英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

acrid [acrid 词源字典]: acrid: [18] Acrid is related to acid, and probably owes its second syllable entirely to that word. It is based essentially on Latin acer ‘sharp, pungent’, which, like acid, acute, oxygen, and edge, derives ultimately from an Indo-European base *ak- meaning ‘be pointed or sharp’. When this was imported into English in the 18th century, the ending -id was artificially grafted on to it, most likely from the semantically similar acid.
=> acid, acrylic, acute, edge, eglantine, oxygen, paragon[acrid etymology, acrid origin, 英语词源]
bikini: bikini: [20] For Frenchmen, the sight of the first minimal two-piece swimming costumes for women produced by fashion designers in 1947 was as explosive as the test detonation of an atom bomb by the USA at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, in the western Pacific Ocean, in July 1946. Hence their naming it the ‘Bikini’, the first record of which is in the August 1947 issue of Le Monde Illustré. English acquired the word in 1948. The monokini, essentially a braless bikini, first appeared in 1964, the inspiration for its name being the accidental resemblance of the element bi- in bikini to the prefix bi- ‘two’.
brass: brass: [OE] Related forms occur in one or two other Germanic languages (such as Middle Low German bras, which meant simply ‘metal’), but essentially brass is a mystery word, of unknown ancestry. Its association with ‘effrontery’ begins in the late 16th century, prefigured by Shakespeare’s ‘face of brass’ in Love’s Labours Lost 1580, and by the first instances of the use of the derived adjective brazen to mean ‘shameless’ (the underlying notion is probably of a face as hard as brass, and therefore unable to show shame). Brass ‘high-ranking people’, as in top brass, comes from brass hat [19], a derogatory slang term for a senior military officer with golden insignia on his cap.
call: call: [OE] Essentially, call is a Scandinavian word, although it does occur once in an Old English text, the late 10th-century Battle of Maldon. It was borrowed from Old Norse kalla, which can be traced back via West and North Germanic *kal- to an Indo-European base *gol- (among other derivatives of this is Serbo-Croat glagól ‘word’, source of Glagolitic, a term for an early Slavic alphabet).
caviare: caviare: [16] Caviare is of Turkish origin; it comes from Turkish khāvyār. It spread from there to a number of European languages, including Italian caviale and French caviar, many of which contributed to the rather confusing diversity of forms in 16th-, 17th-, and early 18th-century English: cavialy, cavery, caveer, gaveare, etc. By the mid-18th century caviare or caviar had become the established spellings. Ironically, although caviare is quintessentially a Russian delicacy, Russian does not have the word caviare; it uses ikrá.
chemical: chemical: [16] Essentially chemical, and the related chemistry and chemist, come from alchemy with the initial al- dropped. Alchemy itself is of Arabic origin; al represents the Arabic definite article ‘the’, while the second element was borrowed from Greek khēmíā ‘alchemy’. Loss of al- seems to have taken place originally in French, so the immediate source of the English words was French chimiste and chimique (whence the now obsolete English chemic, on which chemical was based).

At first this whole group of words continued to be used in the same sense as its progenitor alchemy; it is not really until the 17th century that we find it being consistently applied to what we would now recognize as the scientific discipline of chemistry.
=> alchemy
clay: clay: [OE] Clay is named from its consistency – its stickiness, its squidginess, its capacity for being smeared. Its ultimate source is the Indo- European base *gloi-, *glei-, *gli-, from which English also gets glue and gluten. From it was descended the Germanic base *klai-, on which was formed West Germanic *klaijō-. This passed into Old English as clæg – hence modern English clay. (Clammy comes from the same Germanic source, and clag, from which we get claggy ‘muddy’, is essentially the same word as clay, although it reached English via a Scandinavian route.)
=> clammy, clean
coy: coy: [14] Essentially, coy is the same word as quiet, and ‘quiet’ is what it meant when it first came into English (it soon developed to ‘shyly reserved’, and the sense ‘quiet’ died out in the 17th century). Its ultimate source was Latin quiētus, but whereas in the case of quiet this passed directly through Old French, coy came via the more circuitous route of Vulgar Latin *quētus, which produced early Old French quei, and later coi, the source of the English word.
=> quiet
crenellate: crenellate: [19] The 19th century seems a surprisingly late date for English to have acquired a term so closely associated with medieval battlements, but it is a little misleading. For essentially the same word entered the language in the 13th century as kernel. Both come ultimately from late Latin crēna ‘notch’ (probable source also of English cranny [15]). In Vulgar Latin this developed the diminutive form *crenellus, metathesized in medieval Latin as kernellus.
=> cranny
crone: crone: [14] Crone has a rather macabre history. Essentially it is the same word as carrion. It began life in Latin carō ‘flesh’, which had a Vulgar Latin derivative *carōnia ‘carcass’. In Old Northern French this became carogne, which was applied metaphorically to a withered old woman (English carrion comes from the Anglo-Norman form caroine). Middle Dutch borrowed the word as croonje, applying it additionally to old ewes, and passed it on to English.
=> carrion
crown: crown: [12] Crowns appear to have been named essentially from their circular shape. The word’s ultimate source, Greek korónē, simply meant ‘something curved’ (it came from the adjective korōnos ‘curved’, which was a relative of Latin curvus ‘curved’). Latin borrowed it as corōna ‘circular garland’, and passed it on via Old French corone and Anglo-Norman corune to English.

