英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

appraise [appraise 词源字典]: appraise: [15] Originally, appraise meant simply ‘fix the price of’. It came from the Old French verb aprisier ‘value’, which is ultimately a parallel formation with appreciate; it is not clear whether it came directly from late Latin appretiāre, or whether it was a newly formed compound in Old French, based on pris ‘price’. Its earliest spellings in English were thus apprize and apprise, and these continued in use down to the 19th century, with the more metaphorical meaning ‘estimate the worth of’ gradually coming to the fore.

From the 16th century onwards, however, it seems that association with the word praise (which is quite closely related etymologically) has been at work, and by the 19th century the form appraise was firmly established. Apprise ‘inform’, with which appraise is often confused (and which appears superficially to be far closer to the source pris or pretium ‘price’), in fact has no etymological connection with it.

It comes from appris, the past participle of French apprendre ‘teach’ (closely related to English apprehend).
=> appreciate, price[appraise etymology, appraise origin, 英语词源]
bitch: bitch: [OE] The antecedents of Old English bicce ‘female dog’ are obscure. It may come from a prehistoric Germanic *bekjōn-, but the only related form among other Germanic languages appears to be Old Norse bikkja. The superficially similar French biche means ‘female deer’, and is probably not related. The use of the word as a derogatory term for ‘woman’ seems to have originated in the 14th century.
bother: bother: [18] When the word bother first turns up in English in the first half of the 18th century, it is largely in the writings of Irishmen, such as Thomas Sheridan and Jonathan Swift. This has naturally led to speculation that the word may be of Irish origin, but no thoroughly convincing candidate has been found. The superficially similar Irish Gaelic bodhar ‘deaf, afflicted’ is more alike in spelling than pronunciation. Another suggestion is that it may represent an Irish way of saying pother [16], an archaic word for ‘commotion’ which is itself of unknown origin.
braid: braid: [OE] The ultimate source of braid was West and North Germanic *bregthan, whose underlying meaning was probably ‘make sudden jerky movements from side to side’. This was carried through into Old English bregdan, but had largely died out by the 16th century. However, ‘making swift side-to-side movements’ had early developed a special application to the intertwining of strands or threads, and it is this ‘plaiting’ sense which has survived. The Germanic base *bregth- was also the ultimate source of bridle, but the superficially similar embroider had a different origin.
=> bridle, upbraid
cove: cove: [OE] Old English cofa meant ‘small room’, as used for sleeping in or as a storeroom. It was descended from Germanic *kubon, which was probably also the ultimate ancestor of cubbyhole [19] (the superficially similar cubicle is not related). In the late Old English period this seems to have developed in northern and Scottish dialects to ‘small hollow place in coastal rocks, cave’, and hence (although not, apparently, until as late as the 16th century) to ‘small bay’. (The other cove [16], a dated slang term for ‘chap’, may come from Romany kova ‘thing, person’.)
=> cubbyhole
deity: deity: [14] Deity comes via Old French deite from late Latin deitās ‘godhood, divinity’, a derivative of Latin deus ‘god’. This traces its ancestry back to Indo-European *deiwos, which has links with other words meaning ‘sky’ and ‘day’ and probably comes ultimately from a base with the sense ‘bright, shining’. Amongst its other descendants are English divine, the personifications Greek Zeus, Latin Iuppiter and Iovis (source of English jovial), and Old English Tīw (source of English Tuesday), and Sanskrit dēvás ‘god’ (source of English deodar ‘variety of cedar’ [19], literally ‘divine wood’); the superficially similar Greek theós ‘god’, however, is not related.

English is also indebted to Latin deus for deify [14] and, via a somewhat circuitous route, the joss [18] of joss-stick, a Pidgin English word which comes from deos, the Portuguese descendant of deus.
=> divine, joss, jovial, tuesday
engage: engage: [15] Vulgar Latin had a noun *wadium ‘pledge’ (it came from Germanic *wathjam, source also of English wed and wage). From it was derived a verb *wadiāre ‘pledge’, which formed the basis of a compound *inwadiāre. Germanic w became g in French (hence French Guillaume for William), so the Old French descendant of *inwadiāre was engager, acquired by English as engage. (The superficially similar gauge [15] is probably not related, although it is not known for certain what its ultimate source is.)
=> wage, wed
fancy: fancy: [15] Ultimately, fancy is the same word as fantasy [15], from which it emerged by a process of contraction and gradually became differentiated in meaning. Both go back originally to the Greek verb phaínein ‘show’ (source also of English diaphanous and phenomenon). From it was derived phantázein ‘make visible’, which produced the noun phantasíā ‘appearance, perception, imagination’ and its associated adjective phantastikós ‘able to make visible’ (and also incidentally phántasma, from which English gets phantasm and phantom).

The noun passed into English via Latin phantasia and Old French fantasie, bringing with it the original Greek senses and also some others which it had picked up on the way, including ‘caprice’. The semantic split between fantasy, which has basically taken the road of ‘imagination’, and fancy, which has tended more to ‘capricious preference’, was more or less complete by about 1600.

