quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- comb[comb 词源字典]
- comb: [OE] Comb is an ancient word, which has been traced back to an Indo-European *gombhos. This appears to have signified ‘tooth’, for among its other descendants were Sanskrit jámbhas ‘tooth’ and Greek góphos ‘pin, tooth’. In prehistoric West and North Germanic it became *kambaz, which produced English comb, German kamm, and Dutch kam (probably borrowed into English in the 18th century as cam, originally ‘projecting cog-like part on a wheel for transferring motion’).
The Old English verb formed from comb lasted dialectally as kemb until the 19th century, but today it survives only in unkempt. The origin of the word’s application to honeycomb, first recorded in the 13th century, is not known.
=> oakum, unkempt[comb etymology, comb origin, 英语词源] - comb (n.)
- Old English camb "comb, crest, honeycomb" (later Anglian comb), from Proto-Germanic *kambaz (cognates: Old Saxon and Old High German camb, German Kamm, Middle Dutch cam, Dutch kam, Old Norse kambr), literally "toothed object," from PIE *gombhos, from root *gembh- "to bite, tooth" (cognates: Greek gomphos "a molar tooth," Sanskrit gambha-s "tooth").
- comb (v.)
- late 14c. (implied in past participle kombid), verb derived from comb (n.); replacing the former verb, Old English cemban, which however survives in unkempt. Related: Combed; combing.