was applied specifically to livestock thought of as property. In the Middle Ages it was a wide-ranging term in animal husbandry, being used for horses, sheep, pigs, and even poultry and bees, as well as cows, and such usages survived dialectally until comparatively recently, but from the mid 16th century onwards there is increasing evidence of the word’s being restricted solely to cows.

Its ultimate source is medieval Latin capitāle ‘property’, which came to English via Old French chatel as chattel and via Anglo-Norman catel as cattle. Capitāle itself goes back to classical Latin capitālis (from caput ‘head’), from which English gets capital.
=> capital, chattel
caucus: caucus: [18] Caucus ‘closed party meeting’ is believed to be of native American origin. Certainly its early usage was restricted to the USA (it did not reach British English until the 1870s, when it became something of a political buzzword for a time). In form and meaning it strongly resembles caucauasu, a word meaning ‘counsellor’ in the Algonquian languages of eastern Canada and the USA which was recorded in print by Captain John Smith (1580– 1631), an early English colonist in America.
caudal: caudal: see queue
cauldron: cauldron: [13] Etymologically, cauldrons are for heating not food but people. The word comes ultimately from Latin calidārium ‘hot bath’, which was a derivative of the adjective calidus ‘warm’ (related to English calorie, and, by a much more circuitous route, lee ‘sheltered area’ and probably lukewarm). Among the descendants of calidārium were late Latin caldāria ‘pot’, which produced French chaudière (possible source of English chowder) and Vulgar Latin *caldario, which passed into Anglo-Norman, with a suffix indicating great size, as caudron ‘large cooking pot’.

In English, the l was reintroduced from Latin in the 15th century.
=> calorie, chowder, nonchalant
cauliflower: cauliflower: [16] Cauliflower is literally ‘flowered cabbage’. English probably borrowed and adapted the word from Italian cavoli fiori, plural of cavolo fiore ‘cabbage flower’. Cavolo came from late Latin caulus, a variant of Latin caulis ‘cabbage’. This word originally meant ‘stem’, but the notion ultimately underlying it is ‘hollow stem’, for it can be traced back to an Indo-European base which also produced hole and hollow.

It was borrowed early on into the Germanic languages, and via this route has produced in English the now rare cole ‘cabbage, rape’[14] (more familiar in the Dutch borrowing coleslaw); the Scots version kale [13], from Old Norse kál, best known south of the border in the form curly kale; and via German kohlrabi [19], the last element of which is related to English rape the plant.
=> cole, coleslaw, hole, hollow, kale, kohlrabi
cause: cause: [13] Cause comes via Old French cause from Latin causa, which as well as ‘reason’ meant ‘law-suit’; this was carried over into English legal language (it survives in terms such as cause-list ‘list of cases to be tried’) and its use in expressions like ‘plead someone’s cause’ led in the late 16th century to a more general application ‘goal or principle pursued or supported’. French chose ‘thing’ also comes from Latin causa, in the weakened sense ‘matter, subject’.
=> excuse
causeway: causeway: [15] Etymologically, a causeway is a road paved with limestone. In late Middle English, the word was causey way, causey coming via Anglo-Norman *cauce from Vulgar Latin *calciāta, an adjective derived from Latin calx ‘limestone’ (source also of English chalk, calcium, and calculate). The simple form causey ‘causeway, path’ survived dialectally well into the 20th century, and its French relative chausée, ‘road’ is still very much alive.
=> calcium, calculate, chalk
caustic: caustic: see holocaust