英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

chamois [chamois 词源字典]: chamois: [16] The word chamois (the name of a species of Alpine antelope) probably goes back to a language spoken in the Alps before the Romans penetrated northwards. They adopted it as late Latin camox, and in the local Romansch language it is kamuotsch, but the source of the English word is the related French chamois. Its use in the sense ‘soft wash-leather’, as originally made from the skin of the chamois, dates from the 16th century, although the spelling shammy is not recorded before the 17th century.
[chamois etymology, chamois origin, 英语词源]
north: Old English norð "northern" (adj.), "northwards" (adv.), from Proto-Germanic *nurtha- (cognates: Old Norse norðr, Old Saxon north, Old Frisian north, Middle Dutch nort, Dutch noord, German nord), possibly ultimately from PIE *ner- (1) "left," also "below," as north is to the left when one faces the rising sun (cognates: Sanskrit narakah "hell," Greek enerthen "from beneath," Oscan-Umbrian nertrak "left"). The same notion underlies Old Irish tuath "left; northern;" Arabic shamal "left hand; north." The usual word for "north" in the Romance languages ultimately is from English, for example Old French north (Modern French nord), borrowed from Old English norð; Italian, Spanish norte are borrowed from French.
Ask where's the North? At York 'tis on the Tweed;
In Scotland at the Orcades; and there
At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where.
[Pope, "Essay on Man"]
As a noun, c. 1200, from the adverb. North Pole attested from mid-15c. (earlier the Arctic pole, late 14c.). North American (n.) first used 1766, by Franklin; as an adjective, from 1770.
northward (adv.): Old English norðweard; see north + -ward. Related: Northwards.