英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

letter [letter 词源字典]: letter: [13] The distant ancestry of the word letter has never been satisfactorily explained. One possible candidate as a source that has been put forward is Greek diphthérai ‘writing tablets’. But the earliest precursor that can be positively identified is Latin littera. This meant ‘alphabetic symbol’, or in the plural ‘document’ and ‘epistle’. English acquired it via Old French lettre. Also from Latin littera are English literature and obliterate [16], which means etymologically ‘remove letters’.
=> literature, obliterate[letter etymology, letter origin, 英语词源]
lettuce: lettuce: [13] The lettuce was named for the milky white sap that exudes from its stalk when cut. The Latin for milk is lac (source of English lactation [17] and lactose [19]), and so the lettuce was christened lactūca. This passed into English via laituës, the plural of Old French laituë.
=> lactation, lactose
leukaemia: leukaemia: see light
level: level: [14] The Latin word for a ‘balance’ or ‘scales’ was libra (it has given English Libra the zodiacal sign [14] and also lies behind many terms for units of measurement, including litre and the abbreviation lb for ‘pound’). Its diminutive form was lībella, which denoted an ‘instrument for checking horizontality’, and hence a ‘horizontal line’. It passed into Old French as livel (which in modern French has become niveau ‘level’), and English took it over as level.
=> litre
liable: liable: [15] Today’s main meaning of liable, ‘likely to’, is a comparatively recent development. Its primary sense is ‘legally bound or obliged’ (as in ‘liable for someone else’s debts’), which goes right back to the word’s ultimate source, Latin ligāre ‘tie’. Its Old French descendant lier is assumed to have give rise to an Anglo-Norman derivative *liable, literally ‘bindable’, which English took over.

Other English words that come ultimately from ligāre include ally, liaison [17], lien [16] (etymologically a ‘bond’), ligament [14], ligature [14], oblige, religion, and rely.
=> ally, liaison, lien, ligament, ligature, oblige, religion, rely
libel: libel: see library
liberal: liberal: [14] The Latin word for ‘free’ was līber. It came from the same prehistoric source as Greek eleútheros ‘free’, which may have denoted ‘people, nation’ (in which case the underlying etymological meaning of the word would be ‘being a member of the (free) people’, as opposed to ‘being a slave’). From līber was derived līberālis ‘of freedom’, which passed into English via Old French liberal.

Its earliest English meanings were ‘generous’ and ‘appropriate to the cultural pursuits of a ‘free’ man’ (as in ‘the liberal arts’). The connotations of ‘tolerance’ and ‘lack of prejudice’ did not emerge until the 18th century, and the word’s use as a designation of a particular political party in Britain dates from the early 19th century. Also from Latin līber come English libertine [14] and liberty [14].
=> libertine, liberty
libidinous: libidinous: see love
library: library: [14] The Latin word for ‘book’ was liber. It is related to Russian lub ‘bark’ and Lithuanian luba ‘board’, and originally denoted ‘bark’, as used for writing on before the introduction of papyrus. From it was derived librāria ‘bookseller’s shop’, which Old French took over as librairie and passed on to English. The English word has only ever been used for a ‘place where books are kept’, or for a ‘collection of books’, but French librairie now exclusively means ‘bookseller’s shop’.

Other English derivatives of Latin liber include libel [13] (from the diminutive form libellus ‘little book’; it originally denoted in English simply a ‘formal written claim by a plaintiff’, and did not take on its current connotations of ‘defamation’ until the 17th century) and libretto [18] (also literally a ‘little book’, from an Italian diminutive form).
=> libel, libretto
licence: licence: see leisure
lick: lick: see lecher
lid: lid: [OE] The prehistoric Germanic ancestor of lid was *khlitham, which also produced Dutch lid and the -lid of German augenlid ‘eyelid’. It comes ultimately from the Indo-European base *kli- ‘cover, shut’.
lie: lie: [OE] English has two words lie. The verb ‘recline’ goes back, together with its Germanic relatives (German liegen, Dutch liggen, Swedish ligga. Danish ligge), to a prehistoric base *leg-, a variant of the base *lag- which produced lay. Both come ultimately from Indo-European *legh-, *logh-, whose other English descendants include litter and low. The verb ‘tell untruths’ and its related noun come from a Germanic base *leug-, *loug-, represented also in German lügen, Dutch liegen, Swedish ljuga, and Danish lyve. The second syllable of English warlock comes from the same source.
=> lay, lig, litter, low; warlock
lien: lien: see liable
lieutenant: lieutenant: [14] Etymologically, a lieutenant is someone who ‘holds the place’ of another (more senior) officer – that is, deputizes for him. The word comes from French lieutenant, a compound formed from lieu ‘place’ and tenant (source of English tenant). Lieu (borrowed independently by English as lieu [13] in the phrase ‘in lieu of’) comes in turn from Latin locus ‘place’, source of English local. Locum tenens [17] (or locum for short) ‘temporary replacement’, literally ‘holding the place’, is thus a parallel formation with lieutenant.

Spellings of lieutenant with -f-, indicating the still current British pronunciation /lef-/, first appear as early as the 14th century.
=> lieu, local, tenant
life: life: [OE] Prehistoric Germanic *līb- denoted ‘remain, be left’. From this was formed the noun *lībam, which in due course produced English life (the semantic connection between ‘remaining’ and life – and the closely related live – is thought to lie in the notion of being ‘left alive after a battle’). Of the noun’s Germanic relatives, Swedish and Danish liv still mean ‘life’, but German leib and Dutch liff have moved on semantically to ‘body’. English alive is a derivative of life, not of the verb live.
=> live
lift: lift: see loft
lig: lig: [20] The verb lig, meaning ‘freeload, sponge’, and its derivative ligger, achieved a particular prominence in late 20th-century British English. But in fact its roots go back far into the past. In origin it is simply a variant version of the verb lie ‘recline’. In Old English times this was licgan, and although in the mainstream language licgan became lie, liggen survived dialectally. The sense ‘lie about’ passed naturally into ‘lounge about lazily’, and apparently merged with another dialectal sense ‘steal’ to produce the word’s current meaning.
=> lie
ligament: ligament: see liable
ligature: ligature: see liable