quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- stoic[stoic 词源字典]
- stoic: [16] The Greek philosopher Zeno (c. 334– c. 262 BC), who taught that only virtue is necessarily good, and that pleasure and pain are matters of indifference, is reputed to have lectured to his followers and students in a porch or portico in Athens. The Greek word for ‘porch’ was stoá (a descendant of the Indo-European base *stā-, *sto- ‘stand’, which also produced English stand), and so Zeno’s teachings came to be characterized by the term stōikós. This passed into English via Latin stōicus as stoic, carrying with it metaphorical associations of ‘impassivity’ as well as the literal application of Zeno and his followers.
=> stand, statue[stoic etymology, stoic origin, 英语词源] - stoke
- stoke: [17] Stoke is a back-formation from stoker [17], which was borrowed from Dutch stoker. This in turn was derived from the verb stoken ‘put fuel into a furnace’, a descendant of Middle Dutch stoken ‘push, poke’. And stoken came from a prehistoric Germanic base *stok-, a variant of *stik-, *stek- ‘pierce, prick’, from which English gets stick, stitch, etc. So the etymological meaning underlying stoke is of ‘thrusting’ fuel into a fire like a sharp instrument being pushed into something.
=> stick, stitch - stomach
- stomach: [14] Greek stómakhos was derived from stóma ‘mouth’, and originally denoted the ‘throat’ or ‘oesophagus’. It was also applied to the opening or ‘mouth’ of various internal organs, particularly the stomach, and eventually came to be used for the stomach itself. English acquired the word via Latin stomachus and Old French stomaque.
- stone
- stone: [OE] Stone is a general Germanic word, with relatives in German stein, Dutch steen, and Swedish and Danish sten. These all go back to a prehistoric *stainaz, which was derived from a base denoting ‘stiffness’ or ‘solidity’ (source also of Greek stía ‘pebble’ and stéar ‘stiff, fat’, Sanskrit styā- ‘stiffen’, and Serbo-Croat stijena ‘rock’). The use of the English term for a measure of weight, equal to fourteen pounds, dates from the 14th century.
- stool
- stool: [OE] Although stools are for sitting on, the word’s etymological meaning is ‘stand’. It comes from a prehistoric Germanic *stōlaz, which was formed from the base *stō-, *sta- ‘stand’ (source of English stand) using the noun suffix *-l- (in much the same way as saddle was formed from a base meaning ‘sit’). The notion of ‘standing’ no doubt passed into ‘sitting’ via an intermediate generalized ‘be positioned or situated’.
In the 15th century stool came to be applied specifically to a ‘commode’, and this led to its use in the following century for an ‘act of defecating’, and hence for a ‘piece of faeces’. Stoolpigeon [19] originated in American English as a term for a decoy pigeon tied to a stool.
=> stall, stand - stoop
- stoop: see steep
- stop
- stop: [14] ‘Close an opening, plug’ is the original meaning of stop. It comes via Old English *stoppian (recorded only in compounds) from a prehistoric Germanic *stoppōn ‘plug up’ (source also of English stuff). The sense ‘halt’ emerged in Middle English from the notion of ‘preventing a flow by blocking a hole’.
=> stuff - store
- store: [13] Store is a shortened version of the now defunct astor ‘supplies, stock of provisions’. This was borrowed from Old French estor, a derivative of estorer ‘build, restore, furnish, stock’, which in turn came from Latin instaurāre ‘renew, repair, restore’ (source also of English restaurant and restore, and possible relative of Greek stavrós ‘stake, pale’). The use of store for ‘shop’ arose in American English in the early 18th century.
=> restaurant, restore - storey
- storey: [14] Storey is etymologically the same word as story. Both come ultimately from Latin historia ‘story’ (source also of English history). Storey itself was borrowed directly from Anglo- Latin historia, which is known to have been used for ‘picture’, and may also have denoted a ‘row of pictures in the form of stained glass windows or statues, telling a story’, which filled the entire wall between floor and ceiling at a given level of a building.
