英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

taunt [taunt 词源字典]: taunt: [16] The etymological notion underlying taunt is of giving someone tit for tat, of returning as much in reply as has been given. It comes from the French phrase tant pour tant ‘so much for so much’. This was borrowed into English in the early 16th century as taunt pour taunt or (partially anglicized) taunt for taunt, which was used for a ‘sarcastic rejoinder’. The first record of the use of taunt on its own (as a verb) dates from 1513.
[taunt etymology, taunt origin, 英语词源]
tavern: tavern: [13] Tavern comes via Old French taverne from Latin taberna ‘hut, inn’, a word possibly of Etruscan origin. Derived from taberna, in the sense ‘hut’, was the diminutive form tabernāculum ‘tent’, which was borrowed into English as tabernacle [13]. Its original application was to the tent which according to the Bible covered the Ark of the Covenant.
=> tabernacle
tawdry: tawdry: [17] Anna, Anglo-Saxon king of East Anglia, had a daughter called Etheldrida, who became queen of Northumbria (she died in 679). She had an inordinate fondness in her youth for fine lace neckerchiefs, and when she was later afflicted by a fatal tumour of the neck, she regarded it as divine retribution for her former extravagance. After her death she was canonized and made patron saint of Ely.

In the Middle Ages fairs were held in her memory, known as ‘St Audrey’s fairs’ (Audry is a conflated version of Etheldrida), at which lace neckties were sold. These were termed Seynt Audries lace, a name eventually eroded to tawdrie lace. They were often made from cheap gaudy material, and so by the end of the 17th century tawdry was being used generally for ‘cheap and gaudy’.
tawny: tawny: see tan
tax: tax: [13] Tax originally denoted ‘assess an amount to be levied’; the notion of ‘imposing such a levy’ is a secondary development. The word comes via Old French taxer from Latin taxāre ‘touch, assess, appraise’, a derivative of tangere ‘touch’ (source of English contact, tangible, etc). From taxāre was derived the medieval Latin noun taxa ‘tax, piece of work imposed’, which passed into English via Anglo-Norman tasque as task [13].
=> tact, tangent, tangible, task
taxi: taxi: [20] Taxi is short for taximeter cab, a term coined around 1890 for a cab fitted with a taximeter, a device for showing the fare to be paid. Taximeter [19] was borrowed from French taximètre, a compound noun formed from taxe ‘charge, tariff’ (a relative of English tax) and mètre ‘meter’.
=> tax
tea: tea: [17] English acquired tea via Dutch thee and Malay teh from te, the word for ‘tea’ in the Amoy dialect of Chinese, from southeast China (the Mandarin Chinese version of the word is chá, from which English got cha [17]). It was originally pronounced /tay/ as well as /tee/, but it was the latter which eventually won out.
=> cha
teach: teach: [OE] To teach someone is etymologically to ‘show’ them something. The word goes back ultimately to the prehistoric Indo-European base *deik- ‘show’, which also produced Greek deiknúnai ‘show’ (source of English paradigm [15]) and Latin dīcere ‘say’ (source of English diction, dictionary, etc). Its Germanic descendant was *taik-, which produced English token and German zeigen ‘show’. From it was derived the verb *taikjan, ancestor of English teach.
=> diction, dictionary, paradigm, token
team: team: [OE] The etymological notion underlying the word team is ‘pulling’. It goes back ultimately to the Indo-European base *deuk- ‘pull’, which also produced Latin dūcere ‘pull, lead’ (source of English abduct, duke, etc). Its Germanic descendant was *taukh-. From this was derived a noun *taugmaz, whose later form *taumaz gave English team.

This originally denoted a group of animals harnessed together to ‘pull’ a load, but the modern sense ‘group of people acting together’ did not emerge from this until the 16th century. Another strand in the meaning of the base is ‘giving birth, off-spring’ (presumably based on the notion of children being ‘drawn’ forth from the womb). This has now disappeared from team, but traces of it can still be detected in the related teem [OE], whose modern connotations of ‘abundance’ go back to an earlier ‘bring forth offspring prolifically’.

From the same source come English tie and tow.
=> abduct, duct, duke, educate, teem, tie, tow
teapoy: teapoy: see foot
tear: tear: English has two separate words tear, both of ancient ancestry. The sort of tear that one weeps [OE] goes back (together with its Germanic relatives German träne, Dutch traan, Swedish tår, and Danish taare) to prehistoric Indo- European *dakru-, a word of uncertain origin which also produced Welsh deigryn and Latin lacrima (source of English lachrymal [16] and lachrymose [17]). Tear ‘rip’ [OE] comes from an Indo- European base *der- ‘tear’, which also produced Russian drat’ and Polish drzeć ‘tear’.