Latin also derived a verb from it, corōnāre, which ultimately became the English verb crown and also, of course, formed the basis of English coronation [14]. Other English descendants of Latin corōna (which itself became an English word in the 16th century) are the two diminutives coronet [15] and corolla [17] (source of corollary), coroner [14] (originally an ‘officer of the crown’), and coronary.

The use of crown for certain coins (based of course on their being stamped with the figure of a crown) dates in English from the 14th century; it is also reflected in such coin names as Swedish krona and Danish and Norwegian krone.
=> corollary, coronation, coroner, coronet, curve
cupboard: cupboard: [14] A cupboard was originally exactly that: a ‘board’, or table, on which cups (and other pieces of crockery or plate) were placed for display. Essentially, it was what we would now call a sideboard. The modern sense, ‘recess with doors and shelves’, did not develop until the 16th century. (An earlier, and now largely superseded, term for ‘cupboard’ was press [14]. Cabinet is roughly contemporary with cupboard in its modern sense, and closet developed this meaning in the 17th century.)
dauphin: dauphin: [15] The eldest sons of the French king were from 1349–1830 designated by a title which is essentially the same word as English dolphin. It was originally applied to the lords of the Viennois, an area in the southeast of France, whose coat of arms incorporated three dolphins. After the Viennois province of Dauphiné was sold by Charles of Valois to the French crown in 1343, the king gave it to his eldest son, and from then on all eldest sons inherited it along with the title dauphin.
=> dolphin
depend: depend: [15] To depend on something is literally to ‘hang down’ from it. The word comes, via Old French dependre, from Latin dēpendēre, a compound verb formed from the prefix dē- ‘down’ and pendēre ‘hang’ (source of English pendant, pendulum, penthouse, and a host of derivatives from appendix to suspend). Its original literal sense survives in English, just, as a conscious archaism, but essentially the metaphorical extensions ‘be contingent’ (echoed in the parallel use of hang on) and ‘rely’ have taken the verb over.
=> appendix, pendent, pendulum, penthouse, suspend
device: device: [13] A device is something which has been devised – which, etymologically speaking, amounts to ‘something which has been divided’. For ultimately devise and divide come from the same source. The noun device comes in the first instance from Old French devis ‘division, contrivance’ and latterly (in the 15th century) from Old French devise ‘plan’, both of which were derivatives of the verb deviser ‘divide, devise’ (source of English devise [13]).

This in turn came from Vulgar Latin *dīvisāre, a verb based on the past participial stem of Latin dīvidere, source of English divide. The semantic development by which ‘divide’ passed to ‘contrive’, presumably based on the notion that dividing something up and distributing it needs some planning, happened before the word reached English, and English device has never meant ‘division’.

