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harem [harem 词源字典]: harem: [17] Etymologically, Arabic harīm is a ‘forbidden place’. It is a derivative of the verb harama ‘prohibit’ (whence also harmattan, literally ‘the forbidden one’, the name of a dry dusty Saharan wind). Hence it came to be applied to a part of a Muslim house reserved for women, and by extension to the women who lived there – the wives and concubines of the master of the household.

Synonymous terms in English include seraglio, which comes via Italian and Turkish from Persian serāi ‘residence, palace’, and forms the second element of caravanserai, and zenana, which is derived ultimately from Persian zan ‘woman’, a relative of Greek guné ‘woman’ (as in English gynaecology).
[harem etymology, harem origin, 英语词源]
harlequin: harlequin: [16] Harlequin, a brightly-clad character in the Italian commedia dell’arte, has a murky history. He seems to have originated in a mythical figure known in Old French as Herlequin or Hellequin, who was the leader of a ghostly troop of horsemen who rode across the sky at night. And Herlequin could well be a later incarnation of King Herla (in Old English Herla cyning), a legendary personage who has been identified with the chief Anglo-Saxon god Woden.

It seems likely that another piece of the jigsaw could be the erlking, the supernatural abductor of children described in a Goethe poem memorably set to music by Schubert; its name is generally traced back to Danish ellerkonge, a variant of elverkonge, literally ‘king of the elves’, which bears a resemblance to Herlequin that is surely too strong to be coincidental.

In early modern French Herlequin became Harlequin, the form borrowed by English (present-day French arlequin shows the influence of Italian arlecchino).
=> king
harlot: harlot: [13] The use of harlot for ‘prostitute’ is a comparatively recent development in the word’s history. It originally meant ‘tramp, beggar’, and did not come to mean ‘prostitute’ until the 15th century. It was borrowed from Old French harlot or herlot ‘vagabond’, a word of unknown ancestry with relatives in Italian (arlotto) and Provençal (arlot).
harm: harm: [OE] The ideas of ‘physical damage’ and ‘grief’ are intimately associated in the word harm: indeed, until the early 17th century it had both meanings, and its relatives, German and Swedish harm, mean exclusively ‘grief’. It appears to be related to Russian sram ‘shame, scandal’, but its ultimate ancestry is not known.
harmony: harmony: [14] The etymological idea behind harmony is ‘fitting things together’ – that is, of combining notes in an aesthetically pleasing manner. It comes via Old French harmonie and Latin harmonia from Greek harmoníā ‘means of joining’, hence ‘agreement, concord’, a derivative of harmós ‘joint’. As a musical term in Greek it appears to have denoted ‘scale’, or more simply just ‘music’, and its original use in English was for what we would now call ‘melody’.

It was not applied to the combination of notes to form chords (a practice which originated in the 9th century) until the 16th century. The term harmonica was coined in 1762 by the American physicist and statesman Benjamin Franklin for a musical instrument consisting of a set of water-filled glasses tuned to different notes and played with the fingers. It was first applied to the mouth-organ in the 19th century.
harness: harness: [13] Etymologically, harness is ‘equipment for an army’. It comes via Old French herneis ‘military equipment’ from an unrecorded Old Norse *hernest, a compound formed from herr ‘army’ (a descendant of prehistoric Germanic *kharjaz ‘crowd’ and related to English harangue, harbinger, harbour, and harry) and nest ‘provisions’.

English took it over in the general sense ‘equipment’, and did not apply it specifically to the straps, buckles, etc of a horse until the 14th century (it was originally used for any equestrian equipment, including reins, saddles, etc, but now it denotes exclusively the gear of a draught horse).
=> harangue, harbinger, harbour, harry, herald
harpsichord: harpsichord: [17] Harpsichord means literally ‘harp-string’. Harp [OE] is a Germanic word. It comes from a prehistoric West and North Germanic *kharpōn, which also produced German harfe, Dutch harp, and Swedish harpa, and was borrowed into the Romance languages via late Latin harpa (its Italian descendant, arpa, gave English arpeggio [18]). When the harpsichord was developed in the late 16th century, it was named in Italian arpicordo, a compound formed with corda ‘string’. English acquired the term via the now obsolete French harpechorde, for some unknown reason inserting an s in the process.
=> arpeggio, harp
harrier: harrier: see hare
harry: harry: [OE] Etymologically, to harry is to ‘go on a raid as an army does’. The word comes ultimately from prehistoric Germanic *kharjaz, which meant ‘crowd of people’ and also ‘army’ (it also produced English harangue, harbinger, harbour, and harness). From it was formed the verb *kharōjan, which passed into Old English as hergian. This developed into modern English harry, and it also produced the verb harrow ‘rob, plunder’, now obsolete except in the expression harrowing of hell (which denotes the rescuing by Christ, after his crucifixion, of the souls of the righteous held in captivity in hell).
=> harangue, harbinger, harbour, harness, harrow
harsh: harsh: [16] Harsh originally meant ‘hairy’. Its ancestor, Middle Low German harsch, was a derivative of the noun haer ‘hair’, and its exact English equivalent would have been hairish. By the time English acquired it, it had broadened out in meaning to ‘rough’, both literally and figuratively.
harvest: harvest: [OE] The idea underlying the word harvest is of ‘plucking, gathering, cropping’ – it comes ultimately from Indo-European *karp-, which also produced Greek karpós ‘fruit, crop, harvest’ (whence English carpel [19]) and Latin carpere ‘pluck’ (source of English carpet, excerpt, and scarce) – but its original meaning in English was ‘time of gathering crops’ rather than ‘act of gathering crops’.

