quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- accent[accent 词源字典]
- accent: [14] Accent was originally a loantranslation from Greek into Latin (a loantranslation is when each constituent of a compound in one language is translated into its equivalent in another, and then reassembled into a new compound). Greek prosōidíā (whence English prosody) was formed from pros ‘to’ and ōidé ‘song’ (whence English ode); these elements were translated into Latin ad ‘to’ and cantus ‘song’ (whence English chant, cant, cantata, canticle), giving accentus.
The notion underlying this combination of ‘to’ and ‘song’ was of a song added to speech – that is, the intonation of spoken language. The sense of a particular mode of pronunciation did not arise in English until the 16th century.
=> cant, cantata, canticle, chant[accent etymology, accent origin, 英语词源] - court
- court: [12] Latin cohors designated an ‘enclosed yard’ (it was formed from the prefix com- ‘with’ and an element hort- which also appears in English horticulture). By extension it came to stand for those assembled in such a yard – a crowd of attendants or company of soldiers; hence the meaning of cohort familiar today. But both in its original sense and as ‘retinue’ the word took another and rather more disguised path into English.
In late Latin the accusative form cohortem had already become cortem, and this passed into English via Old French cort and Anglo-Norman curt. It retains the underlying notion of ‘area enclosed by walls or buildings’ (now reinforced in the tautological compound courtyard [16]), but it seems that an early association of Old French cort with Latin curia ‘sovereign’s assembly’ and ‘legal tribunal’ has contributed two of the word’s commonest meanings in modern English.
The Italian version of the word is corte. From this was derived the verb corteggiare ‘attend court, pay honour’, which produced the noun corteggio, borrowed into English via French as cortège [17]. Other derivatives include courtesy [13], from Old French cortesie (of which curtsey [16] is a specialized use) and courtesan [16], via French courtisane from Italian cortigiana.
=> cohort, courtesy, curtsey, horticulture - demijohn
- demijohn: [18] Demijohn ‘large globular bottle’ has no connection with half of the common male forename. It arose through a process known as folk etymology, by which an unfamiliar or slightly outlandish foreign word is deconstructed and then reassembled using similar-sounding elements in the host language. In this case the source was French dame-jeanne, literally ‘Lady Jane’, a term used in French for such a container since the 17th century.
- forgive
- forgive: [OE] Forgive is what is known technically as a ‘calque’ or loan translation – that is, it was created by taking the component parts of a foreign word, translating them literally, and then putting them back together to form a new word. In this case the foreign word was Latin perdōnāre ‘forgive’ (source of English pardon), which was a compound verb formed from per- ‘thoroughly’ and dōnāre ‘give’ (its underlying sense was ‘give wholeheartedly’). These two elements were translated in prehistoric Germanic times and assembled to give *fergeban, from which have come German vergeben, Dutch vergeven, and English forgive.
=> give - haggis
- haggis: [15] Improbable as it may seem, the leading candidate for the source of the word haggis is Old French agace ‘magpie’. Corroborative evidence for this, circumstantial but powerful, is the word pie, which also originally meant ‘magpie’ (modern English magpie comes from it) but was apparently applied to a ‘baked pastry case with a filling’ from the notion that the collection of edible odds and ends a pie contained was similar to the collection of trinkets assembled by the acquisitive magpie.
On this view, the miscellaneous assortment of sheep’s entrails and other ingredients in a haggis represents the magpie’s hoard. An alternative possibility, however, is that the word comes from the northern Middle English verb haggen ‘chop’, a borrowing from Old Norse related ultimately to English hew.
- instead
- instead: [13] Instead is the English end of a chain of loan translations that goes back to Latin in locō (in loan translations, the individual components of a foreign word or expression are translated into their equivalents in the borrowing language, and then reassembled). The Latin phrase meant literally ‘in place (of)’, and this was translated into Old French as en lieu de.
Middle English rendered the French expression in turn as in stead of or in the stead of (stead ‘place’, now obsolete except in certain fixed compounds and expressions, comes ultimately from the same Indo-European source as stand, station, etc). It began to be written as one word towards the end of the 16th century.
=> stand, station, statue, stead - today
- today: [OE] Today is simply a compound assembled from the preposition to (in the now obsolete sense ‘at, on’) and day. Parallel formations are Dutch vandaag (literally ‘from or of day’) and Swedish and Danish i dag (‘in day’). In fact virtually all the terms for ‘today’ in the European languages contain an element meaning ‘day’, but not all of them are as obvious as today, vandaag, and i dag.
