英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

abbreviate [abbreviate 词源字典]: abbreviate: see brief
[abbreviate etymology, abbreviate origin, 英语词源]
achieve: achieve: [14] Achieve is related to chief. It comes from Old French achever ‘bring to an end’, or literally ‘bring to a head’, which was based on the phrase a chief ‘to a head’ (chief derives ultimately from Latin caput ‘head’). The heraldic meaning of achievement, ‘coat of arms’, comes from the notion that the escutcheon was granted as a reward for a particular achievement. Over the centuries it has evolved an alternative form, hatchment [16].
=> chief, hatchment
aggrieve: aggrieve: see aggravate
asseveration: asseveration: see severe
believe: believe: [OE] Believing and loving are closely allied. Late Old English belēfan took the place of an earlier gelēfan ‘believe’ (with the associative prefix ge-), which can be traced back to a prehistoric West and North Germanic *galaubjan (source also of German glauben ‘believe’). This meant ‘hold dear, love’, and hence ‘trust in, believe’, and it was formed on a base, *laub-, which also produced, by various routes, English love, lief ‘dear’, leave ‘permission’, and the second element of furlough.
=> furlough, leave, lief, love
beverage: beverage: [13] Beverage goes back to Latin bibere ‘drink’, from which English also gets imbibe [14], bibulous [17], beer, and probably bibber. From the verb was formed the Vulgar Latin noun *biberāticum ‘something to drink’, and hence, via Old French bevrage, English beverage. The colloquial abbreviation bevvy is at least 100 years old (it has been speculated, but never proved, that bevy ‘large group’ [15] comes from the same source).
=> beer, bevy, bib, bibulous, imbibe
bolshevik: bolshevik: [20] Russian bol’ shévik is a derivative of ból’ shiy, the comparative form of the adjective ból’ shoy ‘big’. It was originally applied, at the 1903 congress of the Russian Social Democratic Party, to those party members who wished to go for a ‘big’, or extreme, socialist programme (in contrast with the more moderate Mensheviks – from Russian mén’ shij ‘less’); but since the Bolsheviks outnumbered the Mensheviks, the word soon became interpreted as ‘those in the majority in the party’. The transferred use of the English abbreviation bolshy to mean ‘stubbornly uncooperative’ dates from around 1918.
=> debility
boulevard: boulevard: [18] Boulevard is a frenchified version of German bollwerk ‘fortification’ (the corresponding anglicized version is bulwark). The meaning of the French word, apparently quite divergent from that of bulwark, comes originally from the practice of constructing walkways along the top of demolished ramparts.
=> bulwark
breviary: breviary: see brief
brevity: brevity: see brief
clever: clever: [13] Clever is rather a mystery word. There is one isolated instance of what appears to be the word in an early 13th-century bestiary, where it means ‘dextrous’, and the connotations of ‘clutching something’ have led to speculation that it may be connected with claw. It does not appear on the scene again until the late 16th century, when its associations with ‘agility’ and ‘sprightliness’ may point to a link with Middle Dutch klever, of similar meaning. The modern sense ‘intelligent’ did not develop until the 18th century.
crevice: crevice: [14] Rather like crack, the word crevice began with the notion of the sharp noise of breaking and gradually developed to denote the fissure caused by such a break. It comes ultimately from the Latin verb crepāre ‘creak, rattle, crack’ (source of English crepitation [17] and decrepit, and probably also of craven), which passed into Old French as crever ‘burst, split’. From this was derived the noun crevace, borrowed into Middle English as crevace or crevisse. In modern French it developed into crevasse, which English reborrowed in the 19th century.
=> craven, crepitation, crevasse, decrepit
devastate: devastate: [17] Etymologically as well as semantically, devastate is related to ‘lay waste’. It comes from the past participle of Latin dēvāstāre, a compound verb formed from the intensive prefix dē- and vāstāre ‘lay waste’. This was a derivative of vāstus ‘waste’, source of English waste.
=> vast, waste
develop: develop: [17] The history of develop and its close relative envelop is hazy. English acquired it from développer, the modern French descendant of Old French desveloper. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix des- ‘un-’ and voloper ‘wrap’. But where did voloper come from? Some have proposed a hypothetical Celtic base *vol- ‘roll’, while others have pointed to similarities, formal and semantic, with Italian viluppo ‘bundle’ and viluppare ‘wrap’, which come from an assumed late Latin *faluppa ‘husk’. Beyond that, however, the trail has gone cold.
=> envelop
deviate: deviate: see devious
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
devil: devil: [OE] English acquired devil in the 8th century via late Latin diabolus from Greek diábolos, which originally meant ‘slanderer’. It was a derivative of diabállein ‘slander’, a compound verb literally meaning ‘throw across’, formed from diá ‘across’ and bállein ‘throw’ (whence English ballistics). The Greek word has reached most European languages: for example French diable, Italian diavolo, German teufel, Dutch duivel, Swedish djāvul, and Russian djavol. It has also given English diabolical [16], and indeed diabolo [20], a game played by spinning a top (named from a variant of Italian diavolo) on a string.
=> ballistics, diabolical
devious: devious: [16] Devious and its close relative deviate [17] are both based on the notion of going ‘out of the way’. They come respectively from Latin dēvius and dēviāre, compound adjective and verb formed from the prefix dē- ‘from’ and via ‘way’.
=> deviate, via
devolution: devolution: see volume
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
dishevelled: dishevelled: [15] Semantically, dishevelled ‘with untidy hair’ and unkempt ‘with uncombed hair’ are closely parallel formations. Dishevelled originated as an adaptation of deschevele, the past participle of Old French descheveler ‘disarrange the hair’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix dis- ‘apart’ and chevel ‘hair’, a descendant of Latin capillus ‘hair’ (from which English got capillary [17]).

