英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

abominable [abominable 词源字典]: abominable: [14] The Latin original of this word meant ‘shun as an evil omen’. The prefix ab- ‘away’ was added to ōmen (source of English omen) to produce the verb abōminārī. From this was created the adjective abōminābilis, which reached English via Old French. From the 14th to the 17th century there was a general misapprehension that abominable was derived from Latin ab hominem ‘away from man’, hence ‘beastly, unnatural’.

This piece of fanciful folk etymology not only perpetuated the erroneous spelling abhominable throughout this period, but also seems to have contributed significantly to making the adjective much more strongly condemnatory.
=> omen[abominable etymology, abominable origin, 英语词源]
abound: abound: [14] Abound has no connection with bind or bound. Its Latin source means literally ‘overflow’, and its nearest relative among English words is water. Latin undāre ‘flow’ derived from unda ‘wave’ (as in undulate), which has the same ultimate root as water. The addition of the prefix ab- ‘away’ created abundāre, literally ‘flow away’, hence ‘overflow’, and eventually ‘be plentiful’.

The present participial stem of the Latin verb gave English abundant and abundance. In the 14th and 15th centuries it was erroneously thought that abound had some connection with have, and the spelling habound was consequently common.
=> inundate, surround, undulate, water
adjacent: adjacent: [15] Adjacent and adjective come from the same source, the Latin verb jacere ‘throw’. The intransitive form of this, jacēre, literally ‘be thrown down’, was used for ‘lie’. With the addition of the prefix ad-, here in the sense ‘near to’, was created adjacēre, ‘lie near’. Its present participial stem, adjacent-, passed, perhaps via French, into English.

The ordinary Latin transitive verb jacere, meanwhile, was transformed into adjicere by the addition of the prefix ad-; it meant literally ‘throw to’, and hence ‘add’ or ‘attribute’, and from its past participial stem, adject-, was formed the adjective adjectīvus. This was used in the phrase nomen adjectīvus ‘attributive noun’, which was a direct translation of Greek ónoma épithetos.

And when it first appeared in English (in the 14th century, via Old French adjectif) it was in noun adjective, which remained the technical term for ‘adjective’ into the 19th century. Adjective was not used as a noun in its own right until the early 16th century.
=> adjective, easy, reject
alluvial: alluvial: [19] Alluvial material is material that has been washed down and deposited by running water. Hence the term; for its ultimate source, Latin lavere (a variant of lavāre, which produced English latrine, laundry, lava, lavatory, lavish, and lotion), meant ‘wash’. Addition of the prefix ad- ‘to’ changed lavere to luere, giving alluere ‘wash against’.

Derived from this were the noun alluviō (source of the English technical term alluvion ‘alluvium’) and the adjective alluvius, whose neuter form alluvium became a noun meaning ‘material deposited by running water’. English adopted alluvium in the 17th century, and created the adjective alluvial from it in the 19th century. If Latin alluere meant ‘wash against’, abluere meant ‘wash away’.

Its noun form was ablūtiō, which English acquired as ablution in the 14th century.
=> ablution, latrine, laundry, lavatory, lavish, lotion
ant: ant: [OE] The word ant appears to carry the etymological sense ‘creature that cuts off or bites off’. Its Old English form, æmette, was derived from a hypothetical Germanic compound *aimaitjōn, formed from the prefix *ai- ‘off, away’ and the root *mait- ‘cut’ (modern German has the verb meissen ‘chisel, carve’): thus, ‘the biter’.

The Old English word later developed along two distinct strands: in one, it became emmet, which survived into the 20th century as a dialectal form; while in the other it progressed through amete and ampte to modern English ant. If the notion of ‘biting’ in the naming of the ant is restricted to the Germanic languages (German has ameise), the observation that it and its nest smell of urine has been brought into play far more widely.

