英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

fuller [fuller 词源字典]: fuller: see foil
[fuller etymology, fuller origin, 英语词源]
fulminate: fulminate: [15] Etymologically, fulminate means ‘strike with lightning’. It comes from Latin fulmināre, a derivative of fulmen ‘lightning’. In medieval Latin its literal meaning gave way to the metaphorical ‘pronounce an ecclesiastical censure on’, and this provided the semantic basis for its English derivative fulminate, although in the 17th and 18th centuries there were sporadic learned reintroductions of its original meteorological sense: ‘Shall our Mountains be fulminated and thunder-struck’, William Sancroft, Lex ignea 1666.
fume: fume: [14] Fume comes via Old French fum from Latin fūmus ‘smoke, steam’. This in turn went back to a prehistoric Indo-European *dhūmo-, which also produced Sanskrit dhūmás ‘smoke’ and Russian and Polish dym ‘smoke’. The word’s verbal use, ‘be very angry’, comes, like seethe, from the notion of being ‘hot or steaming with fury’. Derived words in English include fumigate [16] and perfume.
=> fumigate, perfume
fun: fun: [17] A fun was originally a ‘trick, hoax, practical joke’: ‘A Hackney Coachman he did hug her, and was not this a very good Fun?’ Thomas D’Urfey, Pills to Purge Melancholy 1719. It came from the contemporary verb fun ‘cheat, hoax’, which was presumably a variant of the Middle English verb fon ‘make a fool of’. This in turn was a verbal use of the noun fon ‘fool’, probable origin of modern English fond.

The current sense of fun, ‘amusement, merriment’, did not develop until the 18th century. The derived adjective funny, in the sense ‘amusing’, was roughly contemporary with it; ‘strange, odd’ is an early 19th-century semantic development.
=> fond
funambulist: funambulist: see funicular
function: function: [16] The ultimate source of function is the Latin verb fungī ‘perform, discharge’, which may be related to Sanskrit bhunkte ‘he enjoys’. From its past participle, functus, was formed the abstract noun functiō ‘performance, activity’, which passed into English via Old French fonction. Other English derivatives of fungī include defunct and perfunctory [16], etymologically ‘done only to discharge an obligation’.
=> defunct, perfunctory
fund: fund: [17] Latin fundus meant ‘bottom’. English originally acquired it via French as fond, and in the course of the 17th century re-latinized it to fund. The literal meaning ‘bottom’ was retained until the mid 18th century (‘a Glass-Bubble fix’d to the Fund of a Vessel’, British Apollo 1709), but gradually it gave way to the metaphorical ‘basic supply, particularly of money’. From fundus was derived the Latin verb fundāre ‘lay the bottom for, establish’ (source of English found), and the next step on from this was the noun fundāmentum ‘bottom part, foundation’, which gave English fundament [13] and fundamental [15].
=> found, fundament
funeral: funeral: [14] Latin fūnus, a word of uncertain origin, meant ‘funeral’ and, probably secondarily, ‘corpse’. From it was derived the adjective fūnerālis, which English acquired via Old French in the 14th century. The noun funeral followed in the 16th century; it came from the same ultimate source, of course, but by a slightly different route – from medieval Latin fūnerālia via Old French funeraille.
fungus: fungus: [16] Fungus was introduced into English in the early 16th century as a learned and more all-embracing alternative to mushroom. It was borrowed from Latin fungus, which probably came from Greek sphóngos ‘sponge’, source of English sponge.
=> sponge
funicular: funicular: [19] A funicular railway is literally one that runs on a ‘rope’. The word was coined from Latin fūniculus, a diminutive form of fūnis ‘rope’ (a word of uncertain origin from which comes Italian fune ‘cable, rope’). Fūnus also gave English funambulist ‘tightrope walker’ [18].
=> funambulist
funnel: funnel: [15] Etymologically, a funnel is something used for ‘pouring in’. The word comes via Provençal fonilh from Latin infundibulum ‘funnel’. This was a derivative of infundere ‘pour in’, a compound verb formed from in- ‘in’ and fundere ‘pour’ (source of English found ‘melt’, foundry, and fuse).
=> found, foundry, fuse
fur: fur: [14] Old English did not have a distinct word for ‘animal’s hair’ – the nearest approach to it was fell ‘animal’s hide’. Then in the 13th century English acquired the verb fur ‘line with fur’ from Anglo-Norman *furrer or Old French forrer ‘encase, line’. These were derivatives of the Old French noun forre ‘sheath, case’, a loanword from prehistoric Germanic *fōthram ‘sheath’, which in turn goes back to the Indo-European base *pō- ‘protect’.

