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apostle [apostle 词源字典]: apostle: [OE] Apostle was an early borrowing into Old English from Latin, and like angel it originally meant ‘messenger’. Latin apostolus came from Greek apóstolos ‘messenger’, or literally ‘someone sent out’; this was a compound formed from the prefix apo- ‘away’ and the verb stéllein ‘send’ (related to English stall and local). The Old English form, apostol, was gradually replaced from the 12th century by apostle, from Old French apostle.
=> epistle, local, stall[apostle etymology, apostle origin, 英语词源]
apostrophe: apostrophe: [17] Apostrophe comes originally from the Greek phrase prosōidiā apóstrophos, literally ‘accent of turning away’, hence, a mark showing where a letter or sound has been omitted. Apóstrophos itself was derived from the compound verb apostréphein, formed from the prefix apo- ‘away’ and the verb stréphein ‘turn’ (related to the second element of catastrophe [16], whose Greek original meant literally ‘overturning’). English acquired the word via French and Latin.
=> catastrophe
compose: compose: [15] Etymologically, compose means simply ‘put together’; it comes, via Old French composer, from compos-, the perfect stem of Latin compōnere, a compound verb formed from the prefix com- ‘with’ and pōnere ‘place, put’, source of English position. Amongst its many descendants and derivatives are compound, component [17] (from the Latin present participle compōnent-), composite [16] (from the Latin past participle compositus), and compost [14] (which originally meant ‘stewed fruit’, like the later-borrowed compote [17]).
=> component, composite, compost, compote, compound, position
dispose: dispose: see position
expose: expose: see position
impostor: impostor: [16] An impostor is etymologically someone who ‘imposes’ on others. The word comes via French imposteur from late Latin impostor, a contraction of classical Latin impositor. This was a derivative of imponere ‘put on’, hence ‘inflict, deceive’ (a compound verb based on ponere ‘put, place’), which also gave English impose [15], impost ‘tax’ [16], and imposture [16]. It is the ‘deceive’ sense of imponere, of course, that has come through into impostor.
=> compose, depose, impose, position
interpose: interpose: see position
juxtaposition: juxtaposition: see joust
opossum: opossum: [17] Opossum comes from aposoum, a word in Virginia Algonquian meaning literally ‘white animal’. The shortened form possum is virtually contemporary with it. When referring to the animal, opossum is now the more usual term, but possum holds its own in the expression play possum ‘feign death or sleep’. Dating from the early 19th century, it alludes to the opossum’s habit of pretending to be dead when threatened.
oppose: oppose: [14] Oppose is in origin an Old French re-formation of Latin oppōnere, based on poser (source of English pose). Oppōnere was a compound verb formed from the prefix ob- ‘against’ and pōnere ‘put’ (source also of English position, posture, etc). It originally meant literally ‘set against’, but developed various figurative senses, including ‘oppose in argument’, which is how it was originally used when it arrived in English.

The notions of ‘contention’ and ‘prevention’ have remained uppermost in the English verb, as they have in opponent [16], which comes from the present participle of the Latin verb. But opposite [14] (from the Latin past participle) retains another metaphorical strand that began in Latin, of ‘comparison’ or ‘contrast’.
=> pose, position, posture
pose: pose: [16] Pose and pause come ultimately from the same source. This was late Latin pausāre ‘stop, pause’. In Vulgar Latin it came to be associated with pōnere ‘put’, and particularly, owing to the similarity of form, with its past participle positum (source of English position), and gradually started to take over its meaning. Hence Old French poser, source of the English word, meant ‘put, place’. The noun pose is a modern acquisition from French, dating from the early 19th century.
=> pause
posh: posh: [20] Although it only appeared as recently as the early 20th century, posh is one of the oldest chestnuts of English etymology. The story got around that it was an acronym for port out, starboard home, an allusion to the fact that wealthy passengers could afford the more expensive cabins on the port side of the ships going out to India, and on the starboard side returning to Britain, which kept them out of the heat of the sun.

