英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

bedbug (n.)[bedbug 词源字典]: also bed-bug, 1772, from bed (n.) + bug (n.).
[The bed bug] is supposed to have been first introduced to this country in the fir timber that was brought over to rebuild London after it had suffered by the great fire; for it is generally said that Bugs were not known in England before that time, and many of them were found almost immediately afterwards in the new-built houses. [the Rev. W. Bingley, "Animal Biography; or Anecdotes of the Lives, Manners, and Economy of the Animal Creation," London, 1803]
[bedbug etymology, bedbug origin, 英语词源]
biofeedback (n.): also bio-feedback, 1969, from bio- + feedback. Said to have been coined by U.S. psychologist and parapsychologist Gardner Murphy (1890-1975).
birdbath (n.): also bird-bath, bird bath, 1862, from bird (n.1) + bath (n.).
broadband (n.): type of high-speed Internet access widely available from 2006, from broad (adj.) + band (n.1).
cardboard (n.): 1848, from card (n.) + board (n.1). Figurative sense is from 1893. An earlier word for the same stuff was card paper (1777).
childbed (n.): also child-bed, c. 1200, "state of being in labor," from child + bed (n.). In reference to a bed, real or metaphorical, on which something is born, from 1590s.
childbirth (n.): also child-birth, mid-15c., from child + birth (n.).
cloudburst (n.): also cloud-burst, 1817, American English, from cloud (n.) + burst (n.). Parallels German Wolkenbruch.
deadbeat (n.): "worthless sponging idler," 1863, American English slang, perhaps originally Civil War slang, from dead (adj.) + beat. Earlier used colloquially as an adjectival expression to mean "completely beaten" (1821), and perhaps the base notion is of "worn out, good for nothing." It is noted in a British source from 1861 as a term for "a pensioner."
In England "dead beat" means worn out, used up. ... But here, "dead beat" is used, as a substantive, to mean a scoundrel, a shiftless, swindling vagabond. We hear it said that such a man is a beat or a dead beat. The phrase thus used is not even good slang. It is neither humorous nor descriptive. There is not in it even a perversion of the sense of the words of which it is composed. Its origin is quite beyond conjecture. ["Americanisms," in "The Galaxy," January 1878]
It also was used of a kind of regulating mechanism in pendulum clocks.
feedback (n.): 1920, in the electronics sense, "the return of a fraction of an output signal to the input of an earlier stage," from verbal phrase, from feed (v.) + back (adv.). Transferred use, "information about the results of a process" is attested by 1955.
handbag (n.): also hand-bag, "bag for small articles, carried in the hand," 1854, from hand (n.) + bag (n.).
handball (n.): also hand-ball, mid-15c., "small ball, thrown or batted by hand," also the name of a game, from hand (n.) + ball (n.1). Originally a throwing and catching game popular before the use of bats or rackets. The modern sport of that name seems to be so called by 1885.
handbell (n.): one rung by hand rather than by rope, etc., Old English handbelle; see hand (n.) + bell (n.).
handbill (n.): loose paper circulated by hand to make a public announcement, 1753, from hand (n.) + bill (n.1). Also applied to posted bills.
handbook (n.): Old English handboc "handbook, manual;" see hand (n.) + book (n.). It translates Latin manualis, and was displaced in Middle English by manual (from French), and later in part by enchiridion (from Greek). Reintroduced 1814 in imitation of German Handbuch, but execrated through much of 19c. as "that very ugly and very unnecessary word" [Richard Chenevix Trench, "English Past and Present," 1905].
hardback (n.): "type of book bound in stiff boards," 1954, from hard (adj.) + back (n.).
hardball (n.): 1883 as the name of a game, from hard (adj.) + ball (n.1). The figurative sense of "tough, uncompromising behavior" is from 1973.
headband (n.): also Related: head-band, 1530s, from head (n.) + band (n.1).
headbanger (n.): "devotee of heavy metal music," 1984, from head (n.) + agent noun from bang (v.).
oddball (n.): "eccentric or unconventional person," 1948, from odd + ball (n.1). Earlier (1946) as an adjective, used by aviators.
redbird (n.): mid-13c., a name for sundry red or partly red birds, including the common bullfinch and the scarlet tanager, but in U.S. especially the cardinal, from red (adj.1) + bird (n.).
redbreast (n.): early 15c., of the English robin, from red (adj.1) + breast (n.). Later of the American bird.
roadblock (n.): 1940, from road + block (n.).
Rube Goldberg (adj.): 1940, from the U.S. cartoonist Reuben Lucius Goldberg (1883-1970) who devised fantastically complex gadgetry to accomplish simple tasks. His British counterpart was Heath Robinson (1872-1944).
sandbag (n.): 1580s, from sand (n.) + bag (n.).
sandbag (v.): 1860, "furnish with sandbags," from sandbag (n.). Meaning "pretend weakness," 1970s perhaps is extended from poker-playing sense of "refrain from raising at the first opportunity in hopes of raising more steeply later" (1940), which perhaps is from sandbagger in the sense of "bully or ruffian who uses a sandbag as a weapon to knock his intended victim unconscious" (1882). Hence "to fell or stun with a blow from a sandbag" (1887). Related: Sandbagged; sandbagging.
sandbar (n.): 1755, from sand (n.) + bar (n.1).
sandbox (n.): also sand-box, 1570s as an instrument to sprinkle sand, from sand (n.) + box (n.1). From 1680s as "a box holding sand;" 1891 as a low-sided sand pit for children's play.
sodbuster (n.): "pioneer farmer in a cattle-grazing region," originally in the U.S. West, 1897, from sod (n.1) + agent noun from bust (v.).
Struldbrug (n.): "person who never dies but becomes senile and useless," 1726, from "Gulliver's Travels," a made-up word.
threadbare (adj.): late 14c., from thread (n.) + bare. The notion is of "having the nap worn off," leaving bare the threads.
tidbit (n.): 1630s, probably from dialectal tid "fond, solicitous, tender" (perhaps by influence of tit (n.2)) + bit (n.1) "morsel."
windbag (n.): late 15c., "bellows for an organ," from wind (n.1) + bag (n.). Figurative sense of "person who talks too much" is attested from 1827.
windbreak (n.): also wind-break, "row of trees, etc., to break the force of the wind," 1861, American English, from wind (n.1) + break (n.).
windbreaker (n.): type of jacket to keep off the wind (originally a kind of leather shirt), 1918, from wind (n.1) + agent noun from break (v.).
woodbine (n.): Old English wudubinde, a climbing plant, from wudu "wood" (see wood (n.)) + binde "wreath," related to bind (v.). Used of various climbing plants on three continents.
yardbird (n.): "convict," 1956, from yard (n.1) + bird (n.1), from the notion of prison yards; earlier it meant "basic trainee" (World War II armed forces slang).
goodbye: "Used to express good wishes when parting or at the end of a conversation", Late 16th century: contraction of God be with you!, with good substituted on the pattern of phrases such as good morning.