英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

awl [awl 词源字典]: awl: [OE] The Old English form, æl, came from a hypothetical Germanic base *āl-, which had a probable relative in Sanskrit ārā. The compound bradawl was formed in the 19th century using the term brad ‘thin flat nail’, which came originally from Old Norse broddr ‘spike’. Awls, tools for making holes to take nails, are part of the shoemaker’s traditional set of implements: hence the apparently quite recent, early 20thcentury rhyming slang cobbler’s awls (cobblers for short) for ‘balls’.
[awl etymology, awl origin, 英语词源]
brake: brake: There are two distinct words brake in English. By far the older is that meaning ‘overgrown area, thicket’ [OE]. Its source is uncertain, but it has been speculated that it is ultimately related to break, its original meaning perhaps having been something like ‘broken wood’. Brake ‘decelerating mechanism’ [15] meant ‘bridle’ for stopping a horse’s progress, and may have been borrowed from Middle Dutch braeke, a word which was used for a wide variety of crushing implements but also apparently for a ring put through the nose of a draught ox. There may well be some ultimate connection with break here too.
=> break
farrier: farrier: [16] Etymologically, a farrier is a ‘worker in iron’. The word comes via Old French ferrier from Latin ferrārius, a derivative of ferum. This meant literally ‘iron’ (it is the source of English ferrous [19], and may well have been borrowed from a Semitic source), and already in classical times was being applied metaphorically to implements made from iron, particularly ‘swords’. Its use for ‘horseshoe’, on which the meaning of farrier is based, is a medieval Latin development.
=> ferrous
graphic: graphic: [17] The profoundest influence that Greek gráphein ‘write’ has had on English has no doubt been through its combining form -graphos, which has provided us with a whole host of words, both original Greek formations and new English ones, from autograph to telegraph. But descendants in their own right include graphic (which came via Latin graphicus from the Greek derivative graphikós), graphite [18] (originally coined in German as graphit, from its being used in writing implements), and graph [19] (short for graphic formular, a term used in chemistry for a diagram representing in lines the relationship between elements).

Greek gráphein itself originally meant ‘scratch’ (it is etymologically related to English carve); it was applied to early methods of writing, by scratching on clay tablets with a stylus, and kept its job when writing technology moved on.
=> carve, graft, graph, graphite
pen: pen: English has three words pen. The oldest, ‘enclosure’ [OE], is something of a mystery term. It has no known relatives in the other European languages, and even in English it is not unequivocally found in its current sense until the 14th century. Pent [16], as in ‘pent up’, originated in the past participle of the verb pen. The earliest writing implements known as ‘pens’ were of course made from feathers, and so it is not surprising that the word pen [13] comes from a word that meant ‘feather’.

This was Latin penna, source also of English pennon [14] and a distant relative of English feather. It entered English via Old French penne. Pen ‘female swan’ [16] is of unknown origin.
=> pent; feather, pennon
tweezers: tweezers: [17] French étui denotes a small case for carrying personal articles, small tools and the like (it was descended from Old French estuier ‘keep, shut up, imprison’). English adopted it in the early 17th century as etui or, anglicized, as etwee. The plural of this came to be used (like scissors) for a single article, and it did not take long for etweese to be apprehended as a singular noun.

The next step in the word’s transformation was the loss of its first syllable: hence, tweeze. This still meant ‘case for small instruments’, and the plural tweezes began to be used for the instruments themselves – typically implements of personal adornment, such as combs, scissors and small pincers for pulling out hairs. By the 1650s tweezes had been extended to tweezers (perhaps on the model of scissors), and this was being applied specifically to the pincers – as it still is today.
utensil: utensil: [14] Latin ūtēnsilis meant ‘usable, useful’. It was derived from the verb ūtī ‘use’ (source also of English use, utility, utilize, etc). In the Middle Ages it was adapted into a noun, ūtēnsilia, meaning ‘things for use, implements’. This passed into English via Old French utensile as utensil, still a collective noun, but by the 15th century it was being used for an individual ‘implement’.
=> use
apparatus (n.): 1620s, from Latin apparatus "tools, implements, equipment; preparation, a preparing," noun of state from past participle stem of apparare "prepare," from ad- "to" (see ad-) + parare "make ready" (see pare).
arm (n.2): "weapon," c. 1300, armes (plural) "weapons of a warrior," from Old French armes (plural), "arms, war, warfare," mid-13c., from Latin arma "weapons" (including armor), literally "tools, implements (of war)," from PIE root *ar- "fit, join" (see arm (n.1)). The notion seems to be "that which is fitted together." Meaning "heraldic insignia" (in coat of arms, etc.) is early 14c.; originally they were borne on shields of fully armed knights or barons.
armoire (n.): 1570s, from French armoire, from Old French armarie (12c.) "cupboard, bookcase, reliquary," from Latin armarium "closet, chest, place for implements or tools," from arma "gear, tools, arms" (see arm (n.2)). Before being reborrowed from French, the word earlier was in English as ambry (late 14c.).
brake (n.1): mid-15c., "instrument for crushing or pounding," from Middle Dutch braeke "flax brake," from breken "to break" (see break (v.)). The word was applied to many crushing implements and to the ring through the nose of a draught ox. It was influenced in sense by Old French brac, a form of bras "an arm," thus "a lever or handle," which was being used in English from late 14c., and applied to "a bridle or curb" from early 15c. One or the other or both took up the main modern meaning of "stopping device for a wheel," first attested 1772.
celt (n.): "stone chisel," 1715, from a Latin ghost word (apparently a misprint of certe) in Job xix:24 in Vulgate: "stylo ferreo, et plumbi lamina, vel celte sculpantur in silice;" translated, probably correctly, in KJV as, "That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever." But assumed by others to be a genuine carving tool, partly because it was in the Bible, and thereafter adapted by archaeologists as a name for a class of prehistoric implements.
female (n.): early 14c., from Old French femelle "woman, female" (12c.), from Medieval Latin femella "a female," from Latin femella "young female, girl," diminutive of femina "woman" (see feminine).
WHEN the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

[Kipling]
Sense extended in Vulgar Latin from young humans to female of other animals, then to females generally. Compare Latin masculus, also a diminutive (see masculine). Spelling altered late 14c. in erroneous imitation of male. In modern use usually as an adjective (early 14c.). Reference to implements with sockets and corresponding parts is from 1660s.
fly-swatter (n.): in reference to a bit of wire mesh on a handle, 1917, from fly (n.) + agent noun from swat (v.). Simple swatter was used in this sense by 1906. Other older names for similar implements were fly-duster (1860), fly-whisk (1836), fly-brush (1823), fly-fan (1821), fly-flap (mid-15c., glossing Latin muscarium).
Hallstatt: 1866 in reference to an Iron Age civilization of Europe, from the name of a village in Upper Austria, where implements from this period were found. The Germanic name is literally "place of salt," in reference to ancient salt mines there, which preserved the bodies of the original miners.
manger (n.): early 14c., from Old French mangeoire "crib, manger," from mangier "to eat" (see mange) + -oire, common suffix for implements and receptacles.
triangular (adj.): c. 1400, from Late Latin triangularis "triangular, pertaining to a triangle," from Latin triangulus "with three corners" (the usual adjective in classical Latin), as a noun, "a triangle;" see triangle. Related: Triangularly.
In the huts of witches all the instruments and implements are triangular. ["Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens"]