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acacia [acacia 词源字典]: acacia: [16] Acacia comes via Latin from Greek akakía, a word for the shittah. This is a tree mentioned several times in the Bible (the Ark of the Covenant was made from its wood). It is not clear precisely what it was, but it was probably a species of what we now know as the acacia. The ultimate derivation of Greek akakía is obscure too; some hold that it is based on Greek aké ‘point’ (a distant relation of English acid), from the thorniness of the tree, but others suggest that it may be a loanword from Egyptian.
[acacia etymology, acacia origin, 英语词源]
ark: ark: [OE] The notion underlying ark seems to be that of ‘enclosing or defending a space’. Its ultimate Latin source, arca ‘large box or chest’, was related to arx ‘citadel’ and to arcēre ‘close up’ (from which English gets arcane). Arca was borrowed into prehistoric Germanic, and came into English as ærc. In addition to meaning ‘chest’ (a sense which had largely died out by the 18th century), it signified the ‘coffer in which the ancient Hebrews kept the tablets of the Ten Commandments’ – the Ark of the Covenant – and by extension, the large commodious vessel in which Noah escaped the Flood.
=> arcane, exercise
tavern: tavern: [13] Tavern comes via Old French taverne from Latin taberna ‘hut, inn’, a word possibly of Etruscan origin. Derived from taberna, in the sense ‘hut’, was the diminutive form tabernāculum ‘tent’, which was borrowed into English as tabernacle [13]. Its original application was to the tent which according to the Bible covered the Ark of the Covenant.
=> tabernacle
ark (n.): Old English earc, mainly meaning Noah's but also the Ark of the Covenant, from Latin arca "large box, chest" (see arcane). Also borrowed in Old High German (arahha, Modern German Arche). From the Noachian sense comes extended meaning "place of refuge" (17c.). As the name of a type of ship or boat, from late 15c. In 19c. U.S., especially a large, flat-bottomed river boat to move produce, livestock, etc. to market.
Arkansas: organized as a U.S. territory 1819 (admitted as a state 1836), named for the Arkansas River, which was named for a Siouan tribe.
The spelling of the term represents a French plural, Arcansas, of a name applied to the Quapaw people who lived on the Arkansas River; their name was also written in early times as Akancea, Acansea, Acansa (Dickinson, 1995). This was not the name used by the Quapaws themselves, however. The term /akansa/ was applied to them by Algonquian speakers; this consists of /a-/, an Algonquian prefix found in the names of ethnic groups, plus /kká:ze, a Siouan term refering to members of the Dhegiha branch of the Siouan family. This stem is also the origin for the name of the Kansa tribe and of the state of Kansas; thus the placenames Arkansas and Kansas indirectly have the same origin. [William Bright, "Native American Placenames of the United States," 2004]
creationism (n.): 1847, originally a Christian theological position that God immediately created a soul for each person born; from creation + -ism. As a name for the religious reaction to Darwin, opposed to evolution, it is attested from 1880.
James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in Dublin was highly regarded in his day as a churchman and as a scholar. Of his many works, his treatise on chronology has proved the most durable. Based on an intricate correlation of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean histories and Holy writ, it was incorporated into an authorized version of the Bible printed in 1701, and thus came to be regarded with almost as much unquestioning reverence as the Bible itself. Having established the first day of creation as Sunday 23 October 4004 B.C. ... Ussher calculated the dates of other biblical events, concluding, for example, that Adam and Eve were driven from Paradise on Monday 10 November 4004 BC, and that the ark touched down on Mt Ararat on 5 May 1491 BC "on a Wednesday". [Craig, G.Y., and E.J. Jones, "A Geological Miscellany," Princeton University Press, 1982.]
cypress (n.): type of evergreen tree (sacred to Pluto), late 12c., from Old French cipres (12c., Modern French cyprès), from Late Latin cypressus, from Latin cupressus, from Greek kyparissos, probably from an unknown pre-Greek Mediterranean language. Perhaps related to Hebrew gopher, name of the tree whose wood was used to make the ark (Gen. vi:14).
gopher (n.): burrowing squirrel, 1812, American English, perhaps an Englishing of Louisiana French gaufre "honeycomb, waffle," said to have been used by French settlers in reference to small mammals on analogy of the structure of their burrows, from Old French gaufre, walfre (12c.), which is from Frankish or some other Germanic source. The rodent was the nickname of people from Arkansas (1845) and later Minnesota (1872). The gopherwood tree of the Bible (used by Noah to make the ark, Gen. vi:14) is unrelated; it is from Hebrew gofer, name of a kind of wood now unidentified, perhaps meaning the cypress.
mercy (n.): late 12c., "God's forgiveness of his creatures' offenses," from Old French mercit, merci (9c.) "reward, gift; kindness, grace, pity," from Latin mercedem (nominative merces) "reward, wages, pay hire" (in Vulgar Latin "favor, pity"), from merx (genitive mercis) "wares, merchandise" (see market (n.)). In Church Latin (6c.) applied to the heavenly reward of those who show kindness to the helpless.

Meaning "disposition to forgive or show compassion" is attested from early 13c. As an interjection, attested from mid-13c. In French largely superseded by miséricorde except as a word of thanks. Seat of mercy "golden covering of the Ark of the Covenant" (1530) is Tyndale's loan-translation of Luther's gnadenstuhl, an inexact rendering of Hebrew kapporeth, literally "propitiatory."
Ozark: mountains of southcentral United States, said to be from French aux Arcs, short for aux Arkansas "to the Arkansas (Indians)," who once inhabited that region. See Arkansas.
Columba: "A small and faint southern constellation (the Dove), near Canis Major. It is sometimes said to represent the dove that Noah sent out from the Ark", Latin.