英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

gypsy [gypsy 词源字典]: gypsy: [16] It appears that in late medieval Europe, it was widely believed that the Roma people originated in Egypt. They first appeared in England around the beginning of the 16th century, and at first were generally referred to as ‘Egyptians’ (a name which survived well into the 18th century). Egyptian was soon eroded to gyptian, and by the end of the 16th century a new ending had been grafted on to the word to produce gypsy.
[gypsy etymology, gypsy origin, 英语词源]
hobbit: hobbit: [20] The name of these small furry-footed human-like creatures was invented by their creator, J.R.R. Tolkien, and first appeared in public in The Hobbit (1937). It probably simply occurred to him as a pleasing- and appropriatesounding name, but with typical linguistic thoroughness he later worked up a detailed etymological rationale for it: in their own language, he claimed, hobbits were called kuduk; this was a worn-down version of an original kûd-dûkan, which meant literally ‘holedweller’; in Old English, ‘hole-dweller’ would have been holbytla, which in modern English could plausibly have become eroded to hobbit.
tawdry: tawdry: [17] Anna, Anglo-Saxon king of East Anglia, had a daughter called Etheldrida, who became queen of Northumbria (she died in 679). She had an inordinate fondness in her youth for fine lace neckerchiefs, and when she was later afflicted by a fatal tumour of the neck, she regarded it as divine retribution for her former extravagance. After her death she was canonized and made patron saint of Ely.

In the Middle Ages fairs were held in her memory, known as ‘St Audrey’s fairs’ (Audry is a conflated version of Etheldrida), at which lace neckties were sold. These were termed Seynt Audries lace, a name eventually eroded to tawdrie lace. They were often made from cheap gaudy material, and so by the end of the 17th century tawdry was being used generally for ‘cheap and gaudy’.
the: the: [OE] The nominative forms of the Old English definite article were se (masculine), sēo (feminine), and thæt (neuter – ancestor of modern English that). In the late Old English period se was replaced by the, probably an eroded version of that and perhaps the same word as the Old English relative particle the. Its drafting in to take the place of se was no doubt promoted by the fact that all the inflected forms of the Old English definite article (thone, thæm, thæs, etc) began with th-. When the distinction between genders began to die out in the early Middle English period, the took over as the general form.
=> that, then, there, this, though
yeoman: yeoman: [14] Etymologically, a yeoman is probably simply a ‘young man’; indeed originally the word denoted a ‘junior household servant’, between a squire and a page in rank. It started life as yongman, a compound of Middle English yong ‘young’ and man, and was gradually eroded to yeoman. The modern sense ‘freeholding farmer’, and its metaphorical extensions, emerged in the 15th century.
=> man, young
badlands (n.): "arid, highly eroded regions of the western U.S.," 1852, from bad + land (n.). Applied to urban districts of crime and vice since 1892 (originally with reference to Chicago).
erode (v.): 1610s, "gnaw or eat away" (transitive), a back-formation from erosion, or else from French éroder, from Latin erodere "to gnaw away, consume," from assimilated form of ex- "away" (see ex-) + rodere "gnaw" (see rodent). Intransitive sense "become worn away" is by 1905. Related: Eroded; eroding. Originally of acids, ulcers, etc.; geological sense is from 1830.