The sense ‘simple machine’ essentially evolved in the 16th century.
=> devise, divide, individual, widow
devout: devout: [13] Essentially, devout and devote [16] are the same word; they come from an identical source, but reached English along different routes. That source is dēvōtus, the past participle of Latin dēvovēre, which was a compound formed from the intensive prefix dē- and vovēre ‘promise’ (source of English vote and vow). This entered English originally via Old French devot as an adjective, and was then reborrowed directly from Latin in the 16th century as the basis for a verb.
=> devote, vote, vow
domain: domain: [17] Etymologically, domain means ‘land belonging to a lord’, but its resemblance to such words as dominate and dominion is somewhat adventitious. Until the 17th century it was essentially the same word as demesne: demaine or demeine ‘lord’s estate’ was the Old French equivalent of (and indeed source of) English demesne. It came ultimately from Latin dominicus ‘of a lord’, but its etymological connection with Latin dominus ‘lord’ had become somewhat obscured over the centuries.

But then, around 1600, by association with Latin dominium (source of English dominion), French demaine became altered to domaine, which English borrowed as domain.
=> dame, demesne, dominate, dominion
draught: draught: [12] Draught and draft are essentially the same word, but draft (more accurately representing its modern English pronunciation) has become established since the 18th century as the spelling for ‘preliminary drawing or plan’, ‘money order’, and (in American English) ‘conscription’. The word itself probably comes from an unrecorded Old Norse *drahtr, an abstract noun meaning ‘pulling’ derived from a prehistoric Germanic verb *dragan (source of English drag and draw).

Most of its modern English meanings are fairly transparently descended from the idea of ‘pulling’: ‘draught beer’, for example, is ‘drawn’ from a barrel. Of the less obvious ones, ‘current of air’ is air that is ‘drawn’ through an opening; the game draughts comes from an earlier, Middle English sense of draught, ‘act of drawing a piece across the board in chess and similar games’; while draft ‘provisional plan’ was originally ‘something drawn or sketched’.
=> draft, drag, draw
ejaculate: ejaculate: [16] Etymologically, ejaculate means ‘dart out’. It comes from Latin ejaculārī, a compound verb formed ultimately from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and jaculum ‘dart, javelin’. This in turn was a derivative of jacere ‘throw’ (which itself combined with ex- to form ejicere, source of English eject [15]). The word’s original sense ‘throw out suddenly’ survived (or perhaps has revived) for a time in English, but essentially it has been for its metaphorical uses (‘emit semen’ and ‘exclaim’) that it has been preserved.
=> eject, jesses, jet, object, reject, subject
employ: employ: [15] Essentially, employ is the same word as imply [14] and implicate [16]. All three come ultimately from Latin implicāre ‘enfold, involve’, a compound verb formed from the prefix in- ‘in’ and plicāre ‘fold’ (source of English ply and related to English fold). This passed into Old French as emplier, which in turn was transmitted into English as imply; this originally retained the literal sense ‘enfold’, and it was only gradually that the metaphorical ‘involve as a necessary condition’ developed.

However, Old French emplier had a variant empleier, later emploier, which took a slightly different semantic route – from simply ‘involve’ to ‘involve in or apply to a particular purpose’. This was the sense in which English acquired it as employ.
=> fold, implicate, imply, ply
esplanade: esplanade: [17] Essentially, esplanade is the same word as explain, but whereas explain has lost its underlying literal meaning, esplanade has retained at least a memory of it. It comes ultimately from Latin explānāre, which meant ‘flatten out’, and so esplanade (acquired via French from the Spanish past participle esplanada) was originally simply a ‘large level area’. Its application to the ‘promenade’ at seaside towns is a comparatively recent development.
=> explain
estate: estate: [13] Essentially, estate and state are the same word, and originally their meanings were very close (the now archaic ‘reach man’s estate’, for instance, signifies ‘reach the state of manhood’). From the 15th century, however, they began to diverge, estate taking a semantic path via ‘interest in property’ to ‘such property itself’, and finally, in the 18th century, to the ‘land owned by someone’. Both come via Old French estat from Latin status ‘way of standing, condition’ (source of English status), a derivative of the verb stāre ‘stand’ (a relative of English stand).
=> stand, state, statue, status
excise: excise: English has two words excise. The one meaning ‘tax’ [15] is essentially a Dutch usage. English borrowed it in the late 15th century from Middle Dutch excijs, which came via Old French acceis from Vulgar Latin *accēnsum, a compound noun formed from the Latin prefix ad- ‘against, to’ and cēnsus ‘tax’ (source of English census [17]).

