mermaid: [14] A mermaid is literally a ‘seamaiden’. The word was coined on the basis of English mere [OE], which is now a little-used term for ‘lake’, but originally denoted ‘sea’ (it came ultimately from Indo-European *mori-, *mari- ‘sea’, which also produced German meer ‘sea’ and Latin mare ‘sea’, source of French mer and English marine). Mermaid served in due course as a model for merman [17]. => marine, mere[mermaid etymology, mermaid origin, 英语词源]