The Indo-European root *meigh-, from which ultimately we get micturate ‘urinate’ [18], was also the source of several words for ‘ant’, including Greek múrmēx (origin of English myrmecology ‘study of ants’, and also perhaps of myrmidon [14] ‘faithful follower’, from the Myrmidons, a legendary Greek people who loyally followed their king Achilles in the Trojan war, and who were said originally to have been created from ants), Latin formīca (hence English formic acid [18], produced by ants, and formaldehyde [19]), and Danish myre.

It also produced Middle English mire ‘ant’, the underlying meaning of which was subsequently reinforced by the addition of piss to give pismire, which again survived dialectally into the 20th century.
brow: brow: [OE] In Old English, brow meant ‘eyelash’, but there seems little doubt, from related words in other languages (such as Sanskrit bhrūs and Greek ophrus), that the original underlying sense of the word is ‘eyebrow’, and this resurfaced, or was recreated, in English in the 11th century. Its ultimate source is Indo- European *bhrūs, which passed via Germanic brūs into Old English as brū.
buckle: buckle: [14] English acquired buckle via Old French boucla from Latin buccula ‘cheek strap of a helmet’. This was a diminutive form of Latin bucca ‘cheek’ (source of French bouche ‘mouth’), which gave English the anatomical term buccal ‘of the cheeks’ [19], and some have speculated is related to English pock. The notion of ‘fastening’ implicit in the Latin word carried through into English.

As well as ‘cheek strap’, Latin buccula meant ‘boss in the middle of a shield’. Old French boucle adopted this sense too, and created the derivative boucler, originally an adjective, meaning (of a shield) ‘having a central boss’. English borrowed this as buckler ‘small round shield’ [13]. The verb buckle was created from the English noun in the late 14th century, but the sense ‘distort’, which developed in the 16th century, comes from French boucler, which had come to mean ‘curl, bulge’.

Also from the French verb is bouclé ‘yarn with irregular loops’ [19].
=> bouclé, buckler
cathedral: cathedral: [13] Cathedral is a shortening of cathedral church, which was originally the ‘church housing the bishop’s throne’. For ultimately cathedral comes from Greek kathédrā (source also of English chair), a compound noun meaning ‘seat’, formed from katá- ‘down’ and *hed- ‘sit’. The adjectival form was created in late Latin as cathedrālis, and reached English via Old French. The notion of the bishop’s authority residing in his throne recurs in see, which comes from Latin sēdem ‘seat’, a relative of English sit.
=> chair
cherry: cherry: [14] Cherry comes ultimately from Greek kerasós ‘cherry tree’, which in Latin became cerasus. This was borrowed into the Germanic languages in prehistoric times, producing, as well as German kirsche, Old English ciris ‘cherry’, which died out in the 11th century. In Vulgar Latin, meanwhile, cerasus had become ceresia, which passed into Old Northern French as cherise (source of modern French cerise). When it was borrowed into English, its -s ending was misinterpreted as indicating plurality, so a ‘new’ singular cherry was created.
dreary: dreary: [OE] In Old English, dreary (or drēorig, as it then was) meant ‘dripping with blood, gory’, but its etymological connections are with ‘dripping, falling’ rather than with ‘blood’. It goes back to a West Germanic base *dreuz-, *drauz- which also produced Old English drēosna ‘drop, fall’, probably the ultimate source of drizzle [16] and drowsy.

The literal sense ‘bloody’ disappeared before the end of the Old English period in the face of successive metaphorical extensions: ‘dire, horrid’; ‘sad’ (echoed in the related German traurig ‘sad’); and, in the 17th century, the main modern sense ‘gloomy, dull’. Drear is a conscious archaism, created from dreary in the 17th century.
=> drizzle, drowsy
effigy: effigy: [16] Effigy comes ultimately from the Latin verb effingere ‘form, portray’. This was a compound formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and fingere ‘make, shape’ (source of English faint, feign, fiction, figment, and related to English dairy and dough). It formed the basis of the noun effigiēs ‘representation, likeness, portrait’, which was borrowed into English in the 16th century as effigies: ‘If that you were the good Sir Rowland’s son, as you have whisper’d faithfully you were, and as mine eye doth his effigies witness most truly limn’d and living in your face, be truly welcome hither’, Shakespeare, As you like it 1600.

