quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- garter[garter 词源字典]
- garter: [14] The ultimate source of garter was probably an unrecorded Gaulish word meaning ‘leg’ (related to Welsh gar ‘leg’). It was borrowed into Old French at some point and used as the basis of the noun garet, which (in relation to people) meant ‘place where the leg bends, knee’. From this in turn was derived Old French gartier ‘band just above or below the knee’, source of English garter.
The British Order of the Garter dates, according to the medieval French chronicler Jean Froissart, from around 1344. The story of its origin, not recorded until over 250 years later and never authenticated, is that while the Countess of Salisbury was dancing with King Edward III, her garter fell off; the king picked it up and put it on his own leg, remarking somewhat cryptically in Anglo-French ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’ – ‘Shamed be he who thinks evil of it’, and named the order of knighthood which he founded after this very garter.
[garter etymology, garter origin, 英语词源] - cryptic (adj.)
- 1630s, "hidden, occult, mystical," from Late Latin crypticus, from Greek kryptikos "fit for concealing," from kryptos "hidden" (see crypt). Meaning "mysterious, enigmatic" is recorded from 1920. Related: Cryptically.