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frock [frock 词源字典]: frock: [14] Frock is a Germanic word, although English acquired it via Old French froc. It originally meant ‘long coat or tunic’ – a sense reflected in the related Old High German hroc ‘mantle, coat’, and preserved in English frock coat and unfrock ‘dismiss from the office of clergyman’ (frock once having denoted a ‘priest’s cassock’, and hence symbolized the priestly office). Its application to a ‘woman’s dress’ dates from the 16th century.
[frock etymology, frock origin, 英语词源]
frog: frog: [OE] Frog comes from Old English frogga, which probably started life as a playful alternative to the more serious frosc or forsc. This derived from the pre-historic Germanic *fruskaz, which also produced German frosch and Dutch vorsch. Its use as a derogatory synonym for ‘French person’ goes back to the late 18th century, and was presumably inspired by the proverbial French appetite for the animals’ legs (although in fact frog as a general term of abuse can be traced back to the 14th century, and in the 17th century it was used for ‘Dutch person’).

It is not clear whether frog ‘horny wedge-shaped pad in a horse’s hoof’ [17] and frog ‘ornamental braiding’ [18] are the same word; the former may have been influenced by French fourchette and Italian forchetta, both literally ‘little fork’.
frolic: frolic: [16] Like its source, Dutch vrolijk, and the related German fröhlich, frolic was originally an adjective meaning ‘happy’. This usage had died out by the end of the 18th century, but in the meantime the adjective had been converted into a verb, and thence into a noun, both of which are still with us. (Dutch vrolijk was formed from the adjective vro ‘happy’, which probably goes back ultimately to a prehistoric Indo-European source which meant primarily ‘spring upwards, move swiftly’.)
from: from: [OE] From goes back ultimately to Indo- European *pr, which also produced English first, for, fore, foremost, former, and before. The addition of a suffix -m gave a word denoting ‘forward movement, advancement’ (as in Greek prómos ‘foremost’). By the time it reached Old English as from or fram the notion of ‘moving forward or onward’ had passed into ‘moving away’. The related fro [12], now little used except in to and fro, comes from Old Norse frá.
=> before, first, for, fore, former, forth, fro, primary
front: front: [13] As its close French relative front still does, front used to mean ‘forehead’. Both come from Latin frōns, a word of dubious origins whose primary meaning was ‘forehead’, but which already in the classical period was extending figuratively to the ‘most forwardly prominent part’ of anything. In present-day English, only distant memories remain of the original sense, in such contexts as ‘put up a brave front’ (a now virtually dead metaphor in which the forehead, and hence the countenance in general, once stood for the ‘demeanour’).

The related frontier [14], borrowed from Old French frontiere, originally meant ‘front part’; its modern sense is a secondary development.
=> frontier
frontispiece: frontispiece: [16] The final syllable of frontispiece has no etymological connection with piece. It comes from *spic-, a root denoting ‘see’ which is also represented in conspicuous and spectator. Here, as in the related auspices, its particular application is ‘divination by observation’. Added to Latin frōns ‘forehead’ it produced late Latin frontispicium, which originally meant ‘judgment of character through interpretation of facial features’.

Gradually it weakened semantically through ‘face’ to simply ‘front part’, and when English first acquired it, it was used for the ‘principal façade of a building’ (‘an indiscreet builder, who preferreth the care of his frontispiece before the maine foundation’, Richard Brathwait, English Gentleman 1630). By the 17th century, however, the word’s modern meaning ‘illustration facing the title page’ was becoming established. (Spellings based on an erroneous association with piece, incidentally, occur as early as the 16th century.)
=> auspices, conspicuous, front, inspect, spectator, spy
frost: frost: see freeze
frown: frown: [14] Probably the underlying notion of frowning is ‘snorting’ rather than ‘wrinkling the brows’. It comes from Old French froignier, which meant ‘snort’ as well as ‘frown’. It is assumed to have been adopted into French from a Celtic language of Gaul, and would therefore have been related to Welsh ffroen ‘nostril’.
fructify: fructify: see fruit
fructose: fructose: see fruit
frugal: frugal: [16] Paradoxically, frugal comes from a source that meant ‘fruitful’. English borrowed it from Latin frūgālis, which was derived from the adjective frūgī ‘useful’. This in turn was the dative case of the noun frūx ‘fruit, value’, which came from the same base as frūctus, the source of English fruit. The links in the semantic chain seem to have been that something that was ‘useful, valuable, or productive’ was also ‘profitable’, and that in order to be ‘profitable’ it must be ‘economical’ – hence frugal’s connotations of ‘careful expenditure’.
=> fruit
fruit: fruit: [12] English acquired fruit via Old French fruit from Latin frūctus, a source more clearly on display in fructify [14], fructose [19], etc. The underlying meaning of the Latin noun seems to have been ‘enjoyment of that which is produced’, for it came, like frūx (source of English frugal), from a base which also produced the verb fruī ‘enjoy’.