By the 18th century, however, this had come to be regarded as a plural form, and so a new singular, effigy, was created.
=> dairy, dough, faint, fiction, figment
entropy: entropy: [19] The term entropy was coined (as entropie) in 1865 by the German physicist Rudolph Clausius (1822–88), formulator of the second law of thermodynamics. It was he who developed the concept of entropy (a measure of the disorder of a system at atomic or molecular level), and he created the name for it (on the model of energy) from Greek en- ‘in’ and tropé ‘turning, transformation’ (source of English trophy and tropical). The first record of the English version of the word is from 1868.
=> trophy, tropical
exile: exile: [13] Latin exul meant ‘banished person’. This was formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and a prehistoric Indo-European base *ul- ‘go’ (represented also in Latin ambulāre ‘walk’, source of English amble and ambulance). From it was created the noun exilium ‘banishment’, which in Old French became essil. This was subsequently remodelled to exil, on the basis of its Latin source, and passed on to English.
=> amble, ambulance
far: far: [OE] Far is a word of ancient ancestry. It goes back to Indo-European *per-, which also produced Greek pérā ‘beyond, further’ and Sanskrit paras ‘beyond’. The Germanic descendant of the Indo-European form was *fer-, whose comparative form *ferrō ‘further’ passed into Old English as feorr, having lost its comparative connotations and come to mean simply ‘far’.

The Old English comparative was fierr, but in early Middle English this too lost its comparative force and a new form was created with the -er ending, ferrer, later farrer. This in turn was gradually replaced by further (a completely different – although probably distantly related – word, based on forth), of which farther is a 13th-century variant modelled on far.
figure: figure: [13] Figure comes via Old French from Latin figūra ‘form, shape, figure’, a derivative of the same base (*fig-) as produced fingere ‘make, shape’ (whence English effigy, faint, feign, and fiction). Many of the technical Latin uses of the word, including ‘geometric figure’, are direct translations of Greek skhéma, which also meant literally ‘form, shape’, but the sense ‘numerical symbol’ is a later development. Also from the base *fig- was derived Latin figmentum ‘something created or invented’, from which English gets figment [15].
=> effigy, faint, feign, fiction, figment
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
form: form: [13] Form comes via Old French forme from Latin forma ‘shape, contour’, a word whose origins have never been satisfactorily explained. Its semantic similarity to Greek morphé ‘form, shape’ (source of English morphology [19]) is striking, and has led some etymologists to suggest that the Latin word may be an alteration of the Greek one, presumably by metathesis (the reversal of sounds, in this case /m/ and /f/).

Another possibility, however, is that it comes from ferīre ‘strike’, from the notion of an impression, image, or shape being created by beating. Of the word’s wide diversity of modern senses, ‘school class’, a 16th-century introduction, was inspired by the late Latin usage forma prima, forma secunda, etc for different orders of clergy, while ‘bench’ may go back to the Old French expression s’asseoir en forme ‘sit in a row’.

Amongst forma’s derivatives that have found their way into English are formal [14], format [19], formula [17] (from a Latin diminutive form), and uniform.
=> formal, format, formula, inform, uniform
invent: invent: [15] Invent originally meant ‘find’ (‘Since that Eve was procreated out of Adam’s side, could not such newels [novelties] in this land be invented’, wrote the anonymous author of a 15th-century song). It was based on invent-, the past participial stem of Latin invenīre ‘come upon, find’, a compound verb formed from the prefix in- ‘on’ and venīre ‘come’.

