英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

half [half 词源字典]: Old English half, halb (Mercian), healf (W. Saxon) "side, part," not necessarily of equal division (original sense preserved in behalf), from Proto-Germanic *halbaz "something divided" (cognates: Old Saxon halba, Old Norse halfr, Old Frisian, Middle Dutch half, German halb, Gothic halbs "half"), perhaps from PIE (s)kel- (1) "to cut" (see shell (n.)). Noun, adjective, and adverb all were in Old English.

Used also in Old English phrases, as in modern German, to mean "one half unit less than," for example þridda healf "two and a half," literally "half third." The construction in two and a half, etc., is first recorded c. 1200. Of time, in half past ten, etc., first attested 1750; in Scottish, the half often is prefixed to the following hour (as in German, halb elf = "ten thirty"). To go off half-cocked in the figurative sense "speak or act too hastily" (1833) is in allusion to firearms going off prematurely; half-cocked in a literal sense "with the cock lifted to the first catch, at which position the trigger does not act" is recorded by 1750. In 1770 it was noted as a synonym for "drunk."[half etymology, half origin, 英语词源]
half seas over (adj.): slang for "drunk," 1736, sometimes said to be from notion of a ship heavy-laden and so low in the water that small waves (half seas) wash over the deck. This suits the sense, but the phrase is not recorded in this alleged literal sense. Half seas over "halfway across the sea" is recorded from 1550s, however, and it was given a figurative extension to "halfway through a matter" by 1690s. What drunkenness is halfway to is not clear.
half-: in genealogical combinations, "sharing one parent," Middle English, from half.
half-and-half (n.): 1756 as "ale and porter;" as a mixture of milk and cream, by 1946.
half-assed (adj.): "ineffectual," 1932; "Dictionary of American Slang" suggests it is perhaps a humorous mispronunciation of haphazard. Compare half-hearted.
half-baked (adj.): 1620s as "underdone;" colloquial figurative sense of "silly, immature" is from 1855; see half + bake (v.).
half-blood (n.): "person of mixed race," 1826; see half + blood (n.). As an adjective, "born of one parent the same and one different," from 1550s. Half-blooded as an adjective in this sense is from c. 1600.
half-breed (n.): "person of mixed race," 1760; as an adjective by 1762; from half + breed (n.).
half-brother (n.): early 14c., from half- + brother.
half-caste (adj.): 1789, Anglo-Indian, in reference to the offspring of a European father and an Asian mother, from half + caste.
half-cent (n.): U.S. copper coin minted from 1793 to 1857, established and named in the 1786 resolution for a new monetary system; see half + cent.
half-dime (n.): U.S. silver coin minted from 1792 to 1873; originally half-disme; later form by 1800; from half + dime.
half-eagle (n.): U.S. $5 gold coin minted from 1795 to 1929, authorized in the 1786 resolution for a new monetary system; see half + eagle in the coinage sense.
half-hearted (adj.): also halfhearted, "showing little enthusiasm," early 15c.; see half + hearted. Related: halfheartedly; halfheartedness. English in 17c. also had half-headed "stupid."
half-hour (n.): "period of thirty minutes," early 15c., from half + hour. Related: Half-hourly.
half-life (n.): also halflife, half life, 1864, "unsatisfactory way of living," from half + life; the sense in physics, "amount of time it takes half a given amount of radioactivity to decay" is first attested 1907.
half-mast: 1620s, from half + mast (n.1).
half-measure (n.): "incomplete effort," 1798, from half + measure (n.).
half-moon (n.): 1520s; from half + moon (n.).
half-price (n.): 1720, from half + price (n.).