In Middle English its meaning was extended to ‘without a head-dress’, and even to ‘undressed’, but its modern metaphorical application is the more general ‘untidy’. (The verb dishevel was a late 16th-century back-formation from dishevelled.)
=> capillary
eleven: eleven: [OE] Originally, eleven and twelve seem to have meant literally ‘one over’ and ‘two over’. Eleven comes ultimately from a prehistoric Germanic *ainlif- (source also of German elf and Swedish elva) in which the first element *ainaz is ‘one’ and the second is probably related to English leave. The compound would thus have signified ‘one left (over ten)’, hence ‘ten plus one’.
=> leave, one
evanescent: evanescent: see vanish
evangelist: evangelist: [12] The original sense of evangelist was ‘writer of a gospel’. English used to have the word evangel ‘gospel’. This came via Old French evangile and ecclesiastical Latin evangelium from Greek euaggélion, which in classical times meant ‘reward for bringing good news’ (it was a compound based ultimately on the prefix eu- ‘good, well’ and the noun ággelos ‘messenger’ – source of English angel).

Later on it came to mean simply ‘good news’, and in early Christian texts written in Greek it denoted specifically any of the four books of the New Testament written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. (English gospel was originally a literal translation of it.) Evangelist itself comes from the Greek derivative euaggelistés.
=> angel
even: even: [OE] Even can be traced back to a prehistoric Germanic *ebnaz, although it is not clear whether it meant originally ‘flat, level’ or ‘equal, alike’ (both strands of meaning are still present in the word, the latter in such expressions as ‘get even with’ and ‘even number’, and also in its various adverbial uses, the former in ‘even keel’, ‘even light’, etc)
evening: evening: [OE] Evening is a derivative of even [OE], a word for ‘evening’ now restricted to bad poetry. This came ultimately from an Indo- European base, whose general meaning of ‘lateness’ is pointed up by other descendants such as Sanskrit apara- ‘later, western’, Greek opsé ‘late’, and Gothic iftuma ‘following, later’. The specific application to ‘latter part of the day’ seems only to have occurred in the Germanic languages, where it is represented in German abend and Dutch avond, and also possibly in Swedish afton and Danish aften (although these could be from another source).

The Old English word was ǣfen, which formed the basis of a verb ǣfnian ‘become evening’; the verbal noun derived from this has become English evening. Eve [13], as in ‘Christmas eve’, is a Middle English reduction of even.
ever: ever: [OE] For such a common and longestablished word, the origins of ever are surprisingly obscure. It has no relatives in other Germanic languages, so it must be a purely English creation. Its first element probably comes from Germanic *aiwō (which is also represented in English aye ‘ever’ [12] and either, and is related to Latin aevum ‘age’, source of English eternal).