Pleasant as this story is, though, it has never been substantiated. Another possibility is that posh may be the same word as the now obsolete posh ‘dandy, swell’, a slang term current around the end of the 19th century. This too is of unknown origin, but it has been tentatively linked with the still earlier 19thcentury slang term posh ‘halfpenny’, hence broadly ‘money’, which may have come ultimately from Romany posh ‘half’.
position: position: [15] Position comes via Old French from Latin positiō, a noun formed from posit-, the past participial stem of Latin pōnere ‘put, place’. This was also the source of English posit [17], positive [13] (which etymologically means ‘placed down, laid down’, hence ‘emphatically asserted’), post (in the senses ‘mail’ and ‘job’), and posture [17].

And in addition it lies behind a wealth of English verbs (compose, depose, dispose [14], expose [15], impose, interpose [16], oppose, repose, suppose, transpose [14], etc) whose form underwent alteration by association with late Latin pausāre ‘stop’ (see POSE); postpone exceptionally has retained its link with pōnere.
=> compose, depose, dispose, expose, impose, oppose, positive, post, postpone, repose, suppose, transpose
posse: posse: [17] Posse was the Latin verb for ‘be able’. It was a conflation of an earlier expression potis esse ‘be able’; and potis ‘able’ was descended from an Indo-European base *potthat also produced Sanskrit pati- ‘master, husband’ and Lithuanian patis ‘husband’. In medieval Latin posse came to be used as a noun meaning ‘power, force’.

It formed the basis of the expression posse comitātus, literally ‘force of the county’, denoting a body of men whom the sheriff of a county was empowered to raise for such purposes as suppressing a riot. The abbreviated form posse emerged at the end of the 17th century, but really came into its own in 18th- and 19th-century America.
=> possible, potent
possess: possess: [15] Latin potis ‘able, having power’ (source of English posse and potent) was combined with the verb sīdere ‘sit down’ (a relative of English sit) to form a new verb possīdere. This meant literally ‘sit down as the person in control’, hence by extension ‘take possession of’ and ultimately ‘have, own’. It passed into English via Old French possesser.
=> possible, potent, sit
possible: possible: [14] Latin posse ‘be able’ (source of English posse) produced the derived adjective possibilis ‘that can be done’, which came into English via Old French possible. (Its antonym impossible reached English at roughly the same time.)
=> posse, potent
post: post: Including the prefix post-, English has four different words post. The oldest, ‘long upright piece of wood, metal, etc’ [OE], was borrowed from Latin postis. From it was derived the verb post ‘fix to a post’, which in turn produced poster [19], denoting a placard that can be ‘posted’ up. Post ‘mail’ [16] comes via French poste and Italian posta from Vulgar Latin *posta, a contracted version of posita, the feminine form of the past participle of Latin pōnere ‘put, place’ (source of English position).

The notion underlying the sense ‘mail’ is of riders ‘placed’ or stationed at intervals along a road so as to carry letters at speed by a relay system. Post ‘job’ [16] reached English via a very similar route, this time from the neuter form of the Latin past participle, positum. This became *postum in Vulgar Latin, which produced Italian posto, French poste, and English post.

