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unkempt [unkempt 词源字典]: unkempt: [15] Unkempt means literally ‘uncombed’. It was coined from the prefix un- ‘not’ and the past participle of the now defunct verb kemb ‘comb’. This came from a prehistoric Germanic *kambjan, a derivative of *kambaz ‘comb’ (ancestor of the English noun comb). It began to be replaced by the new verb comb in the 14th century.
=> comb[unkempt etymology, unkempt origin, 英语词源]
kempt (adj.): "well-combed, neat," late 14c., from past tense of dialectal kemb, from Old English cemdan (see unkempt). A rare word after c. 1500; any modern use probably is a whimsical back-formation from unkempt.
unkempt (adj.): 1570s, from un- (1) "not" + kempt "well-combed, neat," from variant past participle of Middle English kemben "to comb," from Old English cemban "to comb," from Proto-Germanic *kambijan, from *kamb- "comb" (see comb (n.)). Form unkembed is recorded from late 14c. The verb kemb is rare after 1400s, but its negative past participle form endures.