Indeed, until as recently as the 18th century it was used as the name for the season now known as autumn (as its German relative herbst still is), and it was not until the 16th century that the present-day senses ‘act of gathering crops’ and ‘crops gathered’ began to develop.
=> carpet, excerpt, scarce
haste: haste: [13] Haste is a Germanic word, but English acquired it through Old French. The furthest back it can be traced is to a prehistoric West Germanic *khaistiz, which produced such now defunct offspring as Old English hǣst ‘violence’ and Old High German heisti ‘powerful’. Its survival is due to its acquisition by Old French as haste, which not only gave English the noun haste, but also contributed a related verb to German (hasten), Dutch (haasten), Swedish (hasta), and English (haste, largely superseded since the 16th century by hasten). The modern French noun is hâte.
hat: hat: [OE] Hat and hood are ultimately the same word, and denote literally ‘head-covering’. Both go back to Indo-European *kadh- ‘cover, protect’, which in the case of hat produced a Germanic derivative *khadnús, later *khattus. This was the source of English hat, and also of Swedish hatt and Danish hat (German hutt and Dutch hoed ‘hat’ are more closely related to English hood).
=> hood
hatchment: hatchment: see achieve
hate: hate: [OE] There are indications that the ancestral meaning of hate may have been a neutral ‘strong feeling’ rather than the positive ‘dislike’. It has been traced to a prehistoric Indo-European *kə des-, amongst whose other descendants were Greek kedos, which meant ‘care, anxiety, grief’, and Old Irish caiss, which meant ‘love’ as well as ‘hate’.

It is clear, though, that the notion of strong dislike became established fairly early, and that it was certainly the sense transmitted via Germanic *khatis-, source of German hass, Dutch haat, Swedish hat, Danish had, and English hate. The derivative hatred was formed from the verb in the 13th century with the suffix -red ‘condition’, as in kindred.

Old French borrowed the Germanic verb *khatjan ‘hate’ as haïr, and derived from it the adjective haïneus, acquired by English as heinous [14].
=> heinous
haughty: haughty: [16] To be haughty is to be ‘above oneself’, or, to put it another way, to be ‘on one’s high horse’. For etymologically, haughty means simply ‘high’. It is an alteration of an earlier, now dead English adjective haught, which was borrowed from Old French haut ‘high’, a descendant of Latin altus (whence English altitude).
=> altitude
haunt: haunt: [13] Etymologically, a ghost that haunts a building is only using the place as its ‘home’. The word’s distant ancestor is the prehistoric Germanic verb *khaimatjan, a derivative of the noun *khaimaz (source of English home). This was borrowed by Old French as hanter ‘frequent a place’, and passed on to English as haunt. Its main modern supernatural meaning did not develop until the 16th century (the first records of this sense come in Shakespeare’s plays).
=> home
have: have: [OE] Have and its Germanic cousins, German haben, Dutch hebben, Swedish ha, and Danish have, come from a prehistoric Germanic ancestor *khabēn. This was probably a product of Indo-European *kap-, which was also the source of English heave and Latin capere ‘seize’ (whence English capable, capture, etc). In all the Germanic languages it shares the function of denoting ‘possession’ with that of forming the perfect tense. (It appears, incidentally, to have no etymological connection with the superficially similar Latin habēre ‘have’.)
=> capable, captive, capture
haven: haven: [11] Etymologically, a haven is probably a ‘container’ for ships. The word appears to go back ultimately to Indo-European *kap-, source also of Latin capere ‘seize’ (whence English capable, capture, etc). This produced Old Norse höfn or hafn, which lies behind the modern Scandinavian words for ‘harbour’ (such as Swedish hamn and Danish havn), and was borrowed into late Old English as hæfen, whence modern English haven. Closely related is Dutch haven, from which German borrowed hafen ‘harbour’.
=> capable, captive, capture
haversack: haversack: [18] Etymologically, a haversack is a ‘bag for oats’. The word comes via French havresac from German habersack, a compound formed from the now dialectal haber ‘oats’ and sack ‘bag’. This denoted originally a bag used in the army for feeding oats to horses, but by the time it reached English it had broadened out to a ‘bag for soldiers’ provisions’, carried over the shoulders (northern dialects of English, incidentally, had the term haver for ‘oats’, probably borrowed from Old Norse hafri, and related forms are still widespread among the Germanic languages, including German hafer, Dutch haver, and Swedish and Danish havre.

It has been speculated that the word is related to Latin caper and Old Norse hafr ‘goat’, in which case it would mean etymologically ‘goat’s food’).