The sense ‘devise’, which developed via ‘discover’, actually existed in the Latin verb, but English did not take it on board until the 16th century. The derivative inventory [16] was borrowed from medieval Latin inventōrium ‘list’, an alteration of late Latin inventārium, which originally meant a ‘finding out’, hence an ‘enumeration’.
=> adventure, inventory
part: part: [13] Latin pars, a possible relative of parāre ‘make ready’ (source of English prepare), had a wide range of meanings – ‘piece’, ‘side’, ‘share’, etc – many of them shared by its English descendant part. The word was originally acquired in the late Old English period, but does not seem to have survived, and as we now have it was reborrowed via Old French part in the 13th century.

Other English descendants of pars include parcel, parse [16] (based on the notion of ‘parts’ of speech), partake [16] (a backformation from partaker [14], itself created from part and taker), partial [15], participate, participle, particle, particular, partisan, partition, partner, and party.
=> parcel, parse, partial, particle, partisan, partner, party
pea: pea: [17] Pea is the mirror-image of dice. Dice started off as the plural of die, but has become a singular form; the singular form of pea was originally pease, but it came to be regarded as plural, and so a new singular pea was created. The word was originally acquired in the Old English period from Latin pisa, which in turn got it from Greek píson. The old singular form survives in pease pudding. Relatives of the word include French pois, Italian pisello, and Welsh pysen.
philately: philately: [19] When a Monsieur Herpin, a French stamp-collector, was looking for an impressive and learned-sounding term for his hobby, he was hampered by the fact that the Greeks and Romans did not have postage stamps, and therefore there was no classical term for them. So he decided to go back a stage beyond stamps, to the days of franking with a post-mark. In France, such letters were stamped franc de port ‘carriage-free’, and the nearest he could get to this in Greek was atelés ‘free of charge’, a compound formed from a- ‘not’ and télos ‘payment’.

Using the Greek prefix phil- ‘loving, love of’ (as in philosophy and a wide range of other English words) he created philatélie, which made its first appearance in English in 1865.
poem: poem: [16] A poem is etymologically ‘something created’. The word comes via Old French poeme and Latin poēma from Greek póēma, a derivative of poeín ‘make, create’. The original sense ‘something created’ developed metaphorically via ‘literary work’ to ‘poem’. From the same Greek verb was derived poētés ‘maker’, hence ‘poet’, which produced Latin poēta and in due course English poet [13] (the Old English word for ‘poet’ had been scop, a relative of modern English scoff). Poetry [14] originated as a medieval Latin derivative of poēta. Poesy ‘poetry, poems’ [14], like poem originally a derivative Greek poeín, now has an archaic air, but it has a living descendant in posy [16], which started life as a contraction of poesy.
=> poesy, poet, poetry, posy
point: point: [13] ‘Sharp end’ is the etymological notion underlying point. For it comes ultimately from Latin pungere ‘prick, pierce’ (source also of English expunge, poignant and pungent). The neuter form of its past participle, punctum, was used as a noun, meaning ‘small hole made by pricking, dot, particle, etc’ (it is the source of English punctual, punctuation, etc), which passed into Old French as point.

Then in the post-classical period a further noun was created, from the feminine past participle puncta, meaning ‘sharp tip’, and this gave Old French pointe. The two have remained separate in French, but in English they have coalesced in point. The Spanish descendant of Latin punctum, punta, has given English punt ‘bet’.
=> compunction, expunge, poignant, punctual, punctuation, punt
quango: quango: [20] Quango is an acronym created probably in the late 1960s to refer, in a none too complimentary way, to an administrative body hovering in the grey area between public accountability and private control. It is commonly explained as being based on the initial letters of quasi-autonomous national government organization, but there is no actual evidence for that unwieldy phrase before the mid-1970s, by which time the acronym was already going strong. A more plausible source is the simpler quasi-nongovernmental organization, which was around in the late 1960s.
scum: scum: [13] Scum is etymologically a ‘layer on top’ of something. The word’s modern connotations of ‘dirt’ are a secondary development. It comes ultimately from prehistoric Germanic *skūman, a derivative of the base *skū- ‘cover’, and its relatives include German schaum ‘foam’ (source of English meerschaum [18], literally ‘sea-foam’).

