英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

hubbub [hubbub 词源字典]: hubbub: [16] Hubbub is an Irish contribution to English. It comes from Irish Gaelic hooboobbes, which appears to be related to the Old Irish battle-cry abú. This was a derivative of buide ‘victory’ (a relative of which across the Irish Sea formed the basis of the name Boudicca or Boadicea, the Ancient Britons’ version of Victoria). English acquired the word (and the now disused longer form hubbuboo) in the mid 16th century, and originally used it for the ‘warcry of a savage tribe’; the modern sense ‘noisy turmoil’ developed in the 17th century.
[hubbub etymology, hubbub origin, 英语词源]
litre: litre: [19] Litre goes back to Greek lītrā, a term which denoted a Sicilian monetary unit. This found its way via medieval Latin litrā into French as litron, where it was used for a unit of capacity. By the 18th century it had rather fallen out of use, but in 1793 it was revived, in the form litre, as the name for the basic unit of capacity in the new metric system.

It is first recorded in English in 1810. The Greek word was descended from an earlier, unrecorded *līthrā, which was borrowed into Latin as lībra ‘pound’. This is the source of various modern terms for units of weight, and hence of currency, including Italian lira and the now disused French livre, and it also lies behind the English symbol £ for ‘pound’.
=> level, lira
magazine: magazine: [16] The original meaning of magazine, now disused, was ‘storehouse’. The word comes, via French magasin and Italian magazzino, from Arabic makhāzin, the plural of makhzan ‘store-house’ (a derivative of the verb khazana ‘store’). It was soon applied specifically to a ‘store for arms’, and the modern sense ‘journal’, first recorded in the early 18th century, goes back to a 17th-century metaphorical application to a ‘storehouse of information’.
nectar: nectar: [16] Nectar was originally the drink of the Greek gods, but soon after the word’s arrival in English it was being used metaphorically for any ‘delicious drink’. It comes via Latin nectar from Greek néktar, and it has been speculated that this may have been derived from the base *nek- ‘kill’ (source also of English necromancy), as some sort of allusion to the ‘immortality’ of the gods. Nectarine [17], the name of a sort of peach based on the now disused adjective nectarine ‘like nectar’, was probably inspired by German nektarpfirsich ‘nectar-peach’.
axe (n.): Old English æces (Northumbrian acas) "axe, pickaxe, hatchet," later æx, from Proto-Germanic *akusjo (cognates: Old Saxon accus, Old Norse ex, Old Frisian axe, German Axt, Gothic aqizi), from PIE *agw(e)si- (cognates: Greek axine, Latin ascia).
The spelling ax is better on every ground, of etymology, phonology, and analogy, than axe, which became prevalent during the 19th century; but it is now disused in Britain. [OED]

The spelling ax, though "better on every ground, of etymology, phonology, & analogy" (OED), is so strange to 20th-c. eyes that it suggests pedantry & is unlikely to be restored. [Fowler]
Meaning "musical instrument" is 1955, originally jazz slang for the saxophone; rock slang for "guitar" dates to 1967. The axe in figurative sense of cutting of anything (expenses, workers, etc.), especially as a cost-saving measure, is from 1922, probably from the notion of the headman's literal axe (itself attested from mid-15c.). To have an axe to grind is from an 1815 essay by U.S. editor and politician Charles Miner (1780-1865) in which a man flatters a boy and gets him to do the chore of axe-grinding for him, then leaves without offering thanks or recompense. Misattributed to Benjamin Franklin in Weekley, OED print edition, and many other sources.
brownfield (n.): abandoned or disused industrial land, often contaminated to some degree, 1992, American English, from brown (adj.) + field (n.).
denigrate (v.): 1520s, from Latin denigratus, past participle of denigrare "to blacken, defame," from de- "completely" (see de-) + nigr-, stem of niger "black" (see Negro). which is of unknown origin. "Apparently disused in 18th c. and revived in 19th c." [OED]. Related: Denigrated; denigrating.
disuse (v.): c. 1400, "misuse, pervert;" mid-15c., "become unaccustomed," from or on analogy of Old French desuser, from des- "not" (see dis-) + user "use" (see use (v.)). Related: Disused.
for-: prefix usually meaning "away, opposite, completely," from Old English for-, indicating loss or destruction, but in other cases completion, and used as well with intensive or pejorative force, from Proto-Germanic *fur "before, in" (cognates: Old Norse for-, Swedish för-, Dutch ver-, Old High German fir-, German ver-); from PIE *pr-, from root *per- (1) "forward, through" (see per).
In verbs the prefix denotes (a) intensive or completive action or process, or (b) action that miscarries, turns out for the worse, results in failure, or produces adverse or opposite results. In many verbs the prefix exhibits both meanings, and the verbs frequently have secondary and figurative meanings or are synonymous with the simplex. [Middle English Dictionary]
Probably originally in Germanic with a sense of "forward, forth," but it spun out complex sense developments in the historical languages. Disused in Modern English. Ultimately from the same root as fore (adv.). From its use in participles it came to be an intensive prefix of adjectives in Middle English (for example Chaucer's forblak "exceedingly black"), but all these now seem to be obsolete.
foray (n.): late 14c., "predatory incursion," Scottish, from the verb (14c.), perhaps a back-formation of Middle English forreyer "raider, forager" (mid-14c.), from Old French forrier, from forrer "to forage," from forrage "fodder; foraging; pillaging, looting" (see forage (n.)). Disused by 18c.; revived by Scott. As a verb from 14c.
insipient (adj.): "foolish," mid-15c., from Latin insipientem (nominative insipiens) "unwise, foolish," from in- "not" (see in- (1)) + sapientem (see sapient). "Now mostly, or wholly, disused to avoid confusion with incipient" [OED].
lumber (n.): "timber sawn into rough planks," 1660s, American English (Massachusetts), earlier "disused bit of furniture; heavy, useless objects" (1550s), probably from lumber (v.), perhaps influenced by Lombard, from the Italian immigrants famous as pawnbrokers and money-lenders in England (see Lombard). Lumbar, Lumbard were old alternative forms of Lombard in English. The evolution of sense then would be because a lumber-house ("pawn shop") naturally accumulates odds and ends of furniture.
Live Lumber, soldiers or passengers on board a ship are so called by the sailors. [Grose, "Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," 1785]

LUMBER HOUSE. A house appropriated by thieves for the reception of their stolen property. ["Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence," London, 1811]
trophology: "Nutritional science (now rare or disused )", Mid 19th cent.; earliest use found in Medical Times and Gazette. Perhaps after French trophologie.
supramaxilla: " Anatomy the maxilla or upper jaw (now disused )", Late 19th cent..
abdominoscopy: "Originally: examination of the abdomen by visual inspection or by other standard methods of physical examination (palpation, percussion, etc.) (now disused ). In later use: endoscopic examination of the abdominal cavity", Early 19th cent. From abdomino- + -scopy, after French abdominoscopie.
sub-officer: "(A title for) a subordinate officer. In later use especially: ( British ) a member of the fire services ranked below Station Officer (now disused )", Early 17th cent. From sub- + officer.