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masochism [masochism 词源字典]: masochism: [19] The term masochism was based on the name of Leopold von Sacher- Masoch (1836–95), an Austrian novelist who used the theme of gaining sexual gratification from the infliction of pain on oneself in his writings
[masochism etymology, masochism origin, 英语词源]
mason: mason: [13] English originally acquired mason in the form machun, from Anglo-Norman. In the 14th century it was remodelled as masoun or mason on the basis of Old French masson. The derivation of this is disputed. Some etymologists claim that it comes via a Vulgar Latin *matiō from prehistoric Germanic *mattjon (source of German steinmetz ‘stonemason’), but an alternative theory traces it back to a Frankish *makjo, a derivative of *makōn ‘make’.
masquerade: masquerade: see mask
mass: mass: English has two distinct words mass. The one meaning ‘Eucharist’ [OE] comes from late Latin missa, a noun use of the feminine past participle of mittere ‘send’ (source of English admit, commit, dismiss, mission, etc) possibly arising from Ite, missa est ‘Go, it is the dismissal’, the last words of the Latin Eucharist service. Mass ‘amount of matter’ [14] comes via Old French masse and Latin massa from Greek maza ‘barley cake’, hence ‘lump, mass’.

The derivative massive [15] goes back ultimately to Vulgar Latin *massīceus. A possible relative is massage [19], a borrowing from French. It was a derivative of masser ‘massage’, which may have been acquired from Portuguese amassar ‘knead’, a verb based on massa ‘mass, dough’.
=> admit, commit, dismiss, mission, transmit; massage, massive
master: master: [OE] The Latin word for ‘master, chief’ was magister (which is generally assumed to have been based on the root of Latin magis ‘more’ and magnus ‘big’, source of English magnify, magnitude, etc). Its more obvious English descendants include magistrate and magisterial, and indeed English originally acquired magister itself in the 10th century in the form mægister, but over the years (partly under the influence of Old French maistre) this developed to master.

The feminine counterpart mistress [14] was borrowed from Old French maistresse, a form maintained in English for some time. The alteration of mais- to mis- began in the 15th century, due probably to the weakly-stressed use of the word as a title (a phenomenon also responsible for the emergence of mister [16] from master). The abbreviated miss followed in the 17th century.
=> magistrate, magnitude, magnum, miss, mister, mistress
mastiff: mastiff: [14] Despite its rather fierce reputation, a mastiff may etymologically be a ‘tamed’ dog, a dog ‘accustomed to the hand’. The word seems to have come into the language as an alteration of Old French mastin, which was a descendant of the Vulgar Latin *mānsuētīnus ‘tame’. This in turn went back to Latin mānsuūtus, a compound adjective based on manus ‘hand’ and suēscere ‘accustom’.
=> manual
masturbate: masturbate: see manual
mat: mat: English has two distinct words mat. The one meaning ‘small carpet’ [OE] is ultimately of Latin origin (matta), but it found its way into the West Germanic group of languages in prehistoric times, and has produced German matte and Dutch mat as well as English mat. Mat (or matt) meaning ‘dull’ [17] comes from French mat ‘dead’, which is also the source of the chess term mate.
=> mate
matador: matador: see mate
match: match: There are two unrelated words match in English, of which the older is ‘counterpart’ [OE]. This goes back to an Old English gemæcca ‘mate’, whose ancestry can be traced to a prehistoric *gamakjon, a word based on the collective prefix *ga- and *mak- ‘fit’ (source of English make). Its etymological meaning is thus ‘fitting well together’.

