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pledge [pledge 词源字典]: pledge: [14] Pledge comes via Old French plege from late Latin plebium, a derivative of the verb plebīre ‘pledge’. This was probably borrowed from Frankish *plegan ‘guarantee’, a derivative of the same Germanic base as produced English plight ‘pledge’ [OE] (as in ‘plight one’s troth’) and German pflicht ‘duty’.
=> plight[pledge etymology, pledge origin, 英语词源]
plenty: plenty: [13] Plenty is one of a family of English words that trace their history back to Latin plēnus ‘full’ (a descendant of the same Indo- European base, *plē-, as produced English full and plethora). Others include plenary [16], plenipotentiary [17], plenitude [15], plenteous [13], and replenish. Plenty itself comes via Old French plentet from the Latin derivative plenitās. Other close relatives contributed by Latin include plural, plus, and surplus and the range of words based on the verbal element -plēre ‘fill’ – complete, deplete, implement, replete, supply, etc.
=> complete, deplete, full, implement, plethora, replete, supply
plethora: plethora: [16] Greek plēthórē meant ‘fullness’ (it was derived from the verb pléthein ‘fill’, a descendant of the Indo-European base *plē-, from which English gets full, plenty, etc). It was taken over into late Latin as plēthōra, and at first was widely used as a medical term, denoting an ‘excess of blood or other fluids in the body’. That was what it originally denoted in English, but by the end of the 16th century the more general ‘surplus’ was coming into use.
=> full
pleurisy: pleurisy: [14] Greek pleurá, a word of unknown origin, denoted ‘side’ or ‘rib’. It came to be used as an anatomical term for the ‘inner lining of the chest, containing the lungs’, and the derivative pleurítis ‘inflammation of the chest lining’ was coined (apparently by the physician Hippocrates). This passed into Latin as pleurītis, which in post-classical times evolved to pleurisis. Old French took this over as pleurisie, whence English pleurisy.
pliable: pliable: see ply
pliant: pliant: see ply
pliers: pliers: see ply
plight: plight: see pleat
plimsoll: plimsoll: [20] The British politician and social reformer Samuel Plimsoll (1824–98) was one of the leading instigators of the Merchant Shipping Act 1876. Amongst its provisions was that a line should be painted round the hulls of ships to indicate a safe limit for loading. This was Plimsoll’s idea, and it became known as the Plimsoll line. It is thought that the word plimsoll was applied to ‘gym shoes’ in allusion to the line running round the shoes formed by the rubber welt or trimming.
plonk: plonk: English has two distinct words plonk. The one that means ‘put down firmly and heavily’ [19] was no doubt originally simply an imitation of the sound made by the action (alternative realizations of which are plank and plunk). The other, ‘cheap bog-standard wine’ [20], appears to have originated among Australian troops serving in France during World War I, which lends credence to the supposition that it was based on a French original – generally supposed to be vin blanc ‘white wine’.

It is true that not until the 1930s do we have any written evidence of plonk in this sense, nor of its possible precursor plinkety-plonk (which could have been a comical rhyming variation on vin blanc, and which also produced the shorter-lived spin-off plink in the same sense), and that nowadays the term seems to be applied mainly to red wine rather than white. Nevertheless, there are relevant records of Great-War-period puns (for example von blink as a ‘humorous corruption’ of vin blanc), and the explanation has an air of plausibility.
plot: plot: [11] Two separate and unrelated words have come together to form modern English plot. The earlier was late Old English plot, a term of unknown origin which denoted ‘area of ground’ (as in a ‘plot of land’). This subsequently developed to ‘ground plan’ and ‘diagram’, which formed the basis of ‘set of events in a story’ (first recorded in the 17th century). The other ancestor was Old French complot ‘secret scheme’ (also of unknown origin), which was originally borrowed into English in the 16th century as complot, but soon lost its prefix com-, no doubt under the influence of the already existing noun plot.
plough: plough: [OE] Plough was not the original English word for an ‘implement for turning over the soil’. That was Old English sulh, a relative of Latin sulcus ‘furrow’. Plough was borrowed in the 10th century from Old Norse plógr, a descendant of prehistoric Germanic *plōgaz. And this in turn was derived from a base *plōgacquired from one of the ancient Indo-European languages of northern Italy (source also of Latin plaustrum ‘wagon’). The earliest record we have of the word being used for the characteristically shaped group of seven stars in Ursa major is from early 16th-century Scotland.
plover: plover: [14] Etymologically, the plover is the ‘rain-bird’. Its name comes via Anglo-Norman plover from Vulgar Latin *ploviārius, a derivative of Latin pluvia ‘rain’ (source of French pluie, Italian pioggia, and Spanish Iluvia ‘rain’ and related to English flow). Various theories have been put forward as to how it came to be so called, among them that migrating plovers arrive in autumn, at the start of the rainy season; that plovers get restless at the approach of rain; and that some species have plumage spotted with pale marks, like raindrops.
=> flow, pluvial
pluck: pluck: [OE] Pluck is a widespread Germanic word (Flemish has plokken, Swedish plocka, and Danish plukke, and German and Dutch the closely related pflücken and plukken), but it is ultimately of Latin origin. Prehistoric Germanic *plukkōn was acquired from a Vulgar Latin *piluccāre (source also of Old French peluchier ‘pluck’ – from which English gets plush [16] – and Italian piluccare ‘pluck’), a derivative of Latin pīlus ‘hair’ (source of English depilatory, pile ‘nap’, etc).

The use of the noun pluck for ‘courage’ originated in the 18th century from an earlier literal application to the ‘heart (and other internal organs) of a slaughtered animal’, which in turn was based on the notion of their being ‘plucked’ or removed from the carcase.
=> depilatory, pile, plush
plum: plum: [OE] Plum and prune ‘dried plum’ are ultimately the same word. Their common ancestor was Greek proumnon, a word which originated somewhere in Asia Minor. This was later contracted to prounon, and borrowed into Latin as prōnum. Its plural prōna came to be regarded in post-classical times as a singular, and this is where English gets prune from, but prōna was also borrowed into prehistoric Germanic, and many of its descendants here have had their r changed to l (the two are close together phonetically) – hence German pflaume, Swedish plommon, and English plum.
=> prune
plumb: plumb: [13] Plumb comes via Old French *plombe from Latin plumbum ‘lead’, a word of uncertain origin. Of its modern English uses, the verbal ‘sound the depths’ comes from the use of a line weighted with lead (a plumb line) to measure the depth of water and the adverbial ‘exactly’ from the use of a similar line to determine verticality. Related words in English include aplomb; plumber [14] (originally simply a ‘worker in lead’, but eventually, since water pipes were once made of lead, a ‘pipe-layer’); plummet [14] (a diminutive form coined in Old French); and plunge [14] (from the Vulgar Latin derivative *plumbicāre ‘sound with a plumb’).
=> aplomb, plumber, plummet, plunge
plume: plume: [14] Latin plūma originally denoted ‘down, feathers’ (it is probably related to English fleece). Eventually, though, it came to signify a ‘single feather’, and evolved in this sense to Italian piuma, Spanish pluma, and French plume – source of English plume. The derivative plumage [15] originated in Old French.
=> fleece, plumage
plummet: plummet: see plumb
plunder: plunder: [17] Plunder is of Dutch origin, and etymologically denotes something like ‘rob of household odds and ends’. It was borrowed from Middle Dutch plunderen, which was presumably derived from the noun plunde or plunne ‘household goods, clothes, etc’, whose origins are unknown.
plunge: plunge: see plumb