quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- bank[bank 词源字典]
- bank: [12] The various disparate meanings of modern English bank all come ultimately from the same source, Germanic *bangk-, but they have taken different routes to reach us. Earliest to arrive was ‘ridge, mound, bordering slope’, which came via a hypothetical Old Norse *banki. Then came ‘bench’ [13] (now obsolete except in the sense ‘series of rows or tiers’ – as in a typewriter’s bank of keys); this arrived from Old French banc, which was originally borrowed from Germanic *bangk- (also the source of English bench).
Finally came ‘moneylender’s counter’ [15], whose source was either French banque or Italian banca – both in any case deriving ultimately once again from Germanic *bangk-. The current sense, ‘place where money is kept’, developed in the 17th century. The derived bankrupt [16] comes originally from Italian banca rotta, literally ‘broken counter’ (rotta is related to English bereave and rupture); in early times a broken counter or bench was symbolic of an insolvent moneylender.
The diminutive of Old French banc was banquet ‘little bench’ (perhaps modelled on Italian banchetto), from which English gets banquet [15]. It has undergone a complete reversal in meaning over the centuries; originally it signified a ‘small snack eaten while seated on a bench (rather than at table)’.
=> bench[bank etymology, bank origin, 英语词源] - calendar
- calendar: [13] English acquired calendar via Anglo-Norman calender and Old French calendier from Latin calendārium, which was a ‘moneylender’s account book’. It got its name from the calends (Latin calendae), the first day of the Roman month, when debts fell due. Latin calendae in turn came from a base *kal- ‘call, proclaim’, the underlying notion being that in ancient Rome the order of days was publicly announced at the beginning of the month.
The calendula [19], a plant of the daisy family, gets its name from Latin calendae, perhaps owing to its once having been used for curing menstrual disorders. Calender ‘press cloth or paper between rollers’ [15], however, has no connection with calendar; it probably comes from Greek kúlindros ‘roller’, source of English cylinder.
- bank (n.1)
- "financial institution," late 15c., from either Old Italian banca or Middle French banque (itself from the Italian word), both meaning "table" (the notion is of the moneylender's exchange table), from a Germanic source (compare Old High German bank "bench"); see bank (n.2).
Bank holiday is from 1871, though the tradition is as old as the Bank of England. To cry all the way to the bank was coined 1956 by flamboyant pianist Liberace, after a Madison Square Garden concert that was packed with patrons but panned by critics. - bankrupt (adj.)
- 1560s, from Italian banca rotta, literally "a broken bench," from banca "moneylender's shop," literally "bench" (see bank (n.1)) + rotta "broken, defeated, interrupted" from (and remodeled on) Latin rupta, fem. past participle of rumpere "to break" (see rupture (n.)). "[S]o called from the habit of breaking the bench of bankrupts" [Klein]. Earlier in English as a noun, "bankrupt person" (1530s).