英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

lager [lager 词源字典]: lager: [19] Lager is etymologically beer that has been matured by being kept in a ‘store’. English borrowed the term from German lagerbier, a compound based on the noun lager ‘storeroom’ (to which English laager and lair are closely related).
=> laager, lair[lager etymology, lager origin, 英语词源]
lagoon: lagoon: see lake
lair: lair: [OE] Etymologically a lair is a place where you ‘lie’ down. For it comes ultimately from the same Germanic base, *leg-, as produced English lie. In Old English it had a range of meanings, from ‘bed’ to ‘grave’, which are now defunct, and the modern sense ‘place where an animal lives’ did not emerge until the 15th century. Related Germanic forms show different patterns of semantic development: Dutch leger, for instance, means ‘bed’ and ‘camp’ (it has given English beleaguer [16] and, via Afrikaans, laager [19]) and German lager (source of English lager) means ‘bed’, ‘camp’, and ‘storeroom’. Layer in the sense ‘stratum’ [17] (which to begin with was a culinary term) may have originated as a variant of lair.
=> beleaguer, laager, lager, lay, layer, lie
lake: lake: English has two words lake. The one meaning ‘body of water’ [13] comes via Old French lac from Latin lacus. This goes back to the same prehistoric source as produced Gaelic loch (acquired by English in the 14th century) and Latin lacūna ‘hole, pit, pool’ (from which English got lacuna [17] and, via Italian or Spanish, lagoon [17]); this seems to have denoted ‘hole, basin’, the notion of ‘water-filled hole’ being a secondary development. Lake the colour [17], now usually encountered only in crimson lake, is a variant of lac, a term for a reddish resin or dye that comes via Dutch or French from Hindi lākh, and forms the second syllable of English shellac.

Its ultimate source is Sanskrit lākshā. Lacquer [16] comes via early modern French lacre ‘sealingwax’ from laca, the Portuguese version of lac.
=> lacuna, lagoon; lacquer, shellac
lamb: lamb: [OE] Lamb is a widespread word throughout the Germanic languages (German and Swedish have lamm and Dutch and Danish have lam), but no connections have ever been established with any animal-names in non- Germanic languages. In Gothic, lamb was used for ‘adult sheep’ as well as ‘lamb’.
lambent: lambent: see lap
lame: lame: [OE] Prehistoric Germanic had an adjective *lamon which meant ‘weak-limbed’, and seems to have originated in a base which meant something like ‘break by hitting’ (English lam ‘hit’ [16], as in ‘lam into someone’, and its derivative lambaste [17] probably come from the same source). In the modern Germanic languages it has diversified into two strands of meaning: Dutch, Swedish, and Danish lam denote mainly ‘paralysed’, a sense also present in German lahm, while English lame has taken the path of ‘limping, crippled’.
=> lam, lambaste
laminate: laminate: see omelette
Lammas: Lammas: see loaf
lamp: lamp: [12] A lamp is literally something that ‘shines’. The word comes via Old French lampe and Latin lampas from Greek lampás, which was derived from the verb lámpein ‘give light, shine’ (source also of English lantern). The Greek word originally denoted a ‘bunch of burning sticks, torch’, but in post-classical times it was applied to an ‘oil lamp’. The Old English word for ‘lamp’ was lēohtfoet, literally ‘lightvessel’.
=> lantern
lamprey: lamprey: [12] The words lamprey and limpet [OE] come from the same source: medieval Latin lamprēda. This was an alteration of an earlier, 5th-century lampetra, which has been plausibly explained as literally ‘stone-licker’ (from Latin lambēre ‘lick’, source of English lambent, and petra ‘stone’). The reason for applying such a name to the limpet is fairly obvious – it clings fast to rocks – but in fact the lamprey too holds on to rocks, with its jawless sucking mouth.
=> lambent, limpet, petrol
lance: lance: [13] Lance is now a fairly widespread word throughout the European languages: German has lanze, for instance, Swedish lans, Italian lancia, and Spanish lanza. English acquired the word from Old French lance, which in turn came from Latin lancea, but its ultimate origin may have been Celtic. Derived words in English include élan and launch. Lance corporals [18] were not named because they carried lances. The term was based on the now obsolete lancepesade ‘officer of lowest rank’, which came via Old French from Old Italian lancia spezzata, literally ‘broken lance’, hence ‘old soldier’.
=> élan, launch
land: land: [OE] Land goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *landam. This seems originally to have meant ‘particular (enclosed) area’ (ancestor of the modern sense ‘nation’), but in due course it branched out to ‘solid surface of the earth in general’. The term is now common to all the Germanic languages, and it has distant relatives in Welsh llan ‘enclosure, church’ and Breton lann ‘heath’ (source of French lande ‘heath, moor’, from which English gets lawn).
=> lawn
language: language: [13] Like English tongue, Latin lingua ‘tongue’ was used figuratively for ‘language’; from it English gets linguist [16] and linguistic [19]. In the Vulgar Latin spoken by the inhabitants of Gaul, the derivative *linguāticum emerged, and this became in due course Old French langage, source of English language. (The u in the English word, which goes back to the end of the 13th century, is due to association with French langue ‘tongue’.)
=> linguistic
languish: languish: see relish
lank: lank: see link
lanolin: lanolin: see wool
lantern: lantern: [13] Like lamp, lantern comes ultimately from the Greek verb lámbein ‘give light, shine’. Derived from this was the noun lamptér, which originally denoted ‘bunch of burning sticks, torch’, but was later extended to ‘lamp’. Latin borrowed it, and tacked on the ending of lucerna ‘lamp’ to produce lanterna, which English acquired via Old French lanterne. The translucent cover of lanterns was in former times usually made of horn, and so popular etymology from the 16th to the 19th centuries produced the spelling lanthorn.
=> lamp
lap: lap: English now has three distinct words lap, but probably two of them are ultimately related. Lap ‘upper legs of a seated person’ [OE] originally meant ‘flap of a garment’, and it goes back to a prehistoric Germanic source which also produced German lappen ‘rag, cloth, flap, lobe’, and which may lie behind label [14]. It seems likely that lap in the sense ‘folds of a garment’ was the basis of the Middle English verb lap, which meant ‘wrap’, and hence ‘extend beyond’.

From this come both the verb overlap [18] and the noun lap [18], whose modern meaning ‘one circuit of a course’ emerged in the 19th century. Lap ‘lick up’ [OE] comes from a prehistoric Germanic base *lap-, which was related to Latin lambēre ‘lick’ (source of English lambent [17], and possibly responsible also for lamprey and limpet).
=> label; lambent
lapis lazuli: lapis lazuli: see dilapidate