英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

lapwing [lapwing 词源字典]: lapwing: [OE] The present-day form of the word lapwing is due to the notion that it describes the way the bird’s wings overlap in flight, but in fact although it did originally refer to the way the bird flies, it has no etymological connection with lap or wing. Its Old English form was hlēupwince, whose first element came from the ancestor of modern English leap, and whose second element went back to a base meaning ‘move from side to side’ that also produced English wink. So etymologically the lapwing is the ‘leapwink’, the bird that tumbles and jinks in flight – as indeed it does. Its alternative name peewit [13] describes its call.
[lapwing etymology, lapwing origin, 英语词源]
larceny: larceny: [15] The Latin word for ‘robber’ was latrō. Its original meaning was ‘mercenary soldier’, and it came from Greek látron ‘pay’ (a relative of latreíā ‘service, worship’, which provided the suffix in such English words as idolatry and bardolatry). From latrō was derived latrōcinium ‘robbery’, which passed into English via Old French larcin and its Anglo- Norman derivative *larcenie.
=> idolatry
large: large: [12] Latin largus, a word of unknown origin, meant ‘abundant’ and also ‘generous’. It retained the latter meaning when it came into English via Old French large (‘the poor King Reignier, whose large style agrees not with the leanness of his purse’, Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI 1593), but this now survives only in the derivative largesse [13]. ‘Abundant’, on the other hand, has provided the basis of the main modern English meaning ‘of great size’, which emerged in the 15th century.
lascivious: lascivious: see lust
lass: lass: [13] Like its male counterpart lad, lass has an obscure past. The form lasce, recorded in the 13th and 14th centuries, suggests the possibility that it may originally have come from a Scandinavian adjective related to Old Swedish løsk ‘unmarried’.
lassitude: lassitude: see late
lasso: lasso: see lace
last: last: [OE] Modern English has three separate words last, two of which are related. The adjective, meaning ‘after all others’, originated in prehistoric Germanic as the superlative form of late; its modern Germanic relatives include German letzt and Dutch laatst. The verb last ‘continue’ goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *laistjan ‘follow a track’, which also produced modern German leisten ‘perform, afford’.

This was derived from *laisti-, as was ultimately the noun last, which in Old English meant ‘footprint’ (‘shoemaker’s model foot’ is a secondary development). The general semantic thread ‘following a track’ can be traced back further via Germanic *lais- (a variant of which gave English learn) to Indo-European *leis- (source of Latin dēlīrāre, literally ‘deviate from a straight track’, from which English gets delirious [18]).
=> delirious, late, learn
latch: latch: see lace
late: late: [OE] English and Dutch (with laat) are the only modern European languages to use this word to express the idea of ‘behind time’. It comes from an Indo-European base *lad- ‘slow, weary’, which also produced Latin lassus ‘tired’ (source of English alas [13] and lassitude [16]). In prehistoric Germanic this gave *lataz ‘slow, sluggish’.

Its English descendant late originally meant ‘slow’ (and the related German lass still means ‘lazy’), but although this survived dialectally into the 19th century, in the mainstream language ‘delayed’ had virtually replaced it by the 15th century. From the same ultimate Indo-European source come English lease, let, and liege.
=> alas, lassitude, last, lease, let, liege
lather: lather: [OE] Indo-European *lou- denoted ‘wash’ (from it English gets laundry, lavatory, lotion, etc). Addition of the suffix *-tro- produced *loutrom, which passed via Germanic *lauthram into English as lather. In Old English this is only recorded as meaning ‘washing soda’, and the modern sense ‘soap bubbles’ does not emerge until the late 16th century.
=> ablution, laundry, lavatory, lotion
latitude: latitude: [14] Latin lātus meant ‘broad’. From it were derived dīlātāre ‘spread out’ (source of English dilate) and lātitūdō, which English took over as latitude. Its use as a cartographical term stems from the oblong maps of the ancient world, in which distance from north to south represented ‘breadth’ (hence latitude), and distance from east to west represented ‘length’ (hence longitude [16], from Latin longitūdō, a derivative of longus ‘long’).
=> dilate
latrine: latrine: see lavatory
laudanum: laudanum: [16] Laudanum, the name of a tincture of opium, a forerunner of modern heroin and crack, was coined by the 16th-century Swiss physician Paracelsus. He used it for a medicine of his own devising which according to the prescription he gave out contained all sorts of expensive ingredients such as gold leaf and pearls. It was generally believed, however, that the reason for the medicine’s effectiveness was a generous measure of opium in the mixture, and so in due course laudanum came to have its current use.

