英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

maudlin [maudlin 词源字典]: maudlin: [16] Maudlin represents a gradual erosion of the pronunciation of Magdalen (exhibited also in the case of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges that have taken that name). The word originated as the name given to a woman called Mary who came from Magdala on the Sea of Galilee, and who according to the Bible was present at Christ’s crucifixion and was the first to meet him after he had risen from the dead. In the Middle Ages she was generally represented in paintings as crying, and so maudlin came to be used for ‘oversentimental’.
[maudlin etymology, maudlin origin, 英语词源]
maul: maul: see mallet
maulstick: maulstick: see mole
maundy: maundy: [13] Maundy Thursday commemorates Christ’s washing of the apostles’ feet at the Last Supper. The first antiphon sung at the Catholic Maundy service begins Mandātum novum dō vōbis ‘I give you a new commandment’, and so in medieval Latin mandātum (source of English mandate) came to be used as the name for the commemorative ceremony. The word passed into Old French as mandé, whence English maundy.
=> mandate, manual
mausoleum: mausoleum: [16] The original mausoleum was a vast marble tomb (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world) erected in 353 BC for Mausolus, king of Caria in Asia Minor by his widow Artemisia. Its architect was Pythius, and its site was at Halicarnassus (now Bodrum in Turkey). Its Greek name was mausōleion, and it passed into English as a generic term for a ‘large tomb’ via Latin mausōlēum.
mauve: mauve: [19] Etymologically, mauve is the colour of the ‘mallow’ flower. The word was borrowed from French mauve, whose original meaning was ‘mallow’, and which was descended from Latin malva ‘mallow’. English took over malva in the Old English period as mealuwe, which has become modern English mallow. And Greek molókhē ‘mallow’, a probable relative of malva, is the ultimate source of English malachite [16].
=> malachite, mallow
maverick: maverick: [19] Originally, in the American West, a maverick was an unbranded calf that had become separated from its mother and its herd (by convention, any farmer or stockman who came upon such a calf could add it to his herd and brand it as his own). The name probably comes from Samuel Augustus Maverick (1803– 70), a Texas cattle-owner (and ancestor of the Maury Maverick who coined the word gobbledegook) who did not brand the calves of one of his herds. The familiar modern metaphorical application to an awkwardly independent-minded person was in place before the end of the 19th century.
mawkish: mawkish: [17] The underlying meaning of mawkish is ‘maggotish’. It was derived from a now obsolete word mawk, which meant literally ‘maggot’ but was used figuratively (like maggot itself) for a ‘whim’ or ‘fastidious fancy’. Hence mawkish originally meant ‘nauseated, as if repelled by something one is too fastidious to eat’. In the 18th century the notion of ‘sickness’ or ‘sickliness’ produced the present-day sense ‘over-sentimental’. Mawk itself went back to a Middle English mathek ‘maggot’ (possible source of maggot [14]), which was borrowed from Old Norse mathkr.
=> maggot
maximum: maximum: [18] Maximum was adopted, via French, from maximum, the neuter form of Latin maximus ‘largest’. This was the superlative of magnus ‘large’ (source of English magnitude, magnum, etc). From the same ultimate source comes maxim [15], which goes back via French maxime to Latin maxima. This was short for maxima prōpositio ‘largest proposition’, a term used in medieval philosophy for a ‘fundamental axiom’.
=> magnitude, magnum, maxim
may: may: English has basically two words may, although one of them has now virtually split into two. The auxiliary verb may [OE] goes back ultimately to the Indo-European base *mogh-, *megh-, denoting ‘power, ability’, which also produced English machine, main, and might. Its Germanic descendant *magan lies behind German and Dutch mag, Swedish må, and Danish maa as well as English may.

The compound maybe dates from the 15th century, and dismay is also related. May the month-name [13] comes via Old French mai from Latin Maius. This was originally an adjective meaning ‘of Maia’, Maia being a Roman goddess and wife of Vulcan (her name may go back to the same source as Latin magnus ‘large’, and hence denote ‘growth’ or ‘increase’).