=> history, story - stork
- stork: [OE] The stork may get its name from its rather stiff-legged gait. The word comes from a prehistoric Germanic *sturkaz, which also produced German storch and Dutch, Swedish, and Danish stork. This may have been formed from the base *sturk-, *stark-, *sterk- ‘rigid’, which also produced English starch and stark.
=> starch, stare, stark, starve, stereo - storm
- storm: [OE] Etymologically, a storm is probably a ‘violent disturbance or agitation’; its meteorological connotations appear to be a secondary development. The word comes from a prehistoric Germanic *sturmaz (source also of German sturm and Dutch, Swedish, and Danish storm). This was probably formed from the base *stur- ‘disturbance, agitation’, which also lies behind English stir.
=> stir - story
- story: [13] Story comes via Anglo-Norman estorie from Latin historia ‘account of events, narrative, history’ (source also of English history and storey). It originally retained the senses ‘factual account of past events’ and ‘past events in general’, but since the 17th century these have gradually been taken over by history, and the use of story has been concentrated more on ‘fictional narratives’.
=> history, storey - stoup
- stoup: see steep
- stout
- stout: [14] Stout originally meant ‘proud, brave’. It came via Anglo-Norman stout from a prehistoric West Germanic *stult- (source also of German stolz ‘proud’), which may have been related to the ancestor of English stilt. The notion of ‘braveness’ led on to that of ‘physical strength’ and ‘powerful physique’, but the word did not go downhill to ‘fat’ until the end of the 18th century. The application to a sort of strong beer dates from the 17th century.
=> stilt - stove
- stove: [15] Stove probably goes back ultimately to Vulgar Latin *extūfāre ‘take a steam bath’ (source also of English stew). From this was derived a noun denoting a ‘heated room used for such baths’, which was disseminated widely throughout the Romance and Germanic languages. In its modern German and Danish descendants, stube and stue, the meaning element ‘heat’ has disappeared, leaving simply ‘room’ (Latvian istaba, Serbo-Croat soba, and Polish izba ‘room’ represent borrowings from Germanic), but in the Romance languages (Italian stufa, Spanish estufa, Romanian soba) ‘heated room’ has shrunk to ‘heated cupboard for cooking, oven’.
The English word, borrowed from Middle Low German stove, has taken the same semantic course.
=> stew - straddle
- straddle: see stride
- straggle
- straggle: see stretch
- straight
- straight: [14] Straight began life as the past participle of stretch. Nowadays this verb has a perfectly normal past form (stretched), but in Middle English it was straught (source of distraught [14], an alteration of distract) or straight – whence the adjective straight. The sense ‘not bent or curved’ derives from the notion of stretching something between two points. Straightaway [15] originally meant ‘by a straight path’; the temporal sense ‘immediately’ emerged in the 16th century.
=> distract, distraught, stretch - strain
- strain: English has two distinct words strain. The older, ‘line of ancestry’ [OE], denotes etymologically ‘something gained by accumulation’. It comes from the prehistoric base *streu- ‘pile up’, which was related to Latin struere ‘build’ (source of English destroy, structure, etc). In the Old English period the notion of ‘gaining something’ was extended metaphorically to ‘producing offspring’, which formed the jumping-off point for the word’s modern range of meanings. Strain ‘pull tight, wrench’ [13] was borrowed from estreign-, the stem form of Old French estreindre ‘pull tight, tie’.
This in turn was descended from Latin stringere ‘pull tight, tie tight’ (source also of English strait, strict, and stringent [17] and of a host of derived forms such as constrain [14], prestige, restrain [14] and constrict, district, restrict, etc). Strain ‘tune’ [16] is assumed to be the same word, perhaps deriving ultimately from the notion of ‘stretching’ the strings of a musical instrument.
=> construct, destroy, structure; constrain, constrict, district, prestige, restrain, restrict, strait, strict, stringent - strait
- strait: [12] Strait was originally an adjective and adverb, meaning ‘narrow’ or ‘tight’. It reached English via Old French estreit ‘narrow, tight’ from Latin strictus (source of English strict). Its use as a noun, ‘narrow waterway’, emerged in the 14th century, and the metaphorical straits ‘difficulties’ is a 16th-century development.
=> strict