英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

marinade [marinade 词源字典]: marinade: [17] Etymologically, to put food in a marinade is virtually to dunk it in the ‘sea’; for the word comes via French from Spanish marinada, a derivative of marina ‘of the sea’. It originally signified strictly a ‘brine pickle’ (hence the reference to the sea), and only gradually broadened out to include vinegar and other preservatives. The related verb marinate [17] comes from French mariner or Italian marinare.
=> marine[marinade etymology, marinade origin, 英语词源]
marine: marine: [15] The Latin word for ‘sea’ was mare (borrowed into English in the 19th century as a term for any of the sea-like dark areas on the moon). It goes back to Indo-European *mori-, *mari-, which also produced Russian more ‘sea’, Welsh mor ‘sea’, and English mere ‘lake’ (the mer- of mermaid). The Romance-language terms for ‘sea’ (French mer, Italian and Romanian mare, and Spanish mar) are descended from it. And its derived adjective, marīnus, has given English marine (and mariner [13]). Maritime [16] is another derivative. Marina [19] was borrowed from Italian.
=> marinade, maritime, mere
mark: mark: English has two words mark, although they may be ultimately related. Mark ‘sign, trace’ [OE] goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *markō. This seems originally to have denoted ‘boundary’ (that is what Old English mearc meant, and related forms such as march ‘border’ and margin still bear witness to it), but the notion of a ‘sign denoting a boundary’ seems to have led early on to the development of the word’s main present-day sense. Remark is closely related, as are marquis and marchioness, and marquetry [16], borrowed from French marqueterie, a derivative of marque ‘mark’, denotes etymologically work that is ‘marked’ with patterns. Mark ‘coin’ [OE] comes from medieval Latin marcus or marca, which may well derive ultimately from the ancestor of mark ‘sign, trace’ (its etymological meaning being ‘mark on a piece of metal, constituting a coin’).
=> demarcation, march, margin, marquetry, marquis, remark
market: market: [12] The Latin word for ‘goods to be sold’ was merx (source of English commerce, merchant, and mercury). From it was derived the verb mercārī ‘buy’, and its past participle produced the noun mercātus ‘trade, market’. In Vulgar Latin this became *marcātus, which was adopted into early Middle English as market. The now seldom used synonym mart [15] comes from early modern Dutch mart, a variant of markt ‘market’.
=> commerce, mart, merchant, mercury
marmalade: marmalade: [16] The word marmalade originally denoted ‘quince jam’. It comes via French from Portuguese marmelada, a derivative of marmelo ‘quince’. And marmelo goes back via Latin melimēlum to Greek melímēlon, a term meaning literally ‘honeyapple’ which was applied to the fruit of an apple tree grafted on to a quince (the second element, melon ‘apple’, is the source of English melon). Not until the 17th century was marmalade used for a preserve made from citrus fruits.
=> melon
marmot: marmot: see mouse
maroon: maroon: English has two distinct and completely unrelated words maroon. The one denoting ‘brownish red’ and ‘firework’ [16] has had a chequered semantic history, as its present-day diversity of meanings suggests. It comes ultimately from medieval Greek máraon ‘sweet chestnut’, and reached English via Italian marrone and French marron (as in marrons glacés).

It was originally used for ‘chestnut’ in English too, but that sense died out in the early 18th century, leaving behind the colour term (an allusion to the reddish brown of the chestnut’s inner shell) and ‘firework, exploding projectile’ (perhaps a reference to the shape of such devices). Maroon ‘abandon’ [17] comes from the noun maroon. This originally meant ‘runaway slave’, and comes via French from American Spanish cimarron.

The most widely accepted derivation of this is that it was based on Spanish cima ‘summit’, a descendant of Latin cyma ‘sprout’, and that it thus denotes etymologically ‘one who lives on the mountain tops’.
marquetry: marquetry: see mark
marquis: marquis: [14] Etymologically, a marquis is a lord of the ‘marches’ or borderlands. The word comes from Old French marquis, an alteration of an earlier marchis. This was a derivative of medieval Latin marca ‘border, frontier’, source of archaic English march ‘border’. The feminine form marchioness [16] comes from medieval Latin marchionissa, a derivative of marchiō ‘lord of the marches’, which likewise was based on marca.