The use of the word as a verb emerged in the 14th century. Match ‘ignitable stick’ [14] originally meant ‘wick’. It comes via Old French meiche from Latin myxa ‘lamp nozzle’. The first record of its modern use for ‘ignitable stick’ comes from 1831 (the synonymous lucifer is exactly contemporary, but had virtually died out by the end of the 19th century).
=> make
mate: mate: [14] Mate ‘friend’ and mate the chess term are two distinct words. The former was borrowed from Middle Low German mate or gemate ‘companion’ (source also of Dutch maat), which goes back to a prehistoric West Germanic *gamaton. This was formed from the collective prefix *ga- and *mat- ‘measure’, which was also the source of English meat; so etymologically mate (like companion) is ‘someone you eat with or share your food with’.

The chess term mate comes from Old French mat ‘dead’. This was short for eschec mat (source of English checkmate), which comes from Persian shāh māt ‘the king is dead’. Persian māt ‘dead’ also contributed the verb matar ‘kill’ to Spanish, from which was derived matador [17], literally ‘killer’.
=> meat; mat, matador, matte
material: material: [14] Etymologically, material is simply a derivative of matter. It comes via Old French materiel from late Latin māteriālis, a derivative of Latin māteria ‘matter’ (source of English matter). The modern French form of the word was reborrowed as materiel ‘military equipment’ [19].
=> material, matter
maternal: maternal: [15] Maternal and maternity [17] are the central English representatives of the Romance-language branch of the great Indo- European ‘mother’ word-family. Both go back to Latin māter ‘mother’ (source of French mère and Italian and Spanish madre), whose derived adjective māternus reached English via Old French maternel. Other English words that come ultimately from māter include material and matter, matrix [16] (from which also come madrigal and matriculate [16], etymologically ‘enter on a matrix or list’), and matrimony [14].
=> mother
mathematics: mathematics: [16] Etymologically, mathematics means ‘something learned’. Its ultimate source was the Greek verb manthánein ‘learn’, which came from the same Indo- European base (*men-, *mon-, *mn- ‘think’) as produced English memory and mind. Its stem form math- served as a basis of a noun máthēma ‘science’, whose derived adjective mathēmatikós passed via Latin mathēmaticus and Old French mathematique into English as mathematic, now superseded by the contemporary mathematical [16]. Mathematics probably comes from French les mathématiques, a rendering of the Latin plural noun mathēmatica.

From earliest times the notion of ‘science’ was bound up with that of ‘numerical reasoning’, and when mathematics reached English it was still being used for various scientific disciplines that involved geometrical calculation, such as astronomy and physics, but gradually over the centuries it has been narrowed down to a cover term for the abstract numerical sciences such as arithmetic, algebra, and geometry.

The abbreviated form maths dates from the early 20th century, the preferred American form math from the late 19th century. The original meaning of the word’s Greek ancestor is preserved in English polymath ‘person of wide learning’ [17].
=> memory, mind, polymath
matins: matins: see mature
matriculate: matriculate: see madrigal
matrix: matrix: see madrigal
matter: matter: [14] Matter comes via Anglo-Norman matere from Latin māteria ‘matter’. This was originally applied to the ‘hard inner wood of a tree’, and etymologically denoted the ‘matrix’ or ‘mother’ from which the tree’s new growth came (it was a derivative of Latin māter ‘mother’). The verbal use of matter dates from the late 16th century. Material originated as a derivative of Latin māteria.
=> material, mother
mattress: mattress: [13] Etymologically, a mattress is something ‘thrown’ down on the floor to lie on. The word comes via Old French materas and Italian materasso from Arabic matrah ‘mat, cushion’, a derivative of the verb taraha ‘throw’.
mature: mature: [15] ‘Earliness’ is the etymological notion underlying the word mature. It goes back ultimately to a pre-Latin base *mātu-, which produced the Latin adjective mātūrus ‘timely, early’, direct source of the English word (in Old French mātūrus became mur ‘ripe’, which played a part in the emergence of English demure). Another Latin derivative of *mātu- was Mātūta, the name of the Roman goddess of the dawn. From this in turn was derived the adjective mātūtīnus ‘of the morning’, source of English matins [13] and matutinal ‘of the morning’ [17].
=> demure, matins