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essence [essence 词源字典]: essence: [14] Essence and its derivative essential [14] are the English descendants of the Latin verb ‘to be’, esse (which came ultimately from the Indo-European base *es- ‘be’, source also of English is). From it was formed the abstract noun essentia ‘being, existence’, acquired by English through Old French essence. In the adjective essential, the sense ‘absolutely necessary’ developed via ‘inherent’ and ‘indispensable’ in the 16th century.
=> is[essence etymology, essence origin, 英语词源]
establish: establish: [14] Etymologically, to establish something is to ‘make it firm’. The word comes via Old French establir from Latin stabilīre, a derivative of stabilis ‘firm, secure’ (source of English stable and related to English stand). English originally acquired it at the end of the 13th century as stablish, but by the end of the 14th century the more ‘French’ spelling had been introduced, and gradually took over.
=> stable, stand
estate: estate: [13] Essentially, estate and state are the same word, and originally their meanings were very close (the now archaic ‘reach man’s estate’, for instance, signifies ‘reach the state of manhood’). From the 15th century, however, they began to diverge, estate taking a semantic path via ‘interest in property’ to ‘such property itself’, and finally, in the 18th century, to the ‘land owned by someone’. Both come via Old French estat from Latin status ‘way of standing, condition’ (source of English status), a derivative of the verb stāre ‘stand’ (a relative of English stand).
=> stand, state, statue, status
esteem: esteem: [15] Esteem and estimate [16] are fairly open about their relationship, but there is another, more heavily disguised member of the family: aim. All three come ultimately from Latin aestimāre. Estimate was a straightforward borrowing from the Latin past participle aestimātus, but esteem came via Old French estimer, and aim from the reduced Old French form esmer. Originally, esteem meant much the same as estimate does: ‘evaluate, assess’. But as early as the 16th century it had passed into ‘think highly of’ (a semantic development interestingly paralleled in the 20th century by rate).
=> aim, estimate
estrange: estrange: see strange
etch: etch: [17] A line that has been etched has been literally ‘eaten’ away by acid or other corrosives. The word was borrowed from Dutch etsen, which in turn came from German ätzen ‘corrode, etch’. This can be traced back to a prehistoric Germanic *atjan ‘cause to eat, feed’, a relation of *etan ‘eat’ (from which English gets eat).
=> eat
eternal: eternal: [14] Something that is eternal lasts literally for ‘aeons’. The word comes via Old French eternal from aeternālis, a late Latin development of the Latin adjective aeternus ‘eternal’. This in turn was a derivative of aevum ‘age’ (which crops up in English medieval, primeval, etc), a relative of Greek aión ‘age’ (from which English gets aeon) and archaic English aye ‘ever’.
=> aeon, aye, ever
ether: ether: [17] Greek aithér denoted the ‘upper atmosphere’, and by extension the ‘substance that permeated the cosmos’, from which the stars and planets were made. It was a derivative of the verb aíthein ‘ignite, blaze, shine’, a relative of Latin aestās ‘summer’, from which English gets aestivate [17]. It passed into English via Latin aethēr, and to begin with was used in its original Greek senses. Its application to the liquid with anaesthetic properties dates from the mid 18th century, the use of its first syllable in the names of organic compounds in the bicarbon series (such as ethyl and ethane) from the mid 19th century.
=> aestivate, ethyl
ethical: ethical: [17] The underlying meaning of Greek ēthos was ‘personal disposition’. It came ultimately from prehistoric Indo-European *swedh-, a compound formed from the reflexive pronoun *swe- ‘oneself’ and dhē- ‘put’ (from which English gets do). Gradually the meaning broadened out to ‘trait, character’ and then ‘custom’, or in the plural ‘manners’ or ‘morals’.

English acquired it, in the sense ‘distinctive characteristic’ (based on the usage of Aristotle), in the 19th century. The Greek derived adjective ēthikós entered English, via Latin ēthicus, as ethic in the 16th century. This had largely been replaced by ethical by the end of the 17th century, but it has survived as a noun (as in ‘the work ethic’), which actually predates the adjective in English by about two hundred years.