It is not known where Paracelsus got the name from, but he could well have based it on Latin lādanum ‘resin’, which came from Greek ládanon, a derivative of ledon ‘mastic’.
laugh: laugh: [OE] The word laugh is ultimately onomatopoeic, imitative of the sound of laughter. It goes back to Indo-European *klak-, *klōk-, which also produced Greek klóssein, a verb denoting the clucking of hens, and Latin clangere ‘sound’ (source of English clangor [16]). Its Germanic descendants were *khlakh-, *khlōkh-, from which come German and Dutch lachen, Swedish and Danish le, and English laugh.
=> clangor
launch: launch: English has two separate words launch. The verb, ‘propel’ [14], is related to lance. Lances are propelled by throwing, and so the derived Old French verb lancier was used for ‘throw’. English acquired it via the Anglo- Norman form launcher. The sense ‘put a boat into the water’ emerged at the end of the 14th century. From the same source came modern French élancer ‘throw out’, whose derivative élan was acquired by English in the 19th century. Launch ‘boat’ [17] comes via Portuguese lancha from a Malay word related to lancharan ‘boat’.
=> élan, lance
laundry: laundry: [16] Although it is better disguised than most of its relatives, laundry is one of a large family of English words derived from Latin lavāre ‘wash’ (see LAVATORY). It is a contraction of an earlier lavendry, which came via Old French lavanderie from Latin lavandārium ‘things to be washed’. By the time it reached English it had also acquired the meaning ‘place where things are washed’.
=> lavatory
lavatory: lavatory: [14] The notion of ‘washing’ was represented in prehistoric Indo-European by *lou-, which produced Greek loúein ‘wash’, English lather, and Latin lavāre ‘wash’. This last has been a fruitful source of English words, not all of them as obvious as lavatory, which originally meant simply ‘place or vessel for washing’ (its use for a ‘room containing a water closet’ appears to date from the 19th century).

Among its relatives are deluge [14], latrine [17] (from a contraction of Latin lavātrīna), laundry, lava [18] (from Italian lava, which originally denoted a ‘stream caused by sudden rain’), lavish [15] (from the metaphorical notion of an ‘outpouring’), and lotion [14]. And from Latin luere, the form taken on by lavāre after prefixes, we get ablution [14] and dilute [16]. Lavender [15] looks as though it should belong to the same family, but no actual connection has ever been demonstrated.
=> ablution, deluge, dilute, lather, latrine, laundry, lava, lavish, lotion
law: law: [10] Etymologically, a law is that which has been ‘laid’ down. English borrowed the word from Old Norse *lagu (replacing the native Old English ǣ ‘law’), which was the plural of lag ‘laying, good order’. This came ultimately from the prehistoric Germanic base *lag- ‘put’, from which English gets lay. It has no etymological connection with the semantically similar legal.
=> lay
lawn: lawn: English has two words lawn. ‘Grassy area’ [16] is ultimately the same word as land. It is an alteration of an earlier laund ‘glade’, which came from Old French launde ‘heath’, a borrowing from the same prehistoric Germanic source as produced English land. Lawn was originally used for ‘glade’ too, and it was not until the 18th century that its present-day meaning emerged. Lawn ‘fine linen or cotton’ [15] probably comes from Laon, the name of a town in northern France where linen was formerly manufactured.
=> land