quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- continent[continent 词源字典]
- continent: [14] Continent comes via Old French from Latin continēns, the present participle of continēre ‘hold together, enclose, contain’ (source of English contain). From the beginning it meant in general ‘exercising self-restraint’; of the more specific senses, ‘chaste’ developed in the 14th century and ‘able to retain urine and faeces’ apparently in the early 19th century.
The word’s noun use developed from the Latin phrase terra continēns ‘continuous land’ (for this sense of Latin continēre see CONTINUE). It was at first applied in the 16th century to any large continuous expanse of territory, and from the early 17th century specifically to any of the Earth’s major landmasses (the English use of ‘the Continent’ for mainland Europe is roughly contemporary with this).
=> contain, content, continue, countenance[continent etymology, continent origin, 英语词源] - ocean
- ocean: [13] In Greek mythology, ōkeanós was a great river or sea that completely encircled the world. This was personified as Ōkeanós, a Titan who was god of this outer sea. The name passed into English via Latin ōceanus and Old French occean, and to begin with was used only for this mythical sea, or for the whole body of water surrounding the Eurasian landmass, with which it was identified. Not until the end of the 14th century did it begin to be applied to large individual sections of the Earth’s seas.