At first it was used broadly for any ‘tax’, but in 1643 (following the example of Holland) it was officially adopted as the term for a tax imposed on certain forms of goods (originally domestically produced or imported, but since the 19th century only domestically produced – the tax on imports being termed customs duty). Dr Johnson in his Dictionary 1755 defined excise as ‘a hateful tax levied upon commodities, and ajudged not by the common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whome excise is paid’. Excise ‘cut out’ [16] comes from the past participle of Latin excīdere, a compound verb formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and caedere ‘cut’ (source also of English concise, decide, and incision).
=> census, concise, decide, incision
fact: fact: [16] A fact is literally ‘something that is done’. It comes from Latin factum ‘deed’, a noun based on the past participle of facere ‘do’. This verb, a distant relative of English do, has contributed richly to English vocabulary, from obvious derivatives like factitious [17] and factitive [19] to more heavily disguised forms such as difficult, effect, fashion, feasible, feature, and fetish, not to mention the -fic suffix of words like horrific and pacific, and the related verbal suffix -fy.

To begin with, English adopted the word in its original Latin sense ‘deed’, but this now survives only in legal contexts, such as ‘accessory after the fact’. There is sporadic evidence in classical Latin, however, of its use for ‘something that happens, event’, and this developed in post-classical times to produce ‘what actually is’, the word’s main modern sense in French fait and Italian fatto as well as in their English relative fact. Feat is essentially the same word as fact, filtered through Old French.
=> difficult, do, effect, fashion, feasible, feature, fetish
fake: fake: [19] The use of fake for ‘produce a fraudulent copy of’ is a comparatively recent development. It used to mean ‘do up something spurious to make it seem genuine’, and in this sense seems to be a descendant of the longobsolete verb feague [16]. Essentially it is a piece of underworld slang, and as such has a rather slippery semantic history. In the 19th century it was used, like its ancestor feague, for any number of nefarious operations, including beating up and killing (‘to fake a man out and out, is to kill him’, J H Vaux, Vocabulary of the Flash Language 1812), but its current sense leads back in a straight line to its probable ultimate source, German fegen ‘polish, refurbish’.

This (like English fig ‘clothes, array’) was a derivative of the prehistoric Germanic base *feg-, a variant of *fag-, from which English gets fair ‘beautiful’.
=> fair, feast, fig
feint: feint: The noun feint [17] and the adjective feint [19] are essentially different words, but they have a common ultimate origin. Feint ‘misleading mock attack’ was borrowed from French feinte, a noun use of the feminine form of the past participle of feindre ‘pretend’ (from which English got feign). Feint ‘printed with pale lines’ is an artificial variant of faint introduced in the printing trade in the mid 19th century (and faint itself originally came from the past participle of feindre).
=> faint, feign
ferry: ferry: [12] A ferry is etymologically a boat on which you ‘travel’ from one place to another. The word comes ultimately from the Indo- European base *por- ‘going, passage’, which has produced a wide range of other English words, including emporium, ford, and port. Its Germanic descendant was *fer- ‘go’, source of English fare as well as ferry. Ferry itself was probably borrowed from the Old Norse element ferju-, denoting ‘passage across water’, and that was what it at first meant in English.

The word’s main modern use, which is essentially an abbreviation of ferry-boat, is not recorded before the 16th century, and does not seem to have really become established until the 20th century.
=> emporium, fare, ford, port
gaiter: gaiter: [18] Etymologically as well as semantically, gaiter is an ‘ankle covering’. It comes from French guêtre ‘gaiter’, which may well have been formed from Germanic *wirst-. This denoted ‘twist, turn’, and it has several modern derivatives which mean essentially ‘twisting joint’: German rist, for example, which has now migrated anatomically to the ‘instep’ and the ‘back of the hand’, originally signified ‘ankle, wrist’, and although English wrist now refers only to the hand/arm joint, it was formerly used dialectally for the ‘ankle’.
=> wrist
gamble: gamble: [18] Although its ancestry has never been established beyond all doubt, it seems overwhelmingly likely that gamble is essentially the same word as game (in which the sense ‘gamble’ is preserved in such contexts as gaming tables and betting and gaming). The Middle English form of game was gamen, and it is thought that this may have produced a variant form gamel (recorded in the 16th century) which in due course became gamble.
=> game
gnarled: gnarled: [17] Gnarled is essentially a 19thcentury word. It is recorded once before then, in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure 1603 (‘Thy sharp and sulphurous bolt splits the unwedgable and gnarled oak’), but its modern currency is due to its adoption by early 19th-century romantic writers. It is probably a variant of knurled [17], itself a derivative of knur or knor ‘rough misshapen lump, as on a tree trunk’ [14], which is related to German knorren ‘knot, gnarled branch or trunk’.
=> knurled
grave: grave: Modern English has essentially two words grave. Grave ‘burial place’ goes back ultimately to prehistoric Indo-European *ghrebh- ‘dig’, which also produced Latvian grebt ‘hollow out’ and Old Church Slavonic pogreti ‘bury’. Its Germanic descendant had variants *grōb- (source of groove), *grub- (whence grub), and *grab-.