English scum originally meant ‘foam’ too (‘Those small white Fish to Venus consecrated, though without Venus’ aid they be created of th’ Ocean scum’, Joshua Sylvester, Divine Weeks and Works of Du Bartas 1598), the notion being of a layer of froth ‘covering’ liquid, but by the 15th century it was broadening out to any ‘film on top of liquid’, and from there it went downhill to a ‘film of dirt’ and then simply ‘dirt’.

Germanic *skūman was borrowed into Old French as escume, and this formed the basis of a verb escumer ‘remove the top layer’, from which English gets skim [15].
=> meerschaum, skim
sequin: sequin: [17] When English first adopted sequin, it was the name of a coin. Its ultimate ancestor was Arabic sikkah, which denoted a die from which coins were minted (in Anglo-Indian English from the 17th to the 19th century, a sicca was a newly minted rupee). Italian took the word over as zecca, and created a diminutive form zecchino, referring to a gold coin.

The original application was specifically to a Venetian coin, but this subsequently broadened out, and the term was also used for a Turkish coin (alternatively known as a sultanin). In French, zecchino became sequin, which is the form in which English acquired it. The word might well have followed the coin into oblivion, but in the late 19th century it managed to get itself applied to the small round shiny pieces of metal applied to clothing, and its continued existence was guaranteed.
stand: stand: [OE] Stand goes back ultimately to the prehistoric Indo-European base *stā- ‘stand’. This passed into Germanic as *sta-, *stō-. Addition of the suffix *-nd- produced *standan, source of English stand, while past forms were created with the suffix *-t-, which has given English stood. Another descendant of the Indo- European base was Latin stāre ‘stand’, a prolific source of English words (among them stage, stanza, state, station, statue, etc).
=> stable, stage, stall, stamina, stanza, state, static, station, statue, steed, stool, stud, system
air force (n.): 1917, from air (n.1) + force (n.); first attested with creation of the Royal Air Force. There was no United States Air Force until after World War II. The Air Corps was an arm of the U.S. Army. In 1942, the War Department reorganized it and renamed it Army Air Forces. The National Security Act of 1947 created the Department of the Air Force, headed by a Secretary of the Air Force, and the U.S.A.F.
Alabama: created and named as a U.S. territory 1817 by a division of Mississippi Territory; ultimately named for one of the native peoples who lived there, who speak Muskogean. Their name probably is from a Choctaw term meaning "plant-cutters." Related: Alabamian.
Baskerville: typeface style, 1802 (the type was created in the 1750s), named for John Baskerville (1706-1775), British type-founder and printer.
The initial version were cut by John Handy under Baskerville's watchful eye. The result is the epitome of Neoclassicism and eighteenth-century rationalism in type -- a face far more popular in Republican France and the American colonies than in eighteenth-century England, where it was made. [Robert Bringhurst, "The Elements of Typographic Style," 1992]
bozo (n.): "muscular low-I.Q. male," c. 1910, perhaps from Spanish bozal, used in the slave trade and also to mean "one who speaks Spanish poorly." Bozo the clown was created 1940 at Capitol Records as the voice in a series of story-telling records for children ["Wall Street Journal," Oct. 31, 1983].
butterfly (n.): Old English buttorfleoge, evidently butter (n.) + fly (n.), but of obscure signification. Perhaps based on the old notion that the insects (or witches disguised as butterflies) consume butter or milk that is left uncovered. Or, less creatively, simply because the pale yellow color of many species' wings suggests the color of butter. Another theory connects it to the color of the insect's excrement, based on Dutch cognate boterschijte. An overview of words for "butterfly" in various languages can be found here. Also see papillon.