In the 14th century the new English verb was taken as the basis for a noun, which originally meant ‘trimming for a garment, made from fur’, or more loosely ‘garment made from fur’; it was not until the 15th century that it was used for ‘animal’s hair’.
furl: furl: see firm
furlong: furlong: [OE] Furlong ‘eighth of a mile’, which has now virtually died out except in horse-racing terminology, is part of a vocabulary of lengthmeasuring bequeathed to us by the agricultural practices of our ancestors. It originated as an Old English compound formed from furh ‘furrow’ and lang ‘long’ – that is, the length of a furrow ploughed across a standard-sized square field of ten acres.

Since the term acre varied somewhat in its application at different times and places, the length of a furlong could not be computed with great precision from it, but in practice from about the 9th century the furlong was pegged to the stadium, a measure equal to one eighth of a Roman mile.
=> furrow, long
furnace: furnace: [13] Etymologically, furnace means roughly ‘warm place’. It comes via Old French fornais from Latin fornāx ‘furnace’. This was a derivative of fornus ‘oven’, a word related to formus ‘warm’, which goes back to the same Indo-European source, *ghworm-, *ghwerm-, as probably produced English warm.
=> fornication
furnish: furnish: [15] Far apart as they may now seem, furnish is closely parallel in its development with frame. Both originated as verbs based on from, in its earliest signification ‘forward movement, advancement, progress’. Frame was a purely English formation, but furnish goes back beyond that to prehistoric Germanic, where it was formed as *frumjan. This was borrowed into Vulgar Latin as *fromīre, which in due course diversified to *formīre and *fornīre, the form adopted into Old French as furnir.

Its lengthened stem furniss- provided English with furnish. To begin with this retained the ancestral sense ‘advance to completion, accomplish, fulfil’ (‘Behight [promise] no thing but that ye may furnish and hold it’, Melusine 1500). However, this died out in the mid 16th century, leaving the field clear for the semantic extension ‘provide’. The derivative furniture [16] comes from French fourniture, but its main meaning, ‘chairs, tables, etc’, recorded from as early as the 1570s, is a purely English development (the majority of European languages get their word for ‘furniture’ from Latin mōbīle ‘movable’: French meubles, Italian mobili, Spanish muebles, German möbel, Swedish möbler, Dutch meubelen, Russian mebel’ – indeed, even Middle English had mobles, though it retained the broader meaning ‘movable property’).

By another route, Old French furnir has also given English veneer.
=> from, furniture, veneer
furrow: furrow: [OE] Furrow is an ancient agricultural term, going back to the prehistoric Indo- European base *prk-, which also produced Welsh rhych ‘furrow’, Armenian herk ‘newly ploughed land’, Latin porca ‘ridge between furrows’, and possibly also Sanskrit parçãna- ‘chasm’ and Latin porcus ‘grave’. Its Germanic descendant was *furkh-, which produced German furche, Dutch voor, Swedish fåra, and English furrow.
=> furlong
further: further: [OE] Etymologically, further is simply a comparative form of forth, and originally meant nothing more than simply ‘more forward’. Its more metaphorical senses, ‘in addition’ and ‘to a greater extent’, are secondary developments. It was formed in the pre-historic Germanic period, and so has relatives in other Germanic languages, such as German vorder. Its verbal use is apparently equally ancient.
=> forth
furtive: furtive: [15] Etymologically, someone who is furtive ‘carries things away like a thief’. The word comes via Old French furtif from Latin furtīvus ‘stealthy, hidden’, a derivative of furtum ‘theft’, which in turn was based on fūr ‘thief’. This was either borrowed from or related to Greek phór ‘thief’, which came ultimately from Indo-European *bher- ‘carry’ (source of English bear) and thus meant literally ‘someone who carries things off’. A ferret is etymologically a ‘furtive’ animal.
=> bear, ferret
furze: furze: see gorse