This last formed the basis of *graban, from which have come the verbs for ‘dig’ in most Germanic languages, including German graben, Dutch graven, Swedish gräva, and Danish grave. The English member of the family, grave, is now virtually obsolete as a verb (although its derivative engrave [16] survives); but its nominal relative grave, also formed from *grab-, is still very much with us. Grave ‘serious’ [16] comes via Old French grave from Latin gravis ‘heavy, important’, source also of English gravity and grief.

Its application to a backward-leaning accent (as in è) comes from the original use of such an accent-mark to indicate low or deep intonation.
=> engrave, groove, grub; gravity, grief
guarantee: guarantee: [17] Guarantee is essentially the same word as warrant, which is of Germanic origin (Germanic initial w- became g(u)- in the Romance languages). It was probably borrowed into English from the Spanish form garante (this is suggested by early spellings garanté and garante in English), and later changed to guarantee through confusion with guaranty [16] (itself originally a variant of warranty).
=> warrant
hallow: hallow: [OE] Hallow is essentially the same word as holy. The noun, as in Halloween, the eve of All Hallows, or All Saints, comes from a noun use of Old English Hālig, which as an adjective developed into modern English holy; and the verb was formed in prehistoric Germanic times from the root *khailag-, source also of holy.
=> holy
help: help: [OE] Today, help is essentially a Germanic word. Related forms such as German helfen, Dutch helpen, Swedish hjälpa, and Danish hjælpe point to a Germanic ancestor *khelp-. But there is one clue – Lithuanian shélpti ‘help, support’ – that suggests that formerly it may have been much more widespread throughout the Indo-European languages, and came from an Indo-European source *kelp-.
history: history: [15] Etymologically, history denotes simply ‘knowledge’; its much more specific modern meaning is decidedly a secondary development. Its story begins with Greek hístōr ‘learned man’, a descendant of Indo-European *wid- ‘know, see’, which also produced English wit and Latin vidēre ‘see’. From hístōr was derived historíā ‘knowledge obtained by enquiry’, hence ‘written account of one’s enquiries, narrative, history’.

English acquired it via Latin historia, and at first used it for ‘fictional narrative’ as well as ‘account of actual events in the past’ (a sense now restricted to story, essentially the same word but acquired via Anglo-Norman).
=> story, vision, wit
holy: holy: [OE] Holy originated as a derivative of the prehistoric Germanic adjective which produced modern English whole, and so its etymological meaning is perhaps ‘unimpaired, inviolate’. This ancestral form was *khailagaz, which diversified into German and Dutch heilig, Swedish helig, and Danish hellig as well as English holy. Hallow is essentially the same word, and compounds with holy as a now hidden component include hollyhock [13] as well as holiday.
=> hallow, holiday
human: human: [14] Human comes via Old French humain from Latin hūmānus. Like homō ‘person’, this was related to Latin humus ‘earth’, and was used originally for ‘people’ in the sense ‘earthly beings’ (in contrast with the immortal gods). Humane is essentially the same word, and became established in the 18th century as a distinct spelling (and pronunciation) for two or three specific senses of human. Other English derivatives include humanism [19], humanity [14], and humanitarian [19].
=> humane, humble, humus
I: I: [OE] Essentially all the Indo-European languages share the same first person singular pronoun, although naturally it has diverged in form over the millennia. French has je, for example, Italian io, Russian ja, and Greek egó. The prehistoric Germanic pronoun was *eka, and this has produced German ich, Dutch ik, Swedish jag, Danish jeg, and English I. The affirmative answer aye ‘yes’ [16] is probably ultimately the same word as I.
=> aye, ego
jingo: jingo: [17] The exclamation by jingo! has been around since at least the late 17th century, and the element jingo probably originated as a euphemistic alteration of Jesus. But it took on a new lease of life in 1878 when G W Hunt incorporated it into a music-hall song he was writing in support of Disraeli’s hawkish foreign policy towards the Russians. Its refrain went ‘We don’t want to fight, yet by Jingo! if we do, We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, and got the money too’. By jingo! was taken up as a nationalistic rallying call: those who supported Disraeli’s plan to send in the fleet were called jingoes, and their attitude was dubbed jingoism.