German heute, for instance, comes from a prehistoric Germanic *hiu tagu, which meant literally ‘on this day’. Russian segodnja likewise denotes etymologically ‘this day’. And the second syllable of Latin hodiē ‘today’ (ancestor of French aujourd’hui, Italian oggi, and Spanish hoy) represents an inflected form of diēs ‘day’. Tomorrow and tonight [OE] were formed on the same basis.
- assemble (v.)
- early 14c., transitive and intransitive, from Old French assembler "come together, join, unite; gather" (11c.), from Latin assimulare "to make like, liken, compare; copy, imitate; feign, pretend," later "to gather together," from ad- "to" (see ad-) + simulare "to make like" (see simulation). In Middle English and in Old French it also was a euphemism for "to couple sexually." Meaning "to put parts together" in manufacturing is from 1852. Related: Assembled; assembling. Assemble together is redundant.
- chapter (n.)
- c. 1200, "main division of a book," from Old French chapitre (12c.) "chapter (of a book), article (of a treaty), chapter (of a cathedral)," alteration of chapitle, from Late Latin capitulum, diminutive of caput (genitive capitis) "head" (see capitulum). Sense of "local branch" (1815) is from cathedral sense (late 15c.), which seems to trace to convocations of canons at cathedral churches, during which the rules of the order by chapter, or a chapter (capitulum) of Scripture, were read aloud to the assembled. Chapter and verse "in full and thoroughly" (1620s) is a reference to Scripture.
- court (n.)
- late 12c., from Old French cort (11c., Modern French cour) "king's court, princely residence," from Latin cortem, accusative of cors (earlier cohors) "enclosed yard," and by extension (and perhaps by association with curia "sovereign's assembly"), "those assembled in the yard; company, cohort," from com- "together" (see com-) + stem hort- related to hortus "garden, plot of ground" (see yard (n.1)). Sporting sense is from 1510s, originally of tennis. Legal meaning is from late 13c. (early assemblies for justice were overseen by the sovereign personally).
- disassemble (v.)
- 1610s, "to disperse;" see dis- + assemble. Meaning "to take apart" is from 1922. Related: Disassembled; disassembling; disassembly.
- gunpowder (n.)
- "explosive powder for the discharge of projectiles from guns," early 15c., from gun (n.) + powder (n.). The Gunpowder Plot (or treason or conspiracy) was a plan to blow up the Houses of Parliament on Nov. 5, 1605, while the King, Lords and Commons were assembled there in revenge for the laws against Catholics (see guy (n.2)).
- homily (n.)
- late 14c., omelye, from Old French omelie (12c., Modern French homélie), from Church Latin homilia "a homily, sermon," from Greek homilia "conversation, discourse," used in New Testament Greek for "sermon," from homilos "an assembled crowd," from homou "together" (from PIE *somo-, from root *sem- (1) "one, as one, together with;" see same) + ile "troop" (cognate with Sanskrit melah "assembly," Latin miles "soldier"). Latinate form restored in English 16c.
- kit (n.1)
- late 13c., "round wooden tub," perhaps from Middle Dutch kitte "jug, tankard, wooden container," of unknown origin. Meaning "collection of personal effects," especially for traveling (originally in reference to a soldier), is from 1785; that of "outfit of tools for a workman" is from 1851. Of drum sets, by 1929. Meaning "article to be assembled by the buyer" is from 1930s.
- Knesset
- Israeli parliament, 1949, from Mishnaic Hebrew keneseth "gathering, assembly," from stem of Hebrew kanas "he gathered, assembled, collected."
- military (adj.)
- mid-15c., from Middle French militaire (14c.), from Latin militaris "of soldiers or war, of military service, warlike," from miles (genitive militis) "soldier," of unknown origin, perhaps ultimately from Etruscan, or else meaning "one who marches in a troop," and thus connected to Sanskrit melah "assembly," Greek homilos "assembled crowd, throng." Related: Militarily. Old English had militisc, from Latin. Military-industrial complex coined 1961 in farewell speech of U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower.
- prefecture (n.)
- "administrative district of a prefect," mid-15c., from Middle French préfecture and directly from Latin praefectura, or assembled locally from prefect + -ure.
- re-assemble (v.)
- also also reassemble, late 15c., from re- + assemble. Related: Reassembled; reassembling; reassembler; reassembly.