Applied to persons from c. 1600, originally in reference to vain and gaudy attire; by 1806 in reference to transformation from early lowly state; in reference to flitting tendencies by 1873. The swimming stroke so called from 1936. Butterflies "light stomach spasms caused by anxiety" is from 1908.
The butterfly effect is a deceptively simple insight extracted from a complex modern field. As a low-profile assistant professor in MIT's department of meteorology in 1961, [Edward] Lorenz created an early computer program to simulate weather. One day he changed one of a dozen numbers representing atmospheric conditions, from .506127 to .506. That tiny alteration utterly transformed his long-term forecast, a point Lorenz amplified in his 1972 paper, "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?" [Peter Dizikes, "The Meaning of the Butterfly," The Boston Globe, June 8, 2008]
Cain: elder son of Adam and Eve, from Hebrew Qayin, literally "created one," also "smith," from Semitic stem q-y-n "to form, to fashion." To raise Cain is first recorded 1840. Surnames McCain, McCann, etc., are a contraction of Irish Mac Cathan "son of Cathan," from Celtic cathan, literally "warrior," from cath "battle."
civilian (n.): late 14c., "judge or authority on civil law," from Old French civilien "of the civil law," created from Latin civilis "relating to a citizen, relating to public life, befitting a citizen; popular, affable, courteous" (see civil). Sense of "non-military person" is attested by 1819 (earlier in this sense was civilian, attested from c. 1600 as "non-soldier"). The adjective is from 1640s.
Clarence: surname, from Medieval Latin Clarencia, name of dukedom created 1362 for Lionel, third son of Edward III, so called from town of Clare, Suffolk, whose heiress Lionel married. Used as a masc. proper name from late 19c. As a type of four-wheeled closed carriage, named for the Duke of Clarence, later William IV.
create (v.): late 14c., from Latin creatus, past participle of creare "to make, bring forth, produce, beget," related to crescere "arise, grow" (see crescent). Related: Created; creating.
creation (n.): late 14c., "action of creating, a created thing," from Old French creacion (14c., Modern French création) "creation, coming into being," from Latin creationem (nominative creatio) "a creating, a producing," in classical use "an electing, appointment, choice," noun of action from past participle stem of creare (see create). Meaning "that which God has created, the world and all in it" is from 1610s. The native word in the Biblical sense was Old English frum-sceaft. Of fashion costumes, desserts, etc., from 1870s, from French. Creation science is attested by 1970.
creationism (n.): 1847, originally a Christian theological position that God immediately created a soul for each person born; from creation + -ism. As a name for the religious reaction to Darwin, opposed to evolution, it is attested from 1880.
James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in Dublin was highly regarded in his day as a churchman and as a scholar. Of his many works, his treatise on chronology has proved the most durable. Based on an intricate correlation of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean histories and Holy writ, it was incorporated into an authorized version of the Bible printed in 1701, and thus came to be regarded with almost as much unquestioning reverence as the Bible itself. Having established the first day of creation as Sunday 23 October 4004 B.C. ... Ussher calculated the dates of other biblical events, concluding, for example, that Adam and Eve were driven from Paradise on Monday 10 November 4004 BC, and that the ark touched down on Mt Ararat on 5 May 1491 BC "on a Wednesday". [Craig, G.Y., and E.J. Jones, "A Geological Miscellany," Princeton University Press, 1982.]
creature (n.): late 13c., "anything created," also "living being," from Old French creature (Modern French créature), from Late Latin creatura "thing created," from creatus, past participle of Latin creare "create" (see create). Meaning "anything that ministers to man's comforts" (1610s), after I Tim. iv:4, led to jocular use for "whiskey" (1630s).
Disneyland (n.): in figurative sense of "land of make-believe" first recorded 1956, from U.S. entertainment park (opened in 1955) created by cartoonist Walter E. Disney (1901-1966).
EPA: initialism (acronym) for Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. federal agency proposed by President Richard Nixon and created in December 1970.
formation (n.): late 14c., "vital force in plants and animals;" early 15c., "act of creating or making," from Old French formacion "formation, fashioning, creation" (12c.) or directly from Latin formationem (nominative formatio) "a forming, shaping," noun of action or condition from past participle stem of formare "to form," from forma (see form (n.)). Meaning that which is formed or created" is from 1640s. In geology, "group of rocks having a similar origin or character," 1815. Related: Formational.
Gaza: Arabic form of Hebrew 'az "force, strength." Gaza Strip was created by the division of 1949.
generation (n.): early 14c., "body of individuals born about the same period" (historically 30 years but in other uses as few as 17), on the notion of "descendants at the same stage in the line of descent," from Old French generacion "race, people, species; progeny, offspring; act of procreating" (12c., Modern French génération) and directly from Latin generationem (nominative generatio) "generating, generation," noun of action from past participle stem of generare "bring forth, beget, produce," from genus "race, kind" (see genus).

