英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

sire (v.)[sire 词源字典]: "to beget, to be the sire of," 1610s, from sire (n.). Used chiefly of beasts, especially of stallions. Related: Sired; siring.[sire etymology, sire origin, 英语词源]
sire (n.): c. 1200, title placed before a name and denoting knighthood, from Old French sire "lord (appellation), sire, my lord," from Vulgar Latin *seior, from Latin senior "older, elder" (see senior (adj.)). Standing alone and meaning "your majesty" it is attested from early 13c. General sense of "important elderly man" is from mid-14c.; that of "father, male parent" is from mid-13c.
siren (n.): mid-14c., "sea nymph who by her singing lures sailors to their destruction," from Old French sereine (12c., Modern French sirène) and directly from Latin Siren (Late Latin Sirena), from Greek Seiren ["Odyssey," xii.39 ff.], one of the Seirenes, mythical sisters who enticed sailors to their deaths with their songs, also in Greek "a deceitful woman," perhaps literally "binder, entangler," from seira "cord, rope."

Meaning "device that makes a warning sound" (on an ambulance, etc.) first recorded 1879, in reference to steamboats, perhaps from similar use of the French word. Figurative sense of "one who sings sweetly and charms" is recorded from 1580s. The classical descriptions of them were mangled in medieval translations and glosses, resulting in odd notions of what they looked like.
Sirius (n.): brightest star by magnitude, late 14c., from Latin Sirius "the Dog Star," from Greek Seirios, said to mean literally "scorching" or "the scorcher." But other related Greek words seem to derive from this use, and the name might be a folk-etymologized borrowing from some other language. An Egyptian name for it was Sothis. The connection of the star with scorching heat is from its ancient heliacal rising at the summer solstice (see dog days). Also see dog star. Related: Sirian. The constellation Canis Major seems to have grown from the star, not the other way.
Homer made much of it as [Kyon], but his Dog doubtless was limited to the star Sirius, as among the ancients generally till, at some unknown date, the constellation was formed as we have it, -- indeed till long afterwards, for we find many allusions to the Dog in which we are uncertain whether the constellation or its lucida is referred to. [Richard Hinckley Allen, Canis Major in "Star Names and Their Meanings," London: 1899]
sirloin (n.): early 15c., surloine, from Middle French surlonge, literally "upper part of the loin," from sur "over, above" (see sur-) + longe "loin," from Old French loigne (see loin).

English spelling with sir- dates from 1620s, by folk-etymology supposed to be because the cut of beef was "knighted" by an English king for its superiority, a tale variously told of Henry VIII, James I, and Charles II. The story dates to 1655.
sirocco (n.): "hot wind blowing from the Libyan deserts," 1610s, from Italian sirocco, from vulgar Arabic shoruq "the east wind," from Arabic sharqi "eastern, east wind," from sharq "east," from sharaqa "to rise" (in reference to the sun).
sirrah: 1520s, term of address used to men or boys expressing anger or contempt, archaic extended form of sir (in U.S., siree, attested from 1823).
sis (n.): 1650s, abbreviated form of sister; in American English, applied generally to girls and young women (1859). It also was the familiar short form of Cecilie, Cicely, a common name for girls in the Middle English period.
sis-boom-bah: cheerleading chant, originally (1867) an echoic phrase imitating the sound of a skyrocket flight (sis), the burst of the fireworks (boom), and the reaction of the crowd ((b)ah).
sisal (n.): 1883, short for Sisal hemp or grass (1843), from Sisal, port in Yucatan, from which the rope-making fiber was exported.
sissify (v.): 1897 (implied in sissified), American English, from sissy + -fy. Related: Sissifying; sissification (1915).
sissy (n.): 1846, "sister," extended form of sis (q.v.). Meaning "effeminate man" is recorded from 1887; the adjective in this sense is from 1891. Related: Sissiness. Sissy bar is recorded from 1969.
sist: legal term, from Latin sistere "to cause to stand" (see assist).
sister (n.): mid-13c., from Old English sweostor, swuster "sister," or a Scandinavian cognate (Old Norse systir, Swedish syster, Danish søster), in either case from Proto-Germanic *swestr- (cognates: Old Saxon swestar, Old Frisian swester, Middle Dutch suster, Dutch zuster, Old High German swester, German Schwester, Gothic swistar).

These are from PIE *swesor, one of the most persistent and unchanging PIE root words, recognizable in almost every modern Indo-European language (Sanskrit svasar-, Avestan shanhar-, Latin soror, Old Church Slavonic, Russian sestra, Lithuanian sesuo, Old Irish siur, Welsh chwaer, Greek eor). French soeur "a sister" (11c., instead of *sereur) is directly from Latin soror, a rare case of a borrowing from the nominative case.

According to Klein's sources, probably from PIE roots *swe- "one's own" + *ser- "woman." For vowel evolution, see bury. Used of nuns in Old English; of a woman in general from 1906; of a black woman from 1926; and in the sense of "fellow feminist" from 1912. Meaning "female fellow-Christian" is from mid-15c. Sister act "variety act by two or more sisters" is from vaudeville (1908).
sister-in-law (n.): mid-15c.; see sister + in-law.
sisterhood (n.): "state of being a sister," late 14c., from sister + -hood. Meaning "a society of sisters" (usually a religious order) is from 1590s; sense of "women having some common characteristic or calling" is from c. 1600.
sisterly (adj.): 1560s, from sister + -ly (1). Related: Sisterliness.
Sistine (adj.): 1769, literally "pertaining to Pope Sixtus," from Italian sistino, from Sixtus, name of five popes, from Latin sextus "sixth" (see Sextus). The "chapel" is named for Sixtus IV (Francesco della Rovere), pope 1471-84, who had it built. The painting by Raphael known as the Sistine Madonna is so called because it also shows Sixtus II, a 3c. martyr and saint; it is better known now for the two cherubs at the bottom of the picture who by 1900 were well-known in isolation from the rest of the picture in engravings, etc.
Sisyphean (adj.): "pertaining to or resembling the unceasingly recurring and fruitless labors of Sisyphus," 1630s, from Sisyphus + -an. Earlier Sisyphian (1590s).
Sisyphus: King of Corinth, famed as "the craftiest of men," he was condemned in the afterlife to roll uphill a stone which perpetually rolls down again; Greek Sisyphos, a name of unknown origin. Liddell & Scott suggest a reduplication of syphos "the crafty" (with Aeolic -u- for -o-), but Klein calls this folk-etymology.