The plural usage ethics ‘science of morals’ dates from the beginning of the 17th century.
=> do
ethnic: ethnic: [14] Greek éthnos meant ‘nation, people’. However, its use in the Septuagint (the early Greek translation of the Old Testament) to render the Hebrew word for ‘gentile’ led to its derived adjective ethnikós, and hence Latin ethnicus, meaning virtually ‘heathen’. It was in this sense that English first acquired the word (‘an ethnic and a pagan king’, Nicholas Udall, Paraphrase of Erasmus 1545); indeed, early etymologists thought that English heathen came from éthnos. The word’s modern anthropological sense is a mid-19th-century return to its roots.
etiquette: etiquette: [18] Etiquette is, almost literally, ‘just the ticket’. The primary meanings of French étiquette are ‘ticket’ and ‘label’ – and indeed it is the source of English ticket. A particular application of it in former times was to a small card which had written or printed on it directions as to how to behave properly at court – hence it came to mean ‘prescribed code of social behaviour’.
=> ticket
etymology: etymology: [14] The underlying meaning of etymology is ‘finding the underlying or ‘true’ meaning of words’. Its ultimate source is Greek étumos ‘real, true’. From this was derived étumon ‘true or literal sense of a word’ (acquired by English in the 16th century as etymon). Postclassical grammarians came to use this in the sense ‘root from which a particular word was derived’, as a result of which modern etymology, the study of etymons, deals with their history rather than their meaning.
eucalyptus: eucalyptus: [19] Europeans first encountered eucalyptus trees in Australia at the end of the 18th century. The French botanist Charles Louis l’Héritier based its Latin name, which he coined in 1788, on the fact that its flower buds have a characteristic conical cover (the Greek prefix eumeans ‘well’ and Greek kaluptós means ‘covered’).
eucharist: eucharist: [14] The Greek-based eucharist corresponds to native English thanksgiving. It comes via Old French eucariste and late Latin eucharistia from Greek eukharistíā ‘gratitude’. This was a derivative of eukháristos ‘grateful’, a compound adjective formed from the prefix eu- ‘well’ and kharízesthai ‘show favour’. The verb in turn was formed from the noun kháris ‘favour, grace’ (source of English charisma [19] and probably a distant relative of yearn [OE]).
=> yearn
eunuch: eunuch: [15] Eunuch has no etymological connection with ‘castration’. It is simply the fact that in former times male harem attendants in Oriental courts had their testicles removed, to ensure that they were not distracted from their work, that has led ultimately to the equation of eunuch with ‘castrated man’. Literally, the word means ‘bed-guard’; it comes via Latin from Greek eunoukhos, a compound formed from euné ‘bed’ and ékhein ‘have charge of, keep’.
euphemism: euphemism: [17] Etymologically, euphemism means ‘speaking with good words’. Greek euphēmismós, a compound formed ultimately from the prefix eu- ‘good, well’ and phémē ‘speech, saying’ (a relative of English fable, fame, and fate), originally denoted the avoidance of words of ill omen at religious ceremonies, but it was subsequently taken up by grammarians to signify the substitution of a less for a more offensive word. Its opposite, dysphemism ‘use of a more offensive word’, is a modern coinage, formed in the late 19th century using the Greek prefix dus- ‘bad, difficult’.
=> fable, fame, fate
eureka: eureka: [16] The Greek mathematician Archimedes (c. 287–212 BC) was commissioned by King Hiero II of Syracuse to find out whether the goldsmith who had made a new crown for him had fraudulently mixed some silver in with the gold. In order to do so, Archimedes needed to ascertain the metal’s specific gravity. But how to do this? According to Plutarch, he decided to take a bath to ponder the problem.

He filled the bath too full, and some of the water overflowed – and it suddenly occurred to Archimedes that a pure-gold crown would displace more water if immersed than one made from an alloy. Elated at this piece of lateral thinking, Archimedes is said to have leapt out of the bath shouting heúrēka! ‘I have found!’, the perfect indicative of Greek heurískein ‘find’ (source of English heuristic [19]).

The earliest occurrence of the word in an English text as an exclamation of delight at discovery is in John Dee’s Preface, but there it appears in Greek characters; the first English author to fully naturalize it was probably Henry Fielding in Joseph Andrews 1742; ‘Adams returned overjoyed cring out “Eureka!”’ (The goldsmith, incidentally, had adulterated the gold.)
=> heuristic
euthanasia: euthanasia: [17] Etymologically, euthanasia means ‘good death’, and that was more or less its signification when it was introduced into English: ‘Give me but gentle Death: Euthanasia, Euthanasia, that is all I implore’, Tatler 1709. The modern use of the word, ‘mercy killing’, seems to have originated in the 1860s; the first recorded use of it was by William Lecky in his History of European morals 1869. The term is borrowed from Greek euthanasíā, a compound based on the prefix eu- ‘good’ and thánatos ‘death’.
evanescent: evanescent: see vanish
evangelist: evangelist: [12] The original sense of evangelist was ‘writer of a gospel’. English used to have the word evangel ‘gospel’. This came via Old French evangile and ecclesiastical Latin evangelium from Greek euaggélion, which in classical times meant ‘reward for bringing good news’ (it was a compound based ultimately on the prefix eu- ‘good, well’ and the noun ággelos ‘messenger’ – source of English angel).

Later on it came to mean simply ‘good news’, and in early Christian texts written in Greek it denoted specifically any of the four books of the New Testament written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. (English gospel was originally a literal translation of it.) Evangelist itself comes from the Greek derivative euaggelistés.
=> angel