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fluctuate [fluctuate 词源字典]: fluctuate: see flux
[fluctuate etymology, fluctuate origin, 英语词源]
fluent: fluent: see flux
fluid: fluid: see flux
flush: flush: see flux
flute: flute: [14] Provençal flaut was probably the original source of flute, and it reached English via Old French floute or floite. Where flaut came from, however, is another matter, and a much disputed one. Some etymologists claim that it is ultimately simply an imitation of a high-pitched sound, its initial consonant cluster perhaps provided by Provençal flajol ‘small flute or whistle’ (source of English flageolet [17], but itself of unknown origin) and Latin flāre ‘blow’; others suggest a specific blend of flajol with Provençal laut, source of English lute.

The sense ‘groove’ developed in English in the 17th century, from a comparison with the long thin shape of the instrument. Related forms in English include flautist [19], whose immediate source, Italian flautisto, preserves the au diphthong of the Provençal source word flaut (American English prefers the older, native English formation flutist [17]); and perhaps flout [16], which may come from Dutch fluiten ‘play the flute’, hence ‘whistle at, mock’.
=> flout
flux: flux: [14] Flux denotes generally ‘flowing’, and comes from Latin fluxus, a derivative of the past participle of fluere ‘flow’. This verb, similar in form and meaning to English flow but in fact unrelated to it, is responsible for a very wide range of English words: its past participle has given us fluctuate [17], its present participle fluent [16] and a spectrum of derived forms, such as affluent, effluent [18], and influence, and other descendants include fluid [15] (literally ‘flowing’, from Latin fluidus), mellifluous (literally ‘flowing with honey’), superfluous [15], and fluvial [14] (from Latin fluvius ‘river’, a derivative of fluere).

Latin fluxus also produced the card-playing term flush [16].
=> affluent, effluent, fluctuate, fluent, fluid, influence, mellifluous, superfluous
fly: fly: [OE] Historically, ‘move through the air’ is something of a secondary semantic development for fly. Its distant Indo-European ancestor, *pleu-, denoted rapid motion in general, and in particular ‘flowing’ or ‘floating’, and it produced such offspring as Greek pléo ‘sail, float’ and Sanskrit plu- ‘sail, swim’, as well as English fleet, flood, flow, fowl, plover, and pluvial.

An extension to that base, *pleuk-, gave rise to Lithuanian plaukti ‘float, sail, swim’, and to prehistoric West and North Germanic *fleugan, source of German fliegen, Dutch vliegen, Swedish flyga, and English fly, all meaning ‘move with wings’. The insect-name fly is also of considerable antiquity, going back to a prehistoric Germanic derivative *fleugōn or *fleugjōn, but the origins of the adjective fly ‘crafty, sharp’ [19] are not known.
=> fleet, flood, flow, fowl, plover, pluvial
foal: foal: [OE] Foal goes back to a prehistoric source meaning ‘young, offspring’, which also produced Latin puer ‘child’ and English pony, poultry, pullet, pullulate, and even pool ‘common fund’. Its main Germanic descendant was *folon, which gave German fohlen and füllen, Dutch veulen, Swedish föl, and English foal, but another derivative of the same Germanic base produced English filly [15], probably borrowed from Old Norse fylja.
=> filly, pony, pool, poultry, pullet, pullulate
foam: foam: [OE] Foam is an ancient word, with several relatives widespread among the Indo-European languages, all denoting generally ‘substance made up of bubbles’: Latin pūmex, for instance, from which English gets pumice, and probably Latin spūma, from which we get spume [14]. These and other forms, such as Sanskrit phénas and Russian pena ‘foam’, point to a common Indo-European source *poimo-, which produced prehistoric West Germanic *faimaz – whence English foam.
=> pumice, spume
focus: focus: [17] Latin focus meant ‘fireplace’, and in post-classical times it came to be used for ‘fire’ itself – hence French feu, Italian fuoco, Spanish fuego, all meaning ‘fire’, and hence too the English derivatives fuel and fusillade. The first writer known to have used it in its modern sense ‘point of convergence’ was the German astronomer Johannes Kepler, in 1604, but the reason for his choice of word is not clear.

