英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

vixen [vixen 词源字典]: vixen: [15] The only Old English word on record for a ‘female fox’ is fyxe. Fixene first appears in the late Middle English period. It was formed using the suffix -en, denoting ‘female’. This was once quite common – Old English had biren ‘female bear’, for instance, and gyden ‘goddess’ – but it now survives only in vixen. (Its German counterpart, -in, is still a live suffix.) The initial v of vixen comes from southwestern England.
=> fox[vixen etymology, vixen origin, 英语词源]
vocation: vocation: [15] A vocation is etymologically a ‘calling’. The word comes via Old French vocation from Latin vocātiō. This was derived from the verb vocāre ‘call’, which came from the same base as vōx ‘voice’ (source of English vocal, voice, etc). Also from vocāre come convoke [16], evoke [17], invoke [15], provoke [15], revoke [16], vocabulary [16], vocative [15], and vouch.
=> convoke, evoke, invoke, provoke, revoke, vocabulary, voice, vouch
vodka: vodka: [19] Vodka denotes etymologically ‘little water’. The word was borrowed at the beginning of the 19th century from Russian vodka, which is a diminutive form of voda ‘water’. And voda came from the same Indo-European source (*wedōr, *wodōr) as produced English water. The euphemistic application of the term water to distilled spirits is also responsible for eau de vie and whisky, both of which mean literally ‘water of life’.
=> water
vogue: vogue: [16] The etymological notion underlying the word vogue is of being borne along on the ‘waves’ of fashion. Its immediate source was French vogue. This was originally used for ‘rowing’, but was subsequently extended metaphorically via ‘smooth easy course’ and ‘successful course’ to ‘fashionable course’. French vogue itself, though, was of Germanic origin. It was a derivative of the verb voguer ‘row, go along smoothly’, which was probably borrowed from Old Low German *wogon ‘float on the waves’ (a relative of English waggon, way, etc).
=> waggon, way
voice: voice: [13] Voice comes via Old French vois from Latin vōx ‘voice’, whose other contributions to English include vocal [14], vociferous [17], and vowel. Its ultimate source is the Indo-European base *wek- ‘speak, say’, which also produced Latin vocāre ‘call’, ancestor of English vocabulary, vocation, etc.
=> vocal, vocation, vociferous, vowel
void: void: see avoid
volatile: volatile: see volley
volcano: volcano: [17] Volcanoes get their name from Vulcan, the Roman god of fire. His name in Latin was Volcānus, and it was the Italian descendant of this, volcano, that was originally adapted as a term for ‘fire-emitting mountain’. English borrowed the word from Italian. Also commemorating Vulcan is the vulcanization [19] of rubber. The term appears to have been coined around 1845 by a certain Mr Brockedon, a friend of the English chemist Thomas Hancock (1786–1865), an early pioneer of the process. Latin Volcānus itself may be related to Cretan Welkhanoc, which came from Hittite Valhannasses.
=> vulcanization
vole: vole: [19] A vole is etymologically a ‘fieldmouse’. The word is short for an earlier volemouse, which is assumed to have been borrowed from an unrecorded Norwegian compound *vollmus. The first element of this, voll ‘field’, was descended from Old Norse völlr ‘field’, which in turn went back to prehistoric Germanic *walthus (source also of English weald [OE] and wold [OE] and German wald ‘forest’). It may be related ultimately to wild. The second element, mus, is the same word as English mouse.
=> weald, wold
volition: volition: [17] Volition comes via French volition from medieval Latin volitiō, a noun derived from Latin volō ‘I will’. Together with English will, this went back ultimately to Indo-European *wel-, *wol- ‘be pleasing’, which also produced English volunteer and voluptuous.