The quasi- Greek spelling phantasy was introduced in the 16th century, and has persisted for the noun, although the contemporary phantastic for the adjective has now died out. The Italian form fantasia was borrowed in the 18th century for a fanciful musical composition. (Fancy and fantasy have no etymological connection with the superficially similar fanatic, incidentally, which comes ultimately from Latin fānum ‘temple’.)
=> diaphanous, fantasy, pant, phantom
gorge: gorge: [14] Gorge originally meant ‘throat’; the metaphorical extension to ‘rocky ravine’ did not really take place until the mid 18th century (the semantic connection was presumably ‘narrow opening between which things pass’). The word was borrowed from Old French gorge ‘throat’, which goes back via Vulgar Latin *gurga to Latin gurges ‘whirlpool’ from which English gets regurgitate [17]. The superficially similar gorgeous [15], incidentally, is not related. It was adapted from Old French gorgias ‘fine, elegant’, but no one knows where that came from.
=> regurgitate
have: have: [OE] Have and its Germanic cousins, German haben, Dutch hebben, Swedish ha, and Danish have, come from a prehistoric Germanic ancestor *khabēn. This was probably a product of Indo-European *kap-, which was also the source of English heave and Latin capere ‘seize’ (whence English capable, capture, etc). In all the Germanic languages it shares the function of denoting ‘possession’ with that of forming the perfect tense. (It appears, incidentally, to have no etymological connection with the superficially similar Latin habēre ‘have’.)
=> capable, captive, capture
joke: joke: [17] Latin jocus meant ‘jest, joke’ (a possible link with Old High German gehan ‘say’ and Sanskrit yācati ‘he implores’ suggests that its underlying meaning was ‘word-play’). It passed into Old French as jeu, which lies behind English jeopardy and probably also jewel. But English also went direct to Latin for a set of words connected with ‘fun’ and ‘humour’, among them jocose [17] and jocular [17], both from Latin derivatives of jocus (the superficially similar jocund, incidentally, is etymologically unrelated), and joke itself, which was originally introduced in the form joque or joc (‘coming off with so many dry joques and biting repartees’, Bishop Kennett’s translation of Erasmus’s Encomium Moriae 1683). Juggler belongs to the same word family.
=> jeopardy, jewel, jocular, juggler
dabble (v.): 1550s, probably a frequentative of dab. Original meaning was "wet by splashing;" modern figurative sense of "do superficially" first recorded 1620s. Related: Dabbled; dabbling. An Ellen Dablewife is in the Lancashire Inquests from 1336.
scorch (v.): "to burn superficially or slightly, but so as to change the color or injure the texture," early 14c., perhaps an alteration of scorrcnenn "make dry, parch" (c. 1200), of obscure origin, perhaps from Old Norse skorpna "to be shriveled," cognate with Old English scrimman "to shrink, dry up." Or perhaps from Old French escorchier "to strip off the skin," from Vulgar Latin excorticare "to flay," from ex- (see ex-) + Latin cortex (genitive corticis) "cork;" but OED finds this not likely. Scorched earth military strategy is 1937, translation of Chinese jiaotu, used against the Japanese in a bid to stem their advance into China.
skimmer (n.): "skimming utensil," late 14c., agent noun from skim (v.). From 1751 as "one who reads superficially." The North American shore bird (1785) is so called from its method of feeding. As "one who diverts money from earnings for some private purpose" by 1970.
slim (v.): 1808, "to scamp one's work, do carelessly or superficially," from slim (adj.). Meaning "to make slim" (a garment, etc.) is from 1862; meaning "reduce (one's) weight" is from 1930. Related: Slimmed; slimming.
smatter (v.): early 15c., "talk idly, chatter; talk ignorantly or superficially," of uncertain origin, perhaps imitative. Similar forms are found in Middle High German smetern "to chatter" and Swedish smattra "to patter, rattle," and compare Danish snaddre "chatter, jabber," Dutch snateren, German schnattern "cackle, chatter, prattle." Related: Smattered; smattering.
specious (adj.): late 14c., "pleasing to the sight, fair," from Latin speciosus "good-looking, beautiful, fair," also "showy, pretended, plausible, specious," from species "appearance, form, figure, beauty" (see species). Meaning "seemingly desirable, reasonable or probable, but not really so; superficially fair, just, or correct" in English is first recorded 1610s. Related: Speciously; speciosity; speciousness.
superficial (adj.): late 14c., in anatomical and mathematical uses, "of or relating to a surface," from Late Latin superficialis "of or pertaining to the surface," from superficies "surface, upper side, top," from super "above, over" (see super-) + facies "form, face" (see face (n.)). Meaning "not deep, without thorough understanding, cursory, comprehending only what is apparent or obvious" (of perceptions, thoughts, etc.) first recorded early 15c. (implied in superficially "not thoroughly").
Wernicke's area: "A region of the brain concerned with the comprehension of language, located in the cortex of the dominant temporal lobe. Damage in this area causes Wernicke’s aphasia, characterized by superficially fluent, grammatical speech but an inability to use or understand more than the most basic nouns and verbs", Late 19th century: named after Karl Wernicke (1848–1905), German neuropsychiatrist.
rhynchocephalian: "Of or relating to the diapsid reptile order Rhynchocephalia (infraclass Lepidosauromorpha), which comprises such superficially lizard-like forms as the modern tuataras (genus Sphenodon) and various Mesozoic fossil forms, known collectively as beak-heads", Mid 19th cent. From scientific Latin Rhynchocephalia, order name (A. Günther 1867, in Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 157 626; from rhyncho- + ancient Greek κεϕαλή head + scientific Latin -ia, after Rhynchocephalus, genus name) + -an.
paralogism: "A piece of illogical or fallacious reasoning, especially one which appears superficially logical or which the reasoner believes to be logical", Mid 16th century: from French paralogisme, via late Latin from Greek paralogismos, from paralogizesthai 'reason falsely'.