Here again the word’s original meaning, ‘position where a soldier is placed’, reflects that of its Latin source pōnere. The prefix post- comes from the Latin preposition post ‘after’. It occurs in a number of English words that go back to Latin ancestors (including posterior [16], posthumous, postpone [16], postscript [16], and the more heavily disguised preposterous), as well as being widely used to create new coinages (such as postgraduate [19] and postwar [20]).
=> position
posthumous: posthumous: [17] Latin postumus functioned as a superlative form of post ‘after’, and meant ‘last of all’. It was often applied to a child ‘born after the death of its father’, as being the final offspring that man could possibly have, and so began to pick up associations with the ‘period after death’. This led in turn to the perception of a link with humus ‘ground’ (source of English humble and humus) and humāre ‘bury’, and so postumus became posthumus. English adapted it direct from Latin.
postpone: postpone: see post
postscript: postscript: see post
postulate: postulate: [16] The noun postulate originally meant ‘demand, request’. It was an anglicization of postulātum, a noun use of the past participle of postulāre ‘demand, request’. It was used in the mid-17th century by mathematicians and logicians for a proposition that (because it was a simple or uncontentious one) ‘demanded’ to be taken for granted for the sake of further reasoning, and from this it spread to more general usage. The notion of ‘requesting’ is better preserved in postulant [18], from the present participle of the Latin verb.
posture: posture: see position
posy: posy: see poem
preposterous: preposterous: [16] Preposterous originated as a Latin oxymoron, praeposterus. This was coined from prae ‘before’ and posterus ‘coming after, next’, a derivative of post ‘after’. It denoted ‘the wrong way round, out of order’ (and indeed that was how English preposterous was once used: ‘The preposterous is a pardonable fault … We call it by a common saying to set the cart before the horse’, George Puttenham, Art of English Poesie 1589). But already in Latin the notion had developed via ‘irrational’ to ‘absurd’, a sense quickly taken up by English.
propose: propose: see purpose
purpose: purpose: [13] Purpose, propose [14], and propound [16] are ultimately the same word. All go back to Latin prōpōnere ‘put forward, declare’, a compound verb formed from the prefix prō- ‘forward’ and pōnere ‘place’ (source of English pose, position, etc). Its past participle prōpositus was the source of two distinct Old French verbs: the minimally altered proposer, source of English propose; and purposer, which contains the Old French descendant of the Latin prefix prō-, source of English purpose. Propound is an alteration of an earlier propone (source of proponent [16]), which was based directly on prōpōnere.
=> pose, position, propose, proponent, propound
repose: repose: Repose ‘rest’ [15] and repose ‘place’ [15] (as in ‘repose confidence in someone’) are distinct words in English. The former comes via Old French reposer from late Latin repausāre, a compound verb based on pausāre ‘rest’ (source of English pause). The latter was an English coinage, formed from the prefix re- and the verb pose ‘place’. It was modelled on Latin repōnere ‘replace’, whose derivative repositorium has given English repository [15].
=> pause; position, repository
riposte: riposte: see respond
suppose: suppose: [14] Latin suppōnere meant literally ‘put under’ (it was a compound verb formed from the prefix sub- ‘under’ and pōnere ‘put, place’, source of English position, and its original meaning is best preserved in English suppository [14], literally ‘something placed underneath’). From it was derived the noun suppositiō, which, on the analogy of Greek hupóthesis (source of English hypothesis [16], and itself made up of elements meaning literally ‘under’ and ‘put’), came to be used for an ‘assumption’ – English gets supposition [15] from it.

This meaning then fed back into the verb, which English acquired via Old French supposer.
=> position, suppository
symposium: symposium: [18] A symposium is etymologically a ‘get-together for a drink’. The word comes via Latin symposium from Greek sumpósion, a derivative of sumpótēs ‘drinking companion’. This was a compound noun formed from the prefix sun- ‘together’ and the base *pot- ‘drink’ (source of English poison, potion, etc). The Greeks favoured lubricating intellectual discussion with drink, and so the term sumpósion came to be used for a meeting which combined elements of party and intellectual interchange.
=> poison, potable, potion
transpose: transpose: see position
a posteriori: Latin, literally "from what comes after" (see posterior).
adipose (adj.): 1743, from Modern Latin adiposus "fatty," from Latin adipem (nominative adeps, genitive adipis) "soft fat of animals, fat, lard," from Greek aleipha "unguent, fat," related to lipos "grease, fat" (see leave (v.)). Change of -l- to -d- "prob. due to Umbrian influence" [Klein]. But it could as well be a native Italic formation from the same roots, *ad-leip-a "sticking onto."
all-purpose (adj.): 1877, from all + purpose (n.).
aposiopesis (n.): rhetorical artifice wherein the speaker suddenly breaks off in the middle of a sentence, 1570s, from Latin, from Greek aposiopesis "a becoming silent," also as a rhetorical figure, from apo- (see apo-) + siope "silence."
apostasy (n.): late 14c., "renunciation, abandonment or neglect of established religion," from Latin apostasia, from later Greek apostasia, from apostasis "revolt, defection," literally "a standing off" (see apostate). General (non-religious) sense is attested from 1570s.
apostate (n.): mid-14c., "one who forsakes his religion or faith," from Old French apostate (Modern French apostat) and directly from Late Latin apostata, from Greek apostasia "defection, desertion, rebellion," from apostenai "to defect," literally "to stand off," from apo- "away from" (see apo-) + stenai "to stand." Used in non-religious situations (politics, etc.) from mid-14c.
apostate (adj.): late 14c.; see apostate (n.).
apostatize (v.): 1610s, from Late Latin apostatizare, earlier apostatare, from apostata (see apostate). Related: Apostatized; apostatizing. The past participle form apostazied is attested from late 14c.
apostille (n.): "note, especially on text of the Bible," also apostil, 1520s, from French apostille (15c.), probably from Medieval Latin postilla, which probably represents Latin post illa, literally "after those."
apostle (n.): Old English apostol "messenger," especially the 12 witnesses sent forth by Jesus to preach his Gospel, from Late Latin apostolus, from Greek apostolos "messenger, person sent forth," from apostellein "send away, send forth," from apo- "from" (see apo-) + stellein in its secondary sense of "to send," from PIE *stel-yo-, suffixed form of root *stel- "to put, stand," with derivatives referring to a standing object or place (see stall (n.1)). Compare epistle.

