英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

ma'am [ma'am 词源字典]: also maam, 1660s, colloquial shortening of madam (q.v.). At one time the ordinary respectful form of address to a married woman; later restricted to the queen and royal princesses or used by servants to their mistresses.[ma'am etymology, ma'am origin, 英语词源]
Maat: Egyptian goddess, literally (in Egyptian) "truth."
Mabel: fem. proper name, shortening of Amabel. Enjoyed its greatest popularity as a given name for girl babies in U.S. from c. 1884-1895.
Mac: casual, generic term of address for a man, 1928, from Irish and Gaelic mac, a common element in Scottish and Irish names (literally "son of;" see Mac-); hence used generally from early 19c. for "a Celtic Irishman."
Mac-: common element in Scottish and Irish names, from Old Celtic *makko-s "son." Cognate root *makwos "son" produced Old Welsh map, Welsh mab, ap "son;" also probably cognate with Old English mago "son, attendant, servant," Old Norse mögr "son," Gothic magus "boy, servant," Old English mægð "maid" (see maiden).
macabre (adj.): early 15c., originally in reference to a kind of morality show or allegorical representation of death and his victims, from Old French (danse) Macabré "(dance) of Death" (1376), of uncertain origin, probably a translation of Medieval Latin (Chorea) Machabæorum, literally "dance of the Maccabees" (leaders of the Jewish revolt against Syro-Hellenes; see Maccabees). The association with the dance of death seems to be from vivid descriptions of the martyrdom of the Maccabees in the Apocryphal books. The abstracted sense of "gruesome" is first attested 1842 in French, 1889 in English.
The typical form which the allegory takes is that of a series of pictures, sculptured or painted, in which Death appears, either as a dancing skeleton or as a shrunken corpse wrapped in grave-clothes to persons representing every age and condition of life, and leads them all in a dance to the grave. ["Encyclopaedia Britannica," 11th ed., 1911]
Macaca: monkey genus, Modern Latin, from Portuguese macaca, fem. of macaco, a name from an African language of the Congo.
macadam (n.): 1824, named for inventor, Scottish civil engineer John L. McAdam (1756-1836), who developed a method of leveling roads and paving them with gravel and outlined the process in his pamphlet "Remarks on the Present System of Road-Making" (1822). Originally the word meant road material consisting of a solid mass of stones of nearly uniform size laid down in layers (McAdam did not approve of the use of binding materials or rollers). The idea of mixing tar with the gravel began 1880s.
macadamia (n.): Australian evergreen tree, 1904, from Modern Latin (1858), named for Scotland-born chemist Dr. John Macadam (1827-1865), secretary of the Victoria Philosophical Institute, Australia, + abstract noun ending -ia.
macadamization (n.): 1826, noun of action from macadamize.
macadamize (v.): 1825 (implied in macadamized), from macadam + -ize. In early use also mcadamize. Related: Macadamizing. Also macadamise, macadamised.
macaque (n.): East Indian monkey, 1757, from French macaque, from Portuguese macaco "monkey," a Bantu word brought from Africa to Brazil (where it was applied 17c. to a type of monkey there). Introduced as a genus name 1840.
macaroni (n.): "tube-shaped food made of dried wheaten paste" [Klein], 1590s, from southern Italian dialectal maccaroni (Italian maccheroni), plural of maccarone, name for a kind of pasty food, possibly from maccare "bruise, batter, crush," which is of unknown origin, or from late Greek makaria "food made from barley."

Used by 1769 to mean "a fop, a dandy" ("typical of elegant young men" would be the sense in "Yankee Doodle") because it was an exotic dish at a time when certain young men who had traveled the continent were affecting French and Italian fashions and accents. There is said to have been a Macaroni Club in Britain, which was the immediate source of this usage in English.
macaronic (adj.): 1610s, in reference to a form of verse consisting of vernacular words in a Latin context with Latin endings; applied loosely to verse in which two or more languages are jumbled together; from Modern Latin macaronicus (coined 1517 by Teofilo Folengo), from dialectal Italian maccarone (see macaroni), in reference to the mixture of words in the verse: "quoddam pulmentum farina, caseo, botiro compaginatum, grossum, rude, et rusticanum" [Folengo].
macaroon (n.): 1610s, "small sweet cake consisting largely of ground almonds," from French macaron (16c.), from dialectal Italian maccarone (see macaroni). French meaning said to have been invented 1552 by Rabelais. The -oon ending was conventional in 15c.-17c. English to add emphasis to borrowings of French nouns ending in stressed -on.
Macassar (adj.): especially in Macassar oil (1809), hair tonic originally advertised as made from materials obtained from Macassar (1660s), name of a district on the island of Celebes (modern Sulawesi); from native Mangkasara.
Macau: from Portuguese corruption of southern Chinese ama (name of a patron goddess of sailors) + ngao "bay, port."
macaw (n.): species of large, long-tailed birds, 1660s, from Portuguese macau, from a word in a Brazilian language, perhaps Tupi macavuana, which may be the name of a type of palm tree the fruit of which the birds eat.
Macbeth: masc. proper name, Gaelic, literally "son of life." The first reference to bad luck associated with Shakespeare's "Macbeth," and to avoidance of naming it, is from 1896, alludes to an incident of 1885, and says the tradition goes back "so far as modern memory can recall." The original superstition seems to have pertained particularly to the witches' scenes, which were played up dramatically in 19c. productions, and especially to Matthew Locke's 17c. music to accompany the witches' song, which was regularly played through the 19th century.
It is strange how the effect of this music has exerted such a long surviving influence on members of the dramatic profession. It is still considered most unlucky to sing, hum, or whistle the witch airs in the theatre except in the ways of business. [Young-Stewart, "The Three Witches," in "The Shakespearean," Sept. 15, 1896]

If you number an actor or actress among your friends, and desire to retain his or her friendship, there are three things you positively must not do, especially if the actor is of the old school. Do not whistle in the theatre, do not look over his shoulder into the glass while he is making up, and do not hum the witch's song from "Macbeth." ... [O]lder actors would almost prefer to lose their salary than go on in "Macbeth" on account of this song. They believe that it casts spells upon the members of the company. ["Some Odd Superstitions of the Stage," "Theatre" magazine, July 1909]
Maccabees: late 14c., from Late Latin Maccabæus, surname given to Judas, third son of Mattathias the Hasmonean, leader of the religious revolt against Antiochus IV, 175-166 B.C.E. Usually connected with Hebrew maqqabh "hammer," but Klein thinks it an inexact transliteration of Hebrew matzbi "general, commander of an army." Related: Maccabean.