quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- jazz[jazz 词源字典]
- jazz: [20] Words of unknown origin always attract speculation, and it is hardly surprising that such an unusual and high-profile one as jazz (first recorded in 1913) should have had more than its fair share (one of the more ingenious and colourful theories is that it comes from the nickname of one Jasbo Brown, an itinerant black musician along the Mississippi – Jasbo perhaps being an alteration of Jasper).
Given that the word emerged in Black English (probably originally in the sense ‘copulation’), it is not surprising that attempts have been made to link it with some West African language, and picture it crossing the Atlantic with the slave ships, but there is no convincing evidence for that (the scenario seems to have got started with a 1917 article in the New York Sun, which was purely the invention of a press agent).
[jazz etymology, jazz origin, 英语词源] - colour
- chiefly British English spelling of color (q.v.); for ending see -or. Related: Coloured; colouring; colourful; colours.
- hummingbird
- "A small nectar-feeding tropical American bird that is able to hover and fly backwards, and typically has colourful iridescent plumage", Mid 17th century: so named because of the humming sound produced by the rapid vibration of the bird's wings.
- freesia
- "A small southern African plant with fragrant, colourful, tubular flowers, many varieties of which are cultivated for the cut-flower trade", Modern Latin, named after Friedrich H. T. Freese (died 1876), German physician.
- Horlicks
- "A drink made from malted milk powder", Late 19th century: named after James and William Horlick, British-born brothers whose company first manufactured the drink in the US. More bollocks from mid 18th century:Bollocks used to be ballocks, and in that spelling they go back to the time of the Anglo-Saxons. The word is related to ball, and like many rude words it was perfectly standard English until around the 18th century. It is now used in several colourful expressions. A bollocking, or severe telling-off, is more genteelly written as a rollicking (mid 20th century), and it is more refined to make a Horlicks of (late 20th century) something than to make a bollocks of it. The dog's bollocks is a coarse version of expressions like the bee's knees or the cat's pyjamas, meaning ‘an excellent person or thing’, which was popularized in the late 1980s by the comic Viz.