The second element is a puzzle, though. Candidates that have been put forward include Old English feorh ‘life’ (thus, ‘ever in life’) and Old English byre ‘occasion’ (giving the underlying sense ‘on any occasion’). Never was formed in the Old English period with the negative particle ne.
=> aye, either, eternal
every: every: [OE] Stripped down into its component parts, every means literally ‘ever each’. It was originally an Old English compound made up of ǣfre ‘ever’ and ǣlc ‘each’, in which basically the ‘ever’ was performing an emphasizing function; in modern English terms it signified something like ‘every single’, or, in colloquial American, ‘every which’. By late Old English times the two elements had fused to form a single word.
=> each, ever
evict: evict: [15] Ultimately, evict and evince [17] are the same word, although they have diverged considerably over the centuries. Both come from Latin ēvincere, a compound verb formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and vincere (source of English victory). This originally meant ‘defeat, conquer’, but a whole range of secondary legal senses developed: ‘recover something by defeating an opponent in a legal action’; ‘eject by judicial process’; and ‘prove by legal argument’.

Both evict (acquired from the Latin past participle ēvictus) and evince have in the past been used for ‘conquer’ and ‘prove’, and it was not until the 18th century that they settled into their present meanings.
=> evince, victory
evident: evident: [14] Something that is evident is literally something that can be ‘seen’. The word comes via Old French from Latin ēvidēns ‘clear, obvious’, a compound formed from the intensive prefix ex- and the present participle of videre ‘see’ (source of English vision). The Latin derivative ēvidentia (from which English gets evidence [13]) meant originally ‘distinction’ and later ‘proof’, basis of the main current sense of evidence, ‘testimony which establishes the facts’.
=> view, vision
evil: evil: [OE] Evil has got distinctly worse over the millennia. Originally it seems to have signified nothing more sinister than ‘uppity’, and in the Old and Middle English period it meant simply ‘bad’; it is only in modern English that its connotations of ‘extreme moral wickedness’ came to the fore. It probably comes ultimately from *upelo- a derivative of the Indo-European base *upo- ‘under’ (source of Greek hupó ‘under’, Sanskrit upa ‘at, to’, and English up and over), and so its underlying connotation is of ‘exceeding due limits, extremism’.

Its Germanic descendant was *ubilaz, source of German übel ‘evil’ as well as English evil.
=> over, up
evince: evince: see evict
evoke: evoke: see vocation
evolution: evolution: [17] Evolution originally meant simply ‘unfolding’, or metaphorically ‘development’; it was not used in its main current sense, ‘gradual change in form of a species over the centuries’, until the early 19th century. The Scottish geologist Charles Lyell appears to have been the first to do so, in his Principles of Geology 1832, and it was subsequently taken up by Charles Darwin.

The word comes from Latin ēvolūtiō, which denoted specifically the unrolling of a papyrus or parchment roll. It was a derivative of ēvolvere, a compound formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and volvere ‘roll’ (source also of English convolution, involve, and revolve and related to vault, voluble, volume, vulva, and wallow).
=> convolution, involve, revolve, volume, wallow
fever: fever: [OE] The underlying meaning of fever, ‘high temperature’, suggests that it goes back ultimately to Indo-European *dhegh-, *dhogh- ‘burn’ (which also produced English day, favour, and forment). Descended from it was Latin febris ‘fever’, which English acquired during Anglo-Saxon times as fēfor. The modern form of the word is partly due to the influence of the related Old French fievre.
=> day, favour, foment
inevitable: inevitable: [15] Latin ēvītāre meant ‘avoid’. It was a compound verb formed from the prefix ex- ‘away, from’ and vītāre ‘shun’, and actually produced an English verb evite ‘avoid’, a scholarly 16th-century introduction which survived as an archaism into the 19th century. Its derived adjective was ēvītābilis ‘avoidable’, which with the negative prefix became inēvītābilis.
level: level: [14] The Latin word for a ‘balance’ or ‘scales’ was libra (it has given English Libra the zodiacal sign [14] and also lies behind many terms for units of measurement, including litre and the abbreviation lb for ‘pound’). Its diminutive form was lībella, which denoted an ‘instrument for checking horizontality’, and hence a ‘horizontal line’. It passed into Old French as livel (which in modern French has become niveau ‘level’), and English took it over as level.
=> litre
medieval: medieval: see medium
prevaricate: prevaricate: [16] Etymologically, prevaricate means ‘walk crookedly’, and it goes back ultimately to a Latin adjective meaning ‘knockkneed’, varus. From this was derived the verb vāricāre ‘straddle’, which was combined with the prefix prae- ‘before, beyond’ to produce praevāricārī ‘walk crookedly’, hence ‘deviate’. This developed in English to ‘deviate from straightforward behaviour’, hence ‘be evasive, equivocate’.
prevent: prevent: [15] If you prevent someone, you ‘come before’ them (and indeed that literal meaning of the verb survived for some time: Thomas Cromwell wrote in 1538 ‘I have sent it unto him after the departure of the said Muriell, to the intent he might prevent the ambassadors post and you have leisure to consult and advise upon the same’; and as late as 1766 we find in Frances Sheridan’s Sidney Biddulph ‘I am an early riser, yet my lord V – prevented me the next morning, for I found him in the parlour when I came downstairs’).

