英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

Oscar [Oscar 词源字典]: Oscar: [20] The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Hollywood has been awarding these golden statuettes annually since 1928, but at first they were not called Oscars. That name is said to have come about in 1931, when Margaret Herrick, a former secretary of the Academy, reputedly remarked that the Art Deco figurine reminded her of her ‘Uncle Oscar’ (Oscar Pierce, an American wheat and fruit grower). The name evidently struck a chord, and has been used ever since.
[Oscar etymology, Oscar origin, 英语词源]
oscillate: oscillate: [18] Latin ōs originally meant ‘mouth’ (it was the source of English oral), but it was also used for ‘face’. Its diminutive form ōscillum ‘little face’ was applied to a mask depicting the god Bacchus that was hung up as a charm in vineyards, to be swung to and fro by the breeze. In due course its meaning broadened out to ‘swing’ generally, and a verb ōscillāre ‘swing’ was derived from it – whence English oscillate.
=> oral
osculate: osculate: see oral
osprey: osprey: [15] Etymologically, the osprey is simply a ‘bird of prey’. Its name comes from ospreit, the Old French descendant of Vulgar Latin *avispreda, which in turn was a conflation of Latin avis praedae ‘bird of prey’ (avis is the source of English augur, auspice, aviary, and aviation, and praeda is the ancestor of English prey).

The specific association with the ‘osprey’ came about in Old French through confusion with the coincidentally similar osfraie ‘osprey’. This meant etymologically ‘bone-breaker’. It came from Latin ossifraga, a compound formed from os ‘bone’ (source of English ossify [18]) and frangere ‘break’ (source of English fracture, fragment, etc).

It was originally applied to the lammergeier, a large vulture, in allusion to its habit of dropping its prey from a great height on to rocks beneath in order to break its bones, but was subsequently also used for the osprey.
=> aviary, prey
ostensible: ostensible: [18] Ostensible means literally ‘that can be shown’. It comes via French from medieval Latin ostensibilis, a derivative of the Latin verb ostendere ‘show’ (itself a compound formed from the prefix ob- ‘in front of’ and tendere ‘stretch’, source of English extend, tend, tense etc). Its original meaning ‘showable’ survived into English (‘You should send me two letters – one confidential, another ostensible’, Jeremy Bentham, 1828), but seems to have died out by the mid-19th century.

Two metaphorical strands came with it, though. One, ‘vainly conspicuous’, goes right back to ostendere, and is still preserved in English ostentation [15], although it has disappeared as far as ostensible is concerned. The other, ‘presented as real but not so’, is today the central meaning of the adjective.
=> extend, ostentation, tend, tense
ostler: ostler: see hotel
ostracism: ostracism: [16] In ancient Greece, when it was proposed that a particular person should be sent into exile for a period, because he was becoming a danger to the state, a democratic vote was taken on the matter. The method of registering one’s vote was to inscribe the name of the prospective banishee on a piece of broken pottery. The pieces were counted, and if enough votes were cast against him away he would go for ten years.

The fragment of pottery was called an óstrakon, a word related to Greek ostéon ‘bone’ (source of the English prefix osteo-) and óstreon ‘oyster’ (source of English oyster). To cast such a vote was therefore ostrakízein (whence English ostracize [17]), and the abstract now derived from this was ostrakismós, source of English ostracism.
ostrich: ostrich: [13] Greek strouthós seems originally to have meant ‘sparrow’. Mégas strouthós ‘great sparrow’ – the understatement of the ancient world – was used for ‘ostrich’, and the ‘ostrich’ was also called strouthokámelos, because of its long camel-like neck. Eventually strouthós came to be used on its own for ‘ostrich’. From it was derived strouthíōn ‘ostrich’, which passed into late Latin as strūthiō (source of English struthious ‘ostrich-like’ [18]).

Combined with Latin avis ‘bird’ (source of English augur, aviary, etc) this produced Vulgar Latin *avistrūthius, which passed into English via Old French ostrusce as ostrich.
=> struthious
other: other: [OE] Other is one of a widespread family of Germanic words expressing ‘alternative’, represented today also by German and Dutch ander. The prehistoric ancestor of all three was *antheraz, which came ultimately from an Indo- European *ánteros. This, a comparative formation based on *an-, may have been related to Latin alter ‘other’ (source of English alter, alternative, etc).
otiose: otiose: see negotiate
otter: otter: [OE] The otter is etymologically the ‘wateranimal’. Its name goes back ultimately to an Indo-European *udros, source also of Greek húdrā ‘water-snake’ (the best-known example of which in English is the many-headed Hydra killed by Hercules). This was a derivative of the same base as produced English water. Its Germanic descendant was *otraz, which has become otter in German, Dutch, and English.
=> water
ought: ought: [OE] Ought began life as the past tense of owe, but the two have diverged widely over the centuries. The Old English ancestor of owe was āgan, and its past form was āhte. This originally shared all the meanings of its parent verb, of course, and continued to do so well into the 17th century (‘He said this other day, you ought him a thousand pound’, Shakespeare, 1 Henry IV 1596). Indeed, it survived dialectally until comparatively recently. But steadily since the 1600s its role as a quasi-modal auxiliary verb, denoting ‘obligation’, has come to the fore.
=> owe
ounce: ounce: English has two separate words ounce. The ‘measure of weight’ [14] is etymologically the same word as inch. It comes from the same ultimate source, Latin uncia ‘twelfth part’, but whereas inch reached English via prehistoric Germanic, ounce’s route was through Old French unce. Its original use was in the Troy system of weights, where it still denotes ‘one twelfth of a pound’, but in the avoirdupois system it came to be applied to ‘one sixteenth of a pound’.

Its abbreviation, oz [16], comes from Italian onza. Ounce [13] ‘big cat’ comes from the same source as lynx (and indeed it originally meant ‘lynx’; ‘snow leopard’ is an 18th-century reapplication of the name). It represents an alteration of Old French lonce, based on the misapprehension that the initial l represented the definite article.

This in turn came via Vulgar Latin *luncia from Latin lynx, source of English lynx.
=> inch, one; light, lynx
our: our: [OE] Our is the English member of the common Germanic family of first person plural possessive forms, which also includes German unser and Dutch onze. They all come from the same prehistoric base, *ons, as produced English us.
=> us
oust: oust: see obstetric
out: out: [OE] Out is a widespread Germanic adverb (German aus, Dutch uit, Swedish ut, and Danish ud are its first cousins) which also has a relative on the far side of the Indo-European language area, Sanskrit ud- ‘out’. Its former comparative form still survives in utter ‘complete’, and utmost and the verb utter are also closely related.
=> utmost, utter
outfit: outfit: see fit
outrage: outrage: [13] Outrage has no etymological connection with either out or rage. It comes via Old French outrage from Vulgar Latin *ultrāticum ‘excess’, a noun derived from the Latin preposition ultrā ‘beyond’. This of course has given English the prefix ultra-, and it is also the source of French outré ‘eccentric’, borrowed by English in the 18th century.
=> outré, ultra
outstrip: outstrip: see strip
ovary: ovary: [17] Latin ōvum ‘egg’ came from the same Indo-European base (*ōwo-) as produced English egg. From it were derived the medieval Latin adjective ōvāl is ‘egg-shaped’ (source of English oval [16]) and the modern Latin noun ōvārium (whence English ovary). Also from ōvum come English ovate [18] and ovulate [19], and the Latin noun itself was adopted as a technical term in biology in the early 18th century.
=> egg