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folk [folk 词源字典]: folk: [OE] Folk comes from a prehistoric Germanic *folkam, which also produced German and Dutch volk and Swedish and Danish folk. It is not clear where this came from, although it has been linked with the Indo- European base *pel-, *plē- ‘fill’, which might also have produced Latin populus ‘people’. On the other hand Russian polk’, thought to have been borrowed from the Germanic form, means ‘division of an army’, and it is conceivable that this may preserve an earlier semantic stratum, represented also in Old Norse folk, which signified both ‘people’ and ‘army’.
[folk etymology, folk origin, 英语词源]
follow: follow: [OE] Follow is a widespread Germanic verb (German has folgen, for instance, Dutch volgen, Swedish följa, and Danish følge, pointing to a prehistoric West and North Germanic *flug-), but its ultimate origins are not known
folly: folly: see fool
foment: foment: see favour
fond: fond: [14] Fond originally meant ‘foolish’, and the likeliest explanation of its rather problematic origin is that it was a derivative of the Middle English noun fon ‘fool’ (its Middle English spelling fonned suggests that it was formed with the suffix -ed, just as wretched was formed from wretch). However, where fon (probably a relative of modern English fun) comes from is another matter.

Links with Swedish fåne ‘fool’ have been suggested but never established for certain. The adjective’s modern meaning ‘having a great liking’, incidentally, developed in the 16th century via an intermediate ‘foolishly doting’. Fondle [17] is a back-formation from the now obsolete fondling ‘foolish person’, a derivative of fond.
=> fondle, fun
font: font: English has two words font. The older, ‘basin for baptismal water’ [OE], comes from font-, the stem of Latin fons ‘spring, fountain’ (from which English also gets fountain). It may well have been introduced into the language via Old Irish fant or font (it was often spelled fant in Old English). Font ‘set of type’ [16] (or fount, as it is often also spelled) was borrowed from French fonte, a derivative of fondre ‘melt’ (whence also English fondant, fondu, and foundry).
=> fountain; fondant, foundry
food: food: [OE] Food and its Germanic relatives, German futter ‘fodder’, Dutch voedsel ‘food’, and Swedish föda ‘food’, all go back ultimately to a prehistoric Indo-European base *pā-, *pī-, which also produced Latin pābulum ‘fodder’, Russian pisca ‘food’, and Czech pice ‘fodder’. The immediate source of all the Germanic forms was *fōth-, which had two important derivatives: *fōthram, which gave English fodder [OE] and (via Old French) forage [14] and foray [14] (etymologically probably a ‘search for food’); and *fōstrom, source of English foster.
=> feed, fodder, forage, foray, foster
fool: fool: [13] Fool comes via Old French fol from Latin follis, which originally meant ‘bellows’ (and may come ultimately from Indo-European *bhel-, which produced English bellows). In post-classical times it developed semantically via ‘windbag’ and ‘fatuous person’ to ‘idiot’. Fool ‘dessert of puréed fruit and cream’ [16] appears to be the same word, applied (like trifle) to a light insubstantial dessert. Folly [13] comes from the Old French derivative folie.
=> folly
foot: foot: [OE] Foot traces its ancestry back to Indo- European *pōd-, *ped-, which provided the word for ‘foot’ in most modern Indo-European languages (the exceptions are the Slavic languages, whose ‘foot’ – words, such as Russian noga and Czech noha, come from a source that meant ‘claw’, and the Celtic languages – such as Welsh troed and Irish troigh).

Descendants include Greek poús ‘foot’ (whence English antipodes, pew, podium [18], and tripod, literally ‘three-footed’, a formation mirrored exactly by Latin trivet [15] and Hindi teapoy [19]), Persian pāē or pay (whence English pyjama), Sanskrit pádas ‘foot’ (source of pie ‘unit of Indian currency’), and Lithuanian pedà ‘footstep’, but the most fruitful of all from the point of view of the English lexicon has been Latin pēs, source of impede, pawn ‘chess piece’, pedal, pedestal, pedestrian, pedicure, pedigree, pedometer, peon, pioneer, quadruped, vamp, and velocipede (it also, of course, gave French pied, Italian piede, and Spanish pie).

Its Germanic descendant was *fōr-, which produced German fuss, Dutch voet, Swedish fot, Danish fod, and English foot. Other related forms in English include pilot and trapeze.
=> antipodes, impede, pawn, pedal, pedestal, pedestrian, pedigree, pilot, pioneer, podium, pyjamas, quadruped, trapeze, tripod, vamp
footle: footle: [19] Footling appears to have originated as a euphemistic equivalent to fucking. It probably comes from a dialectal footer ‘mess about, fuck around’, which may well have been acquired from French foutre ‘copulate with’, a descendant of Latin futuere ‘copulate with’ (whose origin is not known).
footpad: footpad: see pad
for: for: [OE] For comes from a prehistoric Germanic *fora, which denoted ‘before’ – both ‘before’ in time and ‘in front’ in place. For itself meant ‘before’ in the Old English period, and the same notion is preserved in related forms such as first, fore, foremost, former, from, and of course before. Germanic *fora itself goes back to Indo- European *pr, source also of Latin prae ‘before’, pro ‘for’, and primus ‘first’ (whence English premier, primary, etc), Greek pará ‘by, past’, pró ‘before’, and protos ‘first’ (whence English protocol, prototype, etc). and English forth and further.
=> before, first, fore, former, forth, from, further, premier, primary
forage: forage: see food
foray: foray: see food
forbid: forbid: [OE] Forbid is a compound verb that appears to have been coined in prehistoric Germanic times from the prefix *fer-, denoting negation or exclusion (as in forget) and *bithjan, source of English bid – hence, ‘command not to do something’. It produced German verbieten and Dutch verbieden ‘forbid’ as well as English forbid.
=> bid
force: force: [13] The ultimate source of force is Latin fortis ‘strong’, which also gave English comfort, effort, fort, etc. In post-classical times a noun was formed from it, *fortia ‘strength’, which passed into English via Old French force. (The force of forcemeat [17], incidentally, is a variant of farce, in its original sense ‘stuff’, and is not etymologically related to force ‘strength’.)
=> comfort, effort, fort
ford: ford: [OE] Ford is an ancient word, whose origins can be traced back as far as prehistoric Indo- European *prtús, a derivative of *por- ‘going, passage’, which also produced English fare and ferry. Descendants of *prtús include Latin portus ‘harbour’ (source of English port), Welsh rhyd ‘ford’, West Germanic *furduz (whence German furt ‘ford’ and English ford) and North Germanic *ferthuz (source of English fiord or fjord [17] and firth [15]).
=> fare, ferry, fiord, firth, fjord, ford, port
foreign: foreign: [13] Etymologically, foreign means ‘out of doors’. It comes via Old French forein from Vulgar Latin *forānus, a derivative of Latin forās ‘out of doors, abroad’. This originated as the accusative plural of *fora, an unrecorded variant form of forēs ‘door’ (to which English door is related). The literal sense ‘outdoor’ survived into Middle English (the chambre forene mentioned by Robert of Gloucester in his Chronicle 1297, for instance, was an ‘outside loo’), but by the early 15th century the metaphorical ‘of other countries, abroad’ had more or less elbowed it aside.
=> door, forest, forfeit
foremost: foremost: see former
forensic: forensic: see forum