英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

peach [peach 词源字典]: peach: [14] Etymologically, the peach is the ‘Persian’ fruit. The word comes via Old French peche from medieval Latin persica, an alteration of an earlier persicum ‘peach’. This was short for mālum Persicum, literally ‘Persian apple’, reflecting the fact that the peach, a native of China, first became widely known in Europe when it had reached Persia on its westward journey.
[peach etymology, peach origin, 英语词源]
peacock: peacock: [14] The original English name of the ‘peacock’ in the Anglo-Saxon period was pēa. This was borrowed from Latin pāvō, a word which appears to have been related to Greek taós ‘peacock’, and which also gave French paon, Italian pavone, and Spanish pavo ‘peacock’. The Old English word is presumed to have survived into Middle English, as *pe, although no record of it survives, and in the 14th century it was formed into the compounds peacock and peahen to distinguish the sexes. The non-sex-specific peafowl is a 19th-century coinage.
peak: peak: [16] Peak seems to come ultimately from the noun pick ‘pointed implement’ (as in toothpick). From this in the 15th century was formed an adjective picked ‘pointed’, which survived dialectally into the 19th century (S H A Hervey noted in the Wedmore Chronicle 1887 ‘Children still use ‘picked’ of a pencil with a good point to it’). It had a variant form peaked, from which peak appears to have been derived as a back-formation. The adjective peaky ‘sickly’ [19], incidentally, is not etymologically related. It comes from a now little used verb peak ‘become sickly or pale’ [16], whose origins are unknown.
=> pick
peal: peal: see appeal
pearl: pearl: [14] Latin perna originally signified ‘leg’, and hence ‘ham’. It came to be applied metaphorically to a variety of sea-mussel whose stalk-like foot resembled a ham in shape. Such mussels could contain pearls, and so a diminutive form *pernula seems to have been coined in Vulgar Latin to designate ‘pearl’. This was later contracted to *perla, which passed into English via Old French perle.
peat: peat: see piece
peculiar: peculiar: [15] The etymological notion underlying peculiar is of ‘not being shared with others’, of being ‘one’s own alone’. It was borrowed from Latin pecūliāris ‘of private property’, a derivative of pecūlium ‘private property’, which in turn was based on pecus ‘cattle’, hence ‘wealth’ (source also of English pecuniary [16]). (A parallel semantic progression from ‘cattle’ to ‘property’ is shown in English fee.) The development of the adjective’s meaning from ‘belonging to oneself alone’ through ‘individual’ to ‘extraordinary, strange’ took place in Latin. Peculate ‘pilfer, embezzle’ [18] also comes ultimately from Latin pecūlium.
=> pecuniary
pedagogue: pedagogue: see page
pedal: pedal: [17] Pedal is one of a group of English words which go back to Latin pēs ‘foot’ or its Romance descendants (to which English foot is related). Others include impede [17], pedestal [16] (which comes via French from Old Italian piedestallo, a conflation of pie di stallo ‘foot of a stall’), pedestrian [18], pedicure [19], pedigree, and pedometer [18].
=> foot, impede, pawn, pedestal, pedestrian, pedigree
pederast: pederast: see page
pedigree: pedigree: [15] Etymologically, pedigree means ‘crane’s-foot’. It comes from Anglo-Norman *pe de gru, pe meaning ‘foot’ (from Latin pēs) and gru ‘crane’ (from Latin grūs). The notion behind the metaphor is that a bird’s foot, with its three splayed-out toes, resembles the branching lines drawn to illustrate a family tree.
=> crane, geranium
pediment: pediment: see pyramid
pedometer: pedometer: see pedal
pee: pee: see piss
peel: peel: see pillage
peer: peer: see pair, pore
peewit: peewit: see lapwing
pelican: pelican: [OE] Pelican comes via Latin pelicānus from Greek pelekán. This is generally thought to have been derived from pélekus ‘axe’, in allusion to the shape of the pelican’s beak.
pellagra: pellagra: see fell
pellet: pellet: [14] Etymologically, a pellet is a ‘little ball’. It comes via Old French pelote (a relative of Spanish pelota ‘ball’, from which the name of the Basque ball-game pelota [19] comes) from Vulgar Latin *pilotta, a diminutive form of Latin pila ‘ball’ (source of English pill [15] and piles ‘haemorrhoids’ [15]). Pelt ‘throw things at’ [15] may have originated as a contraction of pellet (although a possible alternative source is Latin pultāre ‘hit’); and platoon comes from a diminutive form of French pelote.
=> pelota, pelt, piles, platoon