polite: [15] Someone who is polite is etymologically ‘polished’ – indeed that is what the word originally meant in English (‘The arch within and without was hiled [covered] with gold polite’, Mirror of man’s salvation 1450). This had passed metaphorically into ‘refined’ by the 16th century, but not until the 17th century did the modern sense ‘having refined manners’ emerge. It was borrowed from polītus, the past participle of Latin polīre ‘polish’ (source of English polish). => polish[polite etymology, polite origin, 英语词源]