quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- caprice[caprice 词源字典]
- caprice: [17] Etymologically, caprice means ‘hedgehog-head’. It comes, via French caprice, from an Italian noun capriccio, formed from capo ‘head’ (from Latin caput) and riccio ‘hedgehog’ (from Latin ericeus, source of English urchin). Originally this meant ‘horror, shuddering’, the reference being to the hair of a terror-stricken person standing on end. The word’s present-day meaning ‘whim, fickleness’ seems to be partly due to association with Italian capra ‘goat’, from the animal’s frisky behaviour.
=> urchin[caprice etymology, caprice origin, 英语词源] - fickle (adj.)
- c. 1200, "false, treacherous, deceptive, deceitful, crafty" (obsolete), probably from Old English ficol "deceitful, cunning, tricky," related to befician "deceive," and to facen "deceit, treachery; blemish, fault." Common Germanic (compare Old Saxon fekan "deceit," Old High German feihhan "deceit, fraud, treachery"), from PIE *peig- (2) "evil-minded, treacherous, hostile" (see foe).
Sense of "changeable, inconstant, unstable" is from c. 1300 (especially of Fortune and women). Related: Fickleness. Fickly (c. 1300) is rare or obsolete. Also with a verb form in Middle English, fikelen "to deceive, flatter," later "to puzzle, perplex," which survived long enough in Northern dialects to get into Scott's novels. Fikel-tonge (late 14c.) was an allegorical or character name for "one who speaks falsehoods."
- mobility (n.)
- early 15c., "capacity for motion," from Old French mobilité "changeableness, inconsistency, fickleness," from Latin mobilitatem (nominative mobilitas) "activity, speed," figuratively "changeableness, fickleness, inconstancy," from mobilis (see mobile (adj.)). Socio-economics sense is from 1900 and writers in sociology.
- versatility (n.)
- 1755, "fickleness," from versatile + -ity. As "ability to do many things well" from 1798.