The French feminine form of marquis is marquise. This was borrowed into English in the 17th century and used for a ‘large tent’. It soon came to be misanalysed as a plural form, and so a new ‘singular’, marquee, was born.
=> march, mark, marquee
marry: marry: [13] Latin marīus meant ‘husband’ (it may go back to an Indo-European *mer-, *mor-, which meant something like ‘young person’ – Lithuanian has the related marti ‘bride’ – and in that case would denote etymologically ‘man who has been provided with a young woman as a bride’). From it was derived the verb marītāre ‘marry’, which passed into English via Old French marier. Marriage [13] likewise comes from Old French.
marsh: marsh: [OE] The immediate origin of marsh is Germanic: it comes from a prehistoric West Germanic. *marisk-, which also produced German marsch and Dutch marsk. This was probably a derivative of Germanic *mari ‘sea’ (source of English mere ‘lake’), whose relatives included Latin mare ‘sea’ (source of English marine).
=> marine, mere
marshal: marshal: [13] Etymologically, a marshal is a ‘horse-servant’. The word goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *markhaskalkaz ‘groom’, a compound based on *markhaz ‘horse’ (source of English mare [OE]) and *skalkaz ‘servant’. This was borrowed into late Latin as mariscalcus, and passed from there via Old French mareschal into English. In the course of its journey its status gradually rose, and by the time it reached English it denoted a ‘high officer of state’.
=> mare
mart: mart: see market
martial: martial: [14] Latin mārtiālis denoted ‘of Mars, the god of war’ (his name goes back to an early Latin Māvors). In its journey via Old French to English it acquired the meaning ‘of war’. The application of the name Mars to the red planet dates back to Roman times, as does the adjective Martian [14] (from Latin Mārtiānus), which in modern English refers exclusively to the astronomical Mars. The god also gave his name to the first month of the Roman calendar – whence English March.
=> mars
martinet: martinet: [17] The word martinet comes from the name of Jean Martinet, a 17th-century French army officer who invented a system of drill. Indeed, it was as the term for this new drill that martinet was first used in English (‘What, d’ye find fault with Martinet? … ’tis the best exercise in the World’, William Wycherley, The Plain-Dealer 1676); not until the 18th century did the figurative sense ‘rigid disciplinarian’ emerge.
martyr: martyr: [OE] Etymologically, a martyr is a ‘witness’ – that was the original meaning of Greek mártur, which came ultimately from Indo-European *mer ‘remember’ (source of English memory, mourn, remember, etc). In Christian usage, the notion of someone dying as a ‘witness’ to their faith led to the application of mártur to ‘martyr’, and it was in this sense that it passed via Latin martyr into Old English.
=> memory, mourn, remember
marvel: marvel: see mirror
marzipan: marzipan: [19] The word marzipan has long puzzled etymologists. An elaborate theory was formulated in the early 20th century that traced it back to Arabic mawthabān ‘king who sits still’. That was applied by the Saracens to a medieval Venetian coin with a figure of the seated Christ on it. A series of fairly implausible semantic changes led from ‘coin’ via ‘box’ to ‘confectionery’, while the form of the word supposedly evolved in Italian to marzapane.

This turns out to be completely wide of the mark (not surprisingly), but the truth seems scarcely less remarkable. In Burma (now Myanmar) there is a port called Martaban, which was renowned in the Middle Ages for the jars of preserves and fruits exported from there to Europe. The name of the place came to be associated with its products, and in Italian, as marzapane, it denoted a type of sweetmeat (-pane for -ban suggests that some people subconsciously connected the word with Italian pane ‘bread’). Marzapane and its relatives in other languages (such as early modern French marcepain) entered English in the 16th century, and from the confusion of forms the consensus spelling marchpane emerged.

This remained the standard English word for ‘marzipan’ until the 19th century, when marzipan was borrowed from German; this was an alteration of Italian marzapane, based on the misconception that it came from Latin marci pānis ‘Mark’s bread’.
masculine: masculine: see male
mask: mask: [16] Mask may be of Arabic origin. The word maskharah ‘buffoon’ has been postulated as the source of Italian maschera, from which, via French masque, English got mask. In modern English, the word is largely restricted to ‘face covering’, but a range of other senses developed during the 16th and 17th centuries, including ‘masked ball’ and ‘allegorical dramatic entertainment’, which are now lumped together under the French spelling masque. The derivative masquerade [16] was borrowed from French mascarade, with the spelling of masque later grafted on to it.
=> masque, masquerade