By classical times, however, it had passed from ‘enjoyment’ to the ‘product’ itself – the ‘rewards’ of an enterprise, the ‘return’ on an investment, or the ‘produce’ obtained from the soil or from farm animals. When it reached English this latter meaning had narrowed down somewhat, but it was still capable of being used far more broadly, for any ‘edible vegetable’, than we would do today, except in certain archaic expressions such as ‘fruits of the earth’.

The modern restriction to the edible reproductive body of a tree, bush, etc dates from the 13th century. English retains, of course, the more general sense ‘product, result’, although this is now usually expressed by the plural fruits.
=> fructify, frugal
frustrate: frustrate: [15] Frustrate comes from Latin frūstrātus ‘disappointed, frustrated’, the past participle of a verb formed from the adverb frūstrā ‘in error, in vain, uselessly’. This was a relative of Latin fraus, which originally meant ‘injury, harm’, hence ‘deceit’ and then ‘error’ (its English descendant, fraud [14], preserves ‘deceit’). Both go back to an original Indo- European *dhreu- which denoted ‘injure’.
=> fraud
fry: fry: Fry ‘cook in fat’ [13] and fry ‘young fish’ [14] are quite distinct words. The former comes via Old French frire from Latin frīgere, a cooking term which covered what we would now distinguish as ‘roasting’ and ‘frying’. It goes back ultimately to Indo-European *bhreu-, which also produced Latin fervēre ‘boil’ (source of English fervent).

Its past participle frictus formed the basis of Vulgar Latin *frīctūra, from which, via Old French, English gets fritter [14]; and the past participial stem of the French verb, fris-, may lie behind English frizz [17]. Fry ‘small fish’ may come from Anglo-Norman frie, a derivative of Old French freier ‘rub, spawn’, which in turn goes back to Latin frīgere ‘rub’.
=> fervent, fritter, frizz
fuck: fuck: [16] The most celebrated of the so-called ‘Anglo-Saxon’ four-letter words goes back in written form no further than the early 16th century – a far cry from the Old English period. A personal name John le Fucker, however, recorded from 1278, shows that it was around before 1500 (perhaps not committed to paper because even then it was under a taboo). There is little doubt that it is of Germanic origin, but its precise source has never been satisfactorily identified.

All the earliest known examples of the word come from Scotland, which may suggest a Scandinavian source, related to Norwegian dialect fukka ‘copulate’, and Swedish dialect focka ‘copulate, hit’ and fock ‘penis’.
fudge: fudge: [17] Fudge the verb, ‘evade’, probably comes from an earlier fadge, which meant ‘fake, deceive’, and hence ‘adjust, fit’, and this in turn probably goes back to a Middle English noun fage ‘deceit’ – but where fage came from is not clear. Fudge as the name of a type of toffee, which is first recorded in the late 19th century, may be a different use of the same word – perhaps originally ‘toffee “cooked up” or “bodged up” in an impromptu manner’.
fuel: fuel: [14] The notions of ‘fuel’ and ‘fire’ are closely connected etymologically. Fuel comes via Anglo-Norman fuaille from medieval Latin focālia, which was used in legal documents as a term for the ‘right to demand material for making a fire’. It was a derivative of Latin focus ‘fireplace, fire’, which also gave English focus, foyer, and fusillade.
=> focus, foyer, fusillade
fugitive: fugitive: see refuge
fugue: fugue: see refuge
full: full: [OE] Full and its verbal derivative fill go back ultimately to the Indo-European base *plē-, which also produced Latin plēnus ‘full’ (source of English plenary, plenty, and replenish, and of French plein and Italian pieno ‘full’) and English complete, deplete [19] (literally ‘unfill, empty’), implement, plebeian, plethora, plural, plus, replete [14], supply, and surplus [14].

The Indo- European derivative *plnós passed into prehistoric Germanic as *fulnaz, which eventually became *fullaz, source of German voll, Dutch vol, and Swedish and English full. Fulfil dates from the late Old English period; it originally meant literally ‘fill full, fill up’.
=> complete, deplete, fill, implement, plenty, plethora, plural, plus, replete, supply, surplus