But these were terms used by their opponents, not by the jingoes themselves, and they were essentially derogatory, and when jingoism later broadened out in meaning, it denoted a mindless gung-ho patriotism.
knapsack: knapsack: [17] The -sack of knapsack is no doubt essentially the same word as English sack, but the knap- presents slightly more of a problem. The term was borrowed from Low German knappsack, and so probably knapprepresents Low German knappen ‘eat’ – the bag having originally been named because it carried a traveller’s supply of food.
manoeuvre: manoeuvre: [18] Essentially manoeuvre and manure [14] are the same word. Both go back ultimately to a Latin expression denoting ‘manual labour’. This was manū operārī, literally ‘work with the hand’. It was lexicalized in medieval Latin as the verb manuoperāre, and this passed into Old French as manovrer. Middle English took it over via Anglo-Norman mainoverer as maynoyre or manour, which at first was used for ‘administer land’, and more specifically ‘cultivate land’.

Not until the mid 16th century did the noun manure, denoting ‘dung spread in cultivating the land’, emerge. Meanwhile Old French manovrer developed into modern French manoeuvrer, which English borrowed in the 18th century.
=> manual, manure, operate
oil: oil: [12] Around the Mediterranean in ancient times the only sort of oil encountered was that produced by pressing olives, and so ‘oil’ was named after the olive. The Greek word for ‘olive’ was elaíā, and from it was derived elaíon ‘olive oil’. This passed into Latin as oleum, and reached English via Old French oile. By now it had begun to be applied to similar substances pressed from nuts, seeds, etc, but its specific modern use for the mineral oil ‘petroleum’ is a much more recent, essentially 19th-century development.
=> olive
plane: plane: English has five distinct planes, four of which are essentially the same word as plain. These come ultimately from Latin plānus, but preserve its ‘flat’ meanings rather than (like plain) its ‘clear’ meanings. Plane ‘flat surface’ [17] comes from Latin plānum, a noun use of the neuter form of the adjective; it is the plane from which aeroplane, and hence its abbreviation plane, were formed. Plane ‘carpenter’s smoothing tool’ [14] comes via Old French plane from late Latin plāna, a derivative of the verb plānāre ‘make level’, itself a derivative of plānus. Plane ‘flat’ [17] is an alteration of plain, on the model of French plan ‘flat’.

And plane ‘glide, soar’ [17] comes from French planer, a derivative of plan ‘level surface’ (the underlying notion being of a bird soaring with level wings). The odd man out is plane the tree-name [14], which comes via Old French plane and Latin platanus from Greek plátanos, a derivative of platús ‘broad’ (source of English place, plaice, and platypus) – the reference being to its broad leaves. Platanus probably also underlies English plantain, as applied to the banana-like vegetable.
=> piano, plain; place, plaice, plantain, plate, platypus
plead: plead: [13] Essentially plead and plea are the same word. Both go back ultimately to Latin placitum ‘something pleasant’, hence ‘something that pleases both sides’, ‘something agreed upon’, and finally ‘opinion, decision’. This was a noun formed from the past participle of placēre ‘please’ (source of English please). It passed into Old French as plaid ‘agreement, discussion, lawsuit’, and formed the basis of a verb plaidier, from which (via Anglo-Norman pleder) English got plead. In later Old French plaid became plait, and Anglo-Norman took it over as plai or ple – whence English plea [13].
=> plea, please
pleat: pleat: [14] Pleat, plait, and plight ‘predicament’ are essentially the same word, but have become differentiated over the centuries. All three go back to Vulgar Latin *plicitum or *plictum ‘fold’, a noun use of the past participle of Latin plicāre ‘fold’ (source of English ply). This became Old French pleit, which was originally borrowed into English as plete ‘fold’. Plete was to become modern English pleat, but at first it was used only as a verb.

