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cockatrice [cockatrice 词源字典]: cockatrice: [14] The name of the cockatrice, a mythical serpent whose glance could kill, has a bizarre history. It started life as medieval Latin calcātrix, which meant literally ‘tracker, hunter’ (it was formed from the verb calcāre ‘tread, track’, a derivative of calx ‘heel’). This was a direct translation of Greek ikhneúmōn (a derivative of ikhneúein ‘track’), a name given to a mysterious Egyptian creature in ancient times which was said to prey on crocodiles.

At one point Latin calcātrix, later caucātrix, came to be used for the crocodile itself, but this application never gained much currency in English (which adopted the word via Old French cocatris). Instead, it was adopted as another name for the basilisk, a mythical serpent. The accidental similarity of the first syllable to cock led both to the embroidering of the basilisk/cockatrice legend, so that it was said to have been born from a cock’s egg, and to the word’s 16th-century rerouting as a heraldic term for a beast with the head, wings, and body of a cock and the tail of a serpent.
[cockatrice etymology, cockatrice origin, 英语词源]
germ: germ: [17] As its close relatives germane and germinate [17] suggest, germ has more to do etymologically with ‘sprouting’ and ‘coming to life’ than with ‘disease’. It comes via Old French germe from Latin germen ‘sprout, offshoot’, which may go back ultimately to the Indo- European base *gen- ‘produce’ (source of English gene, generate, genitive, etc).

The meaning ‘sprout, from which new life develops’ persisted into English (and still occurs in such contexts as wheatgerm – and indeed in metaphorical expressions like ‘the germ of an idea’). Then at the beginning of the 19th century it began to be used to put into words the idea of a ‘seed’ from which a disease grew: ‘The vaccine virus must act in one or other of these two ways: either it must destroy the germe of the small-pox … or it must neutralize this germe’, Medical Journal 1803.

By the end of the century it was an accepted colloquialism for ‘harmful microorganism’.
=> germane, germinate
germination (n.): mid-15c., from Latin germinationem (nominative germinatio) "a sprouting forth, budding," noun of action from past participle stem of germinare "to sprout, put forth shoots," from germen (genitive germinis) "a sprout or bud" (see germ).
grout (n.): "thin, fluid mortar" used in joints of masonry and brickwork, 1580s, extended from sense "coarse porridge," perhaps from Old English gruta (plural) "coarse meal," from Proto-Germanic *grut-, from PIE root *ghreu- "to rub, grind" (see grit (n.)). As a verb from 1838. Related: grouted; grouting.
re-route (v.): also reroute, 1929, of mails, from re- "back, again" + route (v.). Related: Rerouted; rerouting.
rout (v.): "drive into disordered flight by defeat," c. 1600, from rout (n.). Related: Routed; routing.
route (v.): 1890, from route (n.). Related: Routed; routing.
sprout (v.): Old English -sprutan (in asprutan "to sprout"), from Proto-Germanic *sprut- (cognates: Old Saxon sprutan, Old Frisian spruta, Middle Dutch spruten, Old High German spriozan, German sprießen "to sprout"), from PIE *spreud-, extended form of root *sper- (4) "to strew" (cognates: Greek speirein "to scatter," spora "a scattering, sowing," sperma "sperm, seed," literally "that which is scattered;" Old English spreawlian "to sprawl," sprædan "to spread," spreot "pole;" Armenian sprem "scatter;" Old Lithuanian sprainas "staring, opening wide one's eyes;" Lettish spriežu "I span, I measure"). Related: Sprouted; sprouting.