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turn [turn 词源字典]: turn: [OE] The ultimate source of turn is Greek tórnos ‘lathe’, which was probably related to Latin terere ‘rub’ (source of English attrition, detritus, trite, etc). Latin took this over as tornus and formed a verb from it, tornāre ‘turn on a lathe’, hence ‘round off, make smooth’. Old English borrowed tornāre as turnian, which was later reinforced by Old French turner. To the same word family belong tour and tournament.
=> attrition, detriment, detritus, tour, tournament, trite[turn etymology, turn origin, 英语词源]
turncoat: turncoat: [16] A turncoat is someone who abandons or betrays a group or cause and joins its opponents. The story goes – probably apocryphally – that there was once a Duke of Saxony whose territories abutted those of France. Clearly anxious always to make the right impression, he had a coat made which was blue on one side and white on the other. When he wished to be seen to be supporting the French interest he wore it with the white side outwards, and when he did not, he wore it with the blue side outwards.

Documentation of this tale is lacking, and probably the expression had a much less specific origin (the phrase turn one’s coat for ‘betray one’s loyalties’ is contemporaneous).
turnip: turnip: [16] Etymologically, a turnip may be a ‘turned neep’ – that is, a neep, or turnip, that has been ‘turned’ on a lathe, so as to be round (the turnip is a roughly spherical vegetable). Its second syllable, -nip, goes back ultimately to Latin nāpus ‘turnip’, which was adopted by Old English as nǣp. It survives in Scottish English as neep, which is used for ‘swedes’ as well as ‘turnips’. The linking of the first syllable with turn is purely conjectural, and has never been definitely established.
=> neep
turpentine: turpentine: [14] Turpentine is nowadays used for an oil obtained from pine trees, but it originally denoted the ‘resin of the terebinth’, a small European tree of the sumach family. The name of the terebinth is probably of non-Indo- European origin. It was borrowed into Greek as térbinthos, which made its way into Latin as terbinthus. Its resin was called terbenthina rēsīna. The adjective terbenthina came to be used as a noun, and this passed into English via Old French terbentine.
turquoise: turquoise: [14] Turquoise is etymologically the ‘Turkish’ stone. The word was borrowed from Old French turqueise, short for pierre turqueise ‘Turkish stone’. The stone was so called because it was first found in Turkestan. The present-day form of the word, which dates from the 16th century, is due to the influence of modern French turquoise. It was first used as a colour adjective in the late 16th century.
turret: turret: see tower
turtle: turtle: Turtle the dove [OE] and turtle the marine reptile [17] are different words. The former was borrowed from Latin turtur, which no doubt originated in imitation of the bird’s cooing. It is now encountered only in the compound turtledove, first recorded in the 13th century. Turtle the reptile is more of a mystery. It is generally assumed to be an alteration of French tortue ‘tortoise’ (source of English tortoise [15]), but since it is not known where that came from, it does not get us much further.

The expression turn turtle (which dates from the 19th century) alludes to the practice of sailors turning turtles over on to their backs, like beetles, so that they were helpless and could be easily captured.
=> tortoise
tussle: tussle: see tousle
tutor: tutor: [14] A tutor is etymologically someone who ‘looks after’ another – indeed, it was originally used for a ‘guardian’ or ‘protector’: ‘The king … behested himself to be a tutor and defender of him and of his’, Foundation of St Bartholomew’s church 1425. The word’s educational connotations are a secondary development. It comes via Anglo-Norman tutour from Latin tūtor, a derivative of tuērī ‘look after, protect’. From the same source comes English tuition [15], and also tutelage [17], which retains its original sense of ‘guardianship’.
=> tuition, tutelage
twain: twain: see two
twat: twat: see twit
tweak: tweak: see twig
tweed: tweed: [19] The story attached to the origin of tweed is that it resulted from a misreading of tweel, or perhaps more plausibly the past form tweeled, Scottish variants of twill or twilled, under the influence of the name of the Scottish river Tweed. Early accounts date its coinage to 1831, and ascribe it to the London cloth merchant James Locke (although Locke himself in his book Tweed and Don 1860 does not make any such claim). The term was in general use by 1850, and it was registered as a trademark. (Twill itself is etymologically ‘two-threaded’ cloth; it is a compound formed from twi- ‘two’ and Latin līcium ‘thread’.)
tweezers: tweezers: [17] French étui denotes a small case for carrying personal articles, small tools and the like (it was descended from Old French estuier ‘keep, shut up, imprison’). English adopted it in the early 17th century as etui or, anglicized, as etwee. The plural of this came to be used (like scissors) for a single article, and it did not take long for etweese to be apprehended as a singular noun.

The next step in the word’s transformation was the loss of its first syllable: hence, tweeze. This still meant ‘case for small instruments’, and the plural tweezes began to be used for the instruments themselves – typically implements of personal adornment, such as combs, scissors and small pincers for pulling out hairs. By the 1650s tweezes had been extended to tweezers (perhaps on the model of scissors), and this was being applied specifically to the pincers – as it still is today.
twelve: twelve: [OE] Etymologically, twelve probably means ‘two over’ (just as eleven means ‘one over’). It appears to go back to a prehistoric Germanic compound formed from *twa- ‘two’ and *lif- (a relative of English leave), which also produced German zwölf, Dutch twaalf, Swedish tolf, and Danish tolv. If so, its underlying meaning is ‘two left (over ten)’, hence ‘ten plus two’.
=> leave, two
twenty: twenty: [OE] Twenty is etymologically ‘two tens’. The second syllable, -ty, is related to ten, and twen- goes back to the same source as two, although its precise ancestry is not clear.
=> ten, two
twice: twice: [12] Twice was formed from Old English twige ‘twice’ (itself based on twi-, the combining form of two) and the genitive ending -s, which was used for creating adverbs, such as always, nowadays, once, thrice, etc.
=> two
twig: twig: English has two separate words twig. The older, ‘small branch’ [OE], which has relatives in German zweig and Dutch tijg, appears to have been formed from the Germanic base *twi- ‘two’, and so etymologically it presumably denotes a ‘forked branch’. The origins of twig ‘catch on, understand’ [18] are uncertain. It may be the same word as the contemporary but now defunct twig ‘pull’. This was presumably related to tweak [17] and twitch [12], which go back to a prehistoric Germanic base *twik-.
=> tweak, twitch, two
twilight: twilight: [15] Twilight is etymologically ‘light between day and night’. The word was compounded from the prefix twi- ‘two’, apparently used here in the sense ‘between’ (between itself comes from the same ultimate source as two) and light. German has the parallel zwielicht.
=> two
twill: twill: see drill