From late 14c. as "act or process of procreation; process of being formed; state of being procreated; reproduction; sexual intercourse;" also "that which is produced, fruit, crop; children; descendants, offspring of the same parent." Generation gap first recorded 1967; generation x is 1991, by author Douglas Coupland (b.1961) in the book of that name; generation y attested by 1994. Adjectival phrase first-generation, second-generation, etc. with reference to U.S. immigrant families is from 1896. Related: Generational.
hisself (pron.): see himself. The shift in felt meaning of the first element of this compound from dative to gentitive created this new word c. 1400, whereas the same process did not change herself.
idiom (n.): 1580s, "form of speech peculiar to a people or place," from Middle French idiome (16c.) and directly from Late Latin idioma "a peculiarity in language," from Greek idioma "peculiarity, peculiar phraseology," from idioumai "to appropriate to oneself," from idios "personal, private," properly "particular to oneself," from PIE *swed-yo-, suffixed form of root *s(w)e-, pronoun of the third person and reflexive (referring back to the subject of a sentence), also used in forms denoting the speaker's social group, "(we our-)selves" (cognates: Sanskrit svah, Avestan hva-, Old Persian huva "one's own," khva-data "lord," literally "created from oneself;" Greek hos "he, she, it;" Latin suescere "to accustom, get accustomed," sodalis "companion;" Old Church Slavonic svoji "his, her, its," svojaku "relative, kinsman;" Gothic swes "one's own;" Old Norse sik "oneself;" German Sein; Old Irish fein "self, himself"). Meaning "phrase or expression peculiar to a language" is from 1620s.
ileum (n.): lowest part of the small intestine, 1680s, medical Latin, from ileum, singular created from classical Latin plural ilia "groin, flank," in classical Latin, "belly, the abdomen below the ribs," poetically, "entrails, guts." Sense restriction and form apparently from confusion with Greek eileos (see ileus). Earlier in English ylioun (late 14c.), from Medieval Latin ileon. Related: Ileitis.
Illinois: U.S. territory created 1809; name is from a native Algonquian people who called themselves Inoca (1725), also written Ilinouek, Old Ottawa for "ordinary speaker." The modern form represents a 17c. French spelling, pronounced "ilinwe" at that time. Admitted as a state 1818.
Indus: river in Asia, from Sanskrit sindhu "river." The southern constellation, created 1603 by Bayer, represents "an Indian," not the river.
James: masc. proper name, name of two of Christ's disciples, late 12c. Middle English vernacular form of Late Latin Jacomus (source of Old French James, Spanish Jaime, Italian Giacomo), altered from Latin Jacobus (see Jacob).

The Welsh form was Iago, the Cornish Jago. Fictional British spy James Bond dates from 1953, created by British author Ian Fleming (1908-1964), who plausibly is said to have taken the name from that of U.S. ornithologist James Bond (1900-1989), an expert on Caribbean birds.