The word comes from Latin praevenīre, a compound verb formed from the prefix prae- ‘before’ and venīre ‘come’. Already in Latin, though, it had progressed semantically from ‘come before’ via ‘act in advance of, anticipate’ to ‘hinder’, and this meaning emerged in English in the 16th century.
=> adventure, venue
relevant: relevant: [16] Relevant comes ultimately from the present participle of Latin relevāre ‘raise’, source of English relief and relieve. The modern English sense ‘appropriate’ probably developed from a medieval application of relevāre to ‘take up’, hence ‘take possession of property’, which led to relevant being used as a legal term for ‘connected with’.
=> relief, relieve
relieve: relieve: [14] Relieve goes back via Old French relever to Latin relevāre ‘raise again’, a compound verb formed from the prefix re- ‘again’ and levāre ‘raise’ (source of English elevate, levy, etc). Its metaphorical extension to ‘lighten, alleviate’ began in Latin. The derived noun relief reached English in two phases. First, in the standard sense ‘easing, alleviation’, via Anglo-Norman relef in the 14th century; and then, in the 17th century, via French from Italian relievo in the sense ‘raised area in a design’ – a return to the etymological meaning ‘raise’.
=> elevate, levy, relevant
reprieve: reprieve: [16] Reprieve originally meant ‘send back to prison’ (‘Of this treason he was found guilty, and reprieved in the Tower a long time’, Edmund Campion, History of Ireland 1571), but since this was often the alternative to execution, the word soon came to mean ‘suspend a death sentence’. The form in which it originally occurs, at the end of the 15th century, is repry, and it is not clear where the v came from. Repry was borrowed from repris, the past participle of Old French reprendre ‘take back’.

This in turn went back to Latin reprehendere (source of English reprehensible [14]), a compound verb formed from the prefix re- ‘back, again’ and prehendere ‘seize, take’ (source of English prison, prize, surprise, etc). The medieval Latin derivative reprehensālia produced English reprisal [15], and the feminine past participle of Old French reprendre was the source of English reprise [14].
=> apprehend, prison, prize, reprisal, reprise, surprise
retrieve: retrieve: [15] To retrieve something is etymologically to ‘re-find’ it. The word comes from retreuv-, the stem of Old French retrover. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix re- ‘again’ and trover ‘find’ (ancestor of modern French trouver and source of English troubadour and trove, as in treasure trove). Its original application in English was to dogs refinding game that had been temporarily lost (hence the term retriever [15]).
=> troubadour, trove
reveal: reveal: [14] To reveal something is etymologically to ‘unveil’ it. The word comes via Old French reveler from Latin revēlāre ‘unveil, disclose’, a compound verb formed from the prefix re- ‘back’ (in the sense ‘reverting to a former condition’) and vēlum ‘veil’ (source of English veil).
=> veil
reveille: reveille: see vigil
revenge: revenge: see vindicate
reverberate: reverberate: [16] Latin verbera meant ‘whips, rods’ (it was related to Greek rhábdos ‘stick’). From it was derived the verb verberāre ‘whip, beat’, which with the addition of the prefix re- ‘back’ produced reverberāre ‘beat back’. When this first arrived in English it was used literally (Thomas Coryat, for instance, in his Crudities 1611, wrote of ‘a strong wall to repulse and reverberate the furious waves of the sea’), but it was not long before the metaphorical application to the re-echoing of sounds took over.
revere: revere: [17] Revere goes back ultimately to Latin verērī ‘hold in awe or fear’, a possible distant relative of English aware and beware. Addition of the intensive prefix re- produced reverērī, which English probably acquired via French révérer. The derivative reverend [15], which comes from the Latin gerundive reverendus ‘to be revered’, has been used from earliest times as a title of respect for clergymen. That was for long a common application of reverent [14] too, which came from the Latin present participial stem reverent-.
reverse: reverse: see verse