In the month of May the hawthorn comes into flower, and so in the 16th century the tree received the name may.
=> dismay, machine, main, might
mayhem: mayhem: see maim
mayonnaise: mayonnaise: [19] There are several conflicting theories about the origin of the term mayonnaise, among them that it is an alteration of bayonnaise, as if the sauce originated in Bayonne, in southwestern France; that it was derived from the French verb manier ‘stir’; and that it goes back to Old French moyeu ‘egg yolk’. But the early variant spelling mahonnaise strongly suggests that it originally meant literally ‘of Mahon’, and that the sauce was so named to commemorate the taking of Port Mahon, the capital of the island of Minorca, by the duc de Richelieu in 1756.
mayor: mayor: [13] Mayor and major are ultimately the same word. The ancestor of mayor is Latin mājor ‘larger’, which reached English via medieval Latin mājor (used nominally as the title of various officials) and Old French maire. In Middle English the word was mair or mer, and mayor represents a partial return to the Latin form.
=> major
maze: maze: [13] Maze was originally a verb (now obsolete) meaning ‘daze’, which arose by shortening of amaze. When it was first used as a noun it meant ‘delusion, delirium’, and it was not until the late 14th century that it began to be used for a ‘structure of bewildering complexity’.
=> amaze
me: me: [OE] Me is an ancient and widespread word. It goes back to Indo-European *me, which is the source of the pronoun corresponding to me in all modern Indo-European languages (for instance German mich, Dutch mij, Swedish mig, French, Italian, and Spanish me, Greek me, emé, and Welsh and Irish mi). The derivative mine is equally ancient, but my is a later shortening of mine.
=> mine
mead: mead: [OE] Mead goes back ultimately to Indo- European *medhu- which meant ‘sweet drink’ (it was also the source of Greek méthu ‘wine’, from which English gets methyl [19] and hence methylated spirits [19]). Its prehistoric Germanic descendant was *meduz, from which come German met, Dutch mede, Swedish mjöd, and Danish mjød as well as English mead.
=> methyl
meadow: meadow: [OE] Etymologically, meadow means ‘mowed land’. It goes back ultimately to an Indo-European *mētwá, a derivative of the base *mē- ‘mow’ (source of English mow [OE]). In prehistoric Germanic this became *mǣdwō (whence German matte ‘meadow’), which passed into Old English as mǣd. The modern English descendant of this, mead, now survives only as an archaism, but its inflected form, mǣdwe, has become modern English meadow.
=> mow
meagre: meagre: [14] Meagre originally meant literally ‘thin’ (it goes back via Anglo-Norman megre and Old French maigre to Latin macer ‘thin’, source also of English emaciate [17]). Not until the 16th century did the modern figurative sense ‘scanty’ begin to emerge. (Its distant Indo- European ancestor, incidentally, *makró-, also produced a parallel Germanic form mager ‘thin’, shared by German, Dutch, Swedish, and Danish.)
=> emaciate
meal: meal: [OE] Meal ‘repast’ and meal ‘flour’ are two distinct words. The former originally meant ‘measure’: it goes back via prehistoric Germanic *mǣlaz (source of German mal ‘time, occasion’ and mahl ‘meal’, Dutch maal ‘time, meal’, and Swedish mål ‘meal’) to the Indo-European base *me- ‘measure’, which is also the ancestor of English measure.

The semantic progression from ‘measure’ (which died out for meal in the Middle English period, but survives in the compound piecemeal [13], etymologically ‘measured piece by piece’) to ‘repast’ was via ‘measured or fixed time’ (hence the meaning ‘time, occasion’ in many of the related Germanic forms) and ‘time fixed for eating’. Meal ‘flour’ (as in oatmeal) goes back ultimately to Indo-European *mel-, *mol-, *ml- ‘grind’, source of a wide range of other English words from mild and mill to molar and mould.

From it was descended West and North Germanic *melwam, which has differentiated to German mehl, Dutch meel, Swedish mjōl, Danish mel, and English meal. It has been speculated that mellow [15] may have originated in the use of Old English melu ‘meal’ as an adjective, in the sense ‘soft and rich like flour’.
=> measure, piecemeal; mellow, mild, mill, molar, mould
mean: mean: English has three distinct words mean. The oldest, ‘intend’ [OE], goes back via a prehistoric West Germanic *mainjan to the Indo-European base *men- ‘think’ (source also of English memory, mention, mind, etc). The adjective ‘petty, stingy’ [12] originally meant ‘common, shared by all’. It comes from a prehistoric Germanic *gamainiz (source also of German gemein ‘common, shared’), which was formed from the collective prefix *ga- and *mainiz.

This went back to an Indo-European base *moi-, *mei- ‘change, exchange’, which also lies behind English mad, moult, mutate, mutual, and the second syllable of common. Mean’s semantic history can be traced from ‘common to all’ via ‘inferior’ and ‘low, ignoble’ to ‘petty’. The adjective ‘intermediate, average’ [14] came via Anglo-Norman meen and Old French meien from Latin mediānus (source of English median), a derivative of medius ‘middle’ (source of English medium).

It forms the basis of the plural noun means ‘method’ [14], and of the compound adverb meanwhile [15].
=> memory, mention, mind; common, mad, moult, mutate, mutual; median, medium