=> voluntary, volunteer, voluptuous, will
volley: volley: [16] A volley is etymologically a ‘flight’ of something, such as missiles. The word comes via Old French volee from Vulgar Latin *volāta ‘flight’, which was a noun use of the feminine past participle of Latin volāre ‘fly’ (source also of English volatile [17]). The origins of this are not certain, although it may be distantly related to Sanskrit garutmant- ‘bird’. The use of volley as a sporting term for a ‘shot hit before the ball bounces’ dates from the 19th century.
=> volatile
volume: volume: [14] Volume is one of a sizeable family of English words that go back to Latin volvere ‘roll, turn’. Others include convolution [16], convolvulus [16], devolution [16], evolution, involve [14], revolt, revolution, revolve, vault, volte-face [19], and voluble [16]. Volume itself comes via Old French volum from Latin volūmen, a derivative of volvere.

The sense ‘book’ evolved from the notion of a ‘roll’ of parchment. The word came to have connotations of a ‘big’ book, and this gave rise in the 16th century to the sense ‘size of a book’. By the 17th century this had broadened out to ‘size’ in general, but the modern sense ‘size of sound’ did not emerge until the early 19th century. Latin volvere itself came ultimately from the Indo- European base *wol-, *wel- ‘turn’, which also produced English wallow.
=> convolution, convolvulus, devolution, evolution, involve, revolt, revolution, revolve, vault, volte-face, voluble, wallow
volunteer: volunteer: [17] Volunteer comes via French volontaire from Latin voluntārius, a noun use of the adjective which gave English voluntary [14]. This was derived from the noun voluntās ‘will, free will’, which itself was based on volō ‘I will’ (source also of English volition).
=> volition
voluptuous: voluptuous: [14] Voluptuous goes back ultimately to the Indo-European base *wol-, *wel- ‘be pleasing’, which also produced English volunteer and will. From it was descended the Latin adverb volup ‘agreeably’, from which were derived in turn the noun voluptās ‘pleasure’ and the adjective voluptuōsus ‘giving pleasure’. In its transmission via Old French voluptueux to English, it acquired additional connotations of ‘sensual pleasure’.
=> volition
vomit: vomit: [14] Vomit comes from vomitus, the past participle of Latin vomere ‘vomit’. This was descended from the prehistoric Indo-European base *wem-, which also produced Greek emeín ‘vomit’ (source of English emetic [17]).
=> emetic
vote: vote: [15] Vote goes back ultimately to Latin vovēre ‘promise solemnly, wish for’. Its past participle was vōtus, which fed directly into English as the verb vote; the noun vote comes from the Latin derivative vōtum. The modern English meaning of the word comes from the notion of expressing one’s ‘wishes’ by means of casting a ballot. ‘Wishing, desiring’ was a secondary semantic development of the Latin verb; its original meaning, ‘promise solemnly’, is preserved in English vow [13], which comes via Anglo-Norman vou from Latin vōtum.
=> vow
vouch: vouch: [14] Vouch originally meant ‘call as a witness’; ‘guarantee’ is a 16th-century development. The word was borrowed from Old French voucher ‘summon’, which in turn appears to have evolved from Latin vocāre ‘call’ (source of English vocation, vocative, etc). Anglo-Norman used the Old French infinitive verb as a noun, meaning ‘summons’, from which English gets voucher [16]. Vouchsafe [14] originated as a compound of vouch ‘guarantee’ and safe.
=> vocation
vow: vow: see vote
vowel: vowel: [14] A vowel is etymologically a ‘vocal’ sound – that is, one made by vibrating the vocal chords. The word comes via Old French vouel from Latin vōcālis. This was short for littera vōcālis ‘vocal letter, letter that sounds’, sonus vōcālis ‘vocal sound’, etc. Vōcālis (source of English vocal) was derived from vōx ‘voice’ (source of English voice).
=> voice
voyage: voyage: [13] Voyage goes back ultimately to Latin via ‘way’ (source also of the English preposition via [18]). From it was derived viāticum, which originally meant ‘provisions for a journey’, but in post-classical times was used for simply ‘journey’. English acquired it via Old French veiyage and Anglo-Norman voiage.
=> via