The current form of the word, predominant since 16c., is influenced by Old French apostle (12c.), from the same Late Latin source. Figurative sense of "chief advocate of a new principle or system" is from 1810. Apostles, short for "The Acts and Epistles of the Apostles," is attested from c. 1400.
apostolic (adj.): early 15c., from French apostolique or directly from Church Latin apostolicus, from Greek apostolikos, from apostolos (see apostle). Apostolical also is early 15c.
apostrophe (n.): mark indicating omitted letter, 1580s, from Middle French apostrophe, from Late Latin apostrophus, from Greek apostrophos (prosoidia) "(the accent of) turning away," thus, a mark showing where a letter has been omitted, from apostrephein "avert, turn away," from apo- "from" (see apo-) + strephein "to turn" (see strophe).

In English, the mark often represents loss of -e- in -es, possessive ending. It was being extended to all possessives, whether they ever had an -e- or not, by 18c. Greek also used this word for a "turning aside" of an orator in speech to address some individual, a sense first recorded in English 1530s.
appose (v.): "to apply" (one thing to another), 1590s, either from French apposer (from a "to;" see ad-, + poser "to place;" see pose (v.1)), or else formed in English from Latin apponere (see apposite) on analogy of compose, expose, etc. In Middle English, an identical word was a variant spelling of oppose. Related: Apposed; apposing.
apposite (adj.): 1620s, "well-put or applied, appropriate," from Latin appositus "contiguous, neighboring;" figuratively "fit, proper, suitable," past participle of apponere "apply to, put near," from ad- "near" (see ad-) + ponere "to place" (past participle positus; see position (n.)).
apposition (n.): "application" (of one thing to another), mid-15c., originally in grammatical sense, from Latin appositionem (nominative appositio), noun of action from past participle stem of apponere "to put to" (see apposite). General sense is from 1540s.
appositive (adj.): 1690s, from Latin appositus, past participle of apponere "to put to" (see apposite) + -ive. As a noun, from 1847.
apropos (adv.): 1660s, "opportunely," from French à propos "to the purpose," from propos "thing said in conversation, talk; purpose, plan," from Latin propositium "purpose," past participle of proponere "to set forth, propose" (see propound). Meaning "as regards" is 1761, from French. As an adjective, "to the point or purpose," from 1690s.
Atropos: one of the Fates (the one who holds the shears and determines the manner of a person's death and cuts the thread), from Greek, "inflexible," literally "not to be turned away," from a- "not" (see a- (3)) + stem of trepein "to turn" (see trope). Related form Atropa was the Greek name for deadly nightshade.
bedpost (n.): also bed-post, 1590s, from bed (n.) + post (n.1).