The base *der- denoted the concept of ‘flaying’ as well as ‘tearing’, in which sense it produced English turd and Greek dérma ‘skin’ (source of English dermatitis, epidermis, etc).
=> lachrymose; dermatitis, epidermis, turd
tease: tease: [OE] Tease originally meant ‘separate the fibres of wool’ (a sense still perceptible in the metaphorical tease out ‘disentangle something complicated’). It came from a prehistoric West Germanic *taisjan, whose base was also the source of English teasel [OE], a plant whose prickly flower heads were used for carding wool. The notion of ‘irritating someone with prickles’ led in the 17th century to tease being used for ‘pester’, which gradually weakened into ‘make fun of’.
technical: technical: [17] Greek tékhnē denoted ‘skill, art, craft, trade’ (it may have come from the Indo- European base *tek- ‘shape, make’, which also produced Greek téktōn ‘carpenter, builder’, source of English architect and tectonic [17]). From it was derived the adjective tekhnikós, which passed into English via Latin technicus as technic (now obsolete) and technical. Technique [19] comes from a noun use of the French adjective technique ‘technical’. From the same source come technicolour [20], based on the trademark Technicolor (registered in 1929), and technology [17].
=> architect, technique, tectonic, text
teddy: teddy: English has two words teddy, both of them based on affectionate alterations of male first names. The teddy bear [20] was named after Theodore (‘Teddy’) Roosevelt, president of the USA from 1901 to 1909. One of his favourite leisure pursuits was hunting bears, and early in 1906 the New York Times published a humorous poem about the adventures of two bears, which were named Teddy B and Teddy G in his honour.

The names were then appropriated to two bears that had just been presented to the Bronx Zoo; and before the year was out, toy manufacturers with an eye for profit had put toy bears called teddy bears on the market. The teddy of teddy boy [20] is short for Edward, an allusion to the teddy boys’ preference for clothes in a style reminiscent of the Edwardian period (1901–10).

The first record of the word comes from 1954.
teem: teem: see team
teen: teen: [OE] The element -teen (as in thirteen, fourteen, etc) originated as an inflected form of ten. The noun teen, usually used in the expression in one’s teens ‘from the ages of thirteen to nineteen’, was derived from it in the 17th century (‘Your poor young things, when they are once in the teens, think they shall never be married’, William Wycherley, Gentleman Dancing-Master 1673). The compound teenage is first recorded in 1921, teenager in 1941.
=> ten
teetotal: teetotal: [19] The adverb teetotally is first recorded in America in 1832 (James Hall, in his Legends of West Philadelphia, recorded a Kentucky backwoodsman as saying ‘These Mingoes … ought to be essentially, and particularly, and tee-totally obflisticated off of the face of the whole yearth’); the tee represents the initial t of total, as if repeating it to give extra emphasis to the word.

The application of the adjective teetotal to ‘total abstinence from alcohol’ (that is, including beer, and not just spirits) is virtually contemporary. It is credited to a certain Richard Turner, of Preston, Lancashire, who is reputed to have used it in a speech to a temperance society in September 1833.
teleology: teleology: see talisman
television: television: [20] Television means etymologically ‘far vision’. Its first element, tele-, comes from Greek téle ‘far off’, a descendant of the same base as télos ‘end’ (source of English talisman and teleology). Other English compounds formed from it include telegraph [18], telegram [19], telepathy [19] (etymologically ‘far feeling’, coined by the psychologist Frederic Myers in 1882), telephone [19], telescope [17] (a word of Italian origin), and telex [20] (a blend of teleprinter and exchange). Television itself was coined in French, and was borrowed into English in 1907.

Of its abbreviations, telly dates from about 1940, TV from 1948.
=> talisman, teleology
tell: tell: [OE] Tell goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *taljan, a derivative of *talō ‘something told’ (from which English gets tale). This in turn was formed from the base *tal-, source also of English talk. Beside ‘narrative, discourse’ lies another strand of meaning, ‘counting, enumeration’ (pointing back to an original common denominator ‘put in order’), which survives in all told and the derivative teller ‘counter of votes’, and also in the related German zählen ‘count’.
=> tale, talk