英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

age [age 词源字典]: age: [13] Age has undergone considerable transmutations and abbreviations since its beginnings in Latin. Its immediate source in English is Old French aage, which was the product of a hypothetical Vulgar Latin form *aetāticum (the t is preserved in Provençal atge). This was based