It may have been some metaphorical notion of the ‘hearth’ symbolizing the ‘centre of the home’, but it has also been suggested that it may have been preceded and inspired by the use of focus for the ‘burning point’ of a mirror (not actually recorded until somewhat later). The philosopher Thomas Hobbes appears to have introduced the term into English, in 1656. A medieval Latin derivative of focus was focārius, from which French got foyer ‘hearth, home’, borrowed by English in the 19th century for a public entrance hall or lobby.
=> foyer, fuel, fusillade
fodder: fodder: see food
foe: foe: [OE] Foe is the modern descendant of the Old English noun gefā ‘enemy’, a derivative of Germanic *faikh-. This also produced the Old English adjective fāh ‘hostile’, and was the ultimate source of modern English feud.
=> feud
foetus: foetus: [14] Foetus comes from Latin fētus ‘giving birth, offspring’, which also gave English fawn ‘young deer’. It was a noun use of the adjective fētus ‘pregnant, productive’, from whose derivative effētus English got effete. Probably it was related to Latin fēcundas (source of English fecund [14]) and fēlīx ‘happy’ (whence English felicity), and there could even be etymological links with fēmina ‘woman’, from which English gets feminine and female.
=> effete, fecund, felicity
fog: fog: [16] The word fog is something of a mystery. It first appears in the 14th century meaning ‘long grass’, a use which persists in Yorkshire fog, the name of a species of grass. This may be of Scandinavian origin. The relationship, if any, between fog ‘grass’ and fog ‘mist’ is not immediately clear, but it has been speculated that the adjective foggy, which to begin with referred to places overgrown with long grass, and then passed via ‘of grassy wetlands’ to ‘boggy, marshy’ may have given rise via this last sense to a noun fog denoting the misty exhalations from such marshy ground.

A rather far-fetched semantic chain, perhaps, lacking documentary evidence at crucial points, and perhaps Danish fog ‘spray, shower’ may be closer to the real source.
foible: foible: see feeble
foil: foil: English has three separate words foil. The oldest, ‘thwart’ [13], originally meant ‘trample’. It probably comes via Anglo-Norman *fuler from Vulgar Latin *fullāre, a derivative of Latin fullō ‘person who cleans and bulks out cloth, originally by treading’ (whence English fuller [OE]). Foil ‘metallic paper’ [14] comes via Old French from Latin folium ‘leaf’ (source also of English foliage [15] and folio [16]).

It originally meant ‘leaf’ in English too, but that usage died out in the 15th century. The modern notion of ‘one that enhances another by contrast’ comes from the practice of backing a gem with metal foil to increase its brilliancy, (Latin folium, incidentally, goes back to an Indo-European *bhel-, an extended form of which, *bhlō-, produced English blade, bloom, blossom, and flower.) The source of foil ‘sword’ [16] is not known, although the semantic development of blade from ‘leaf’ to ‘cutting part’ suggests the possibility that a similar process took place in the case of foil ‘leaf’.
=> fuller; blade, bloom, blossom, flower, foliage
foist: foist: see fist
fold: fold: [OE] The verb fold comes ultimately from the Indo-European base *pel-, which also produced Latin plicāre ‘fold’ (source of or related to English accomplice, complicated, explicit, perplex, plait, pleat, pliant, pliers, plight, ply, reply, and supple) and the final element -ple or -ble in such words as simple, double, or triple (which are hence related to the parallel Germanic formations twofold, threefold, etc).

Its Germanic descendant was *falthan, from which are descended German falten, Dutch vouwen, Danish folde, and English fold. The noun fold ‘enclosure for animals’ is of Germanic origin (Dutch has the related vaalt), but its distant antecedents are unknown.
=> accomplice, complicated, explicit, perplex, plait, pleat, pliers, plight, ply, reply, supple
foliage: foliage: see foil
folio: folio: see foil