For the noun, English borrowed pleit as plait [15] ‘fold’, which did not begin to acquire its modern English meaning ‘braid’ until the 16th century. The Anglo- Norman version of pleit was plit, which gave English plight [14]. This too originally meant ‘fold’, and the sense ‘predicament’ was presumably due to the influence of the other (completely unrelated) English word plight (see PLEDGE), which as a noun in Old and Middle English meant ‘danger’, but is now mainly encountered in the expression ‘plight one’s troth’.
=> fold, plait, plight, ply
police: police: [16] Etymologically, the police are in charge of the administration of a ‘city’. In fact, police is essentially the same word as policy ‘plan of action’. Both go back to Latin polītīa ‘civil administration’, a descendant of Greek pólis ‘city’. In medieval Latin a variant polītia emerged, which became French police.

English took it over, and at first continued to use it for ‘civil administration’ (Edmund Burke as late as 1791 described the Turks as ‘a barbarous nation, with a barbarous neglect of police, fatal to the human race’). Its specific application to the administration of public order emerged in France in the early 18th century, and the first body of public-order officers to be named police in England was the Marine Police, a force set up around 1798 to protect merchandise in the Port of London.
=> politics
prize: prize: English has four words prize. The one meaning ‘reward’ [16] is essentially the same word as price. This was originally pris, mirroring its immediate Old French ancestor pris. It became prise, to indicate the length of its vowel i, and in the 16th century this differentiated into price for ‘amount to pay’ and prize for ‘reward’. (Modern French prix has given English grand prix [19], literally ‘great prize’, first used for a ‘car race’ in 1908.) Prize ‘esteem’ [14] was based on pris-, the stem of Old French preisier ‘praise’ (source of English praise). Prize ‘something captured in war’ [14] comes via Old French prise ‘capture, seizure, booty’ from Vulgar Latin *prēsa or *prēnsa ‘something seized’.

This was a noun use of the past participle of *prēndere ‘seize’, a contraction of classical Latin praehendere (from which English gets prehensile, prison, etc). Another sense of Old French prise was ‘grasp’. English borrowed this in the 14th century as prize ‘lever’, which in due course was turned into modern English’s fourth prize, the verb prize, or prise, ‘lever’ [17]. Pry ‘lever’ [19] is an alteration of prize, based on the misapprehension that it is a third-person singular present form (*pries).
=> grand prix, price; praise; comprehensive, prison, reprehensible; pry
puckish: puckish: [19] In English folklore from the late Middle Ages onward, Puck was a mischievous but essentially harmless sprite, up to all sorts of tricks (hence the coining of puckish for ‘mischievous’). But his Anglo-Saxon ancestor Pūca was a far less pleasant proposition – for this was the Devil himself. He gradually dwindled over the centuries, but a hint of his former power remained in his placatory alternative name Robin Goodfellow. It is not known whether pūca is of Germanic or Celtic origin.
put: put: [12] Put is one of the commonest of English verbs, but its origins are uncertain. It goes back to an Old English *putian, never actually recorded but inferred from the verbal noun putung ‘instigation’, but where that came from is not known. It was presumably related to Old English potian ‘push, thrust’, whose Middle English descendant pote formed the basis of modern English potter [16]. The golfing term putt [18] is essentially the same word as put, differentiated in spelling and pronunciation.
=> potter, putt
quit: quit: [13] Quit comes from the same ultimate source as quiet – Latin quiētus. This originally meant simply ‘quiet, calm’, but in medieval Latin it developed a wider range of senses, including ‘unharmed’ and ‘free’. From it was derived the verb quiētāre ‘set free, discharge’, which reached English via Old French quiter. The derived forms acquit and requite [16] come from the same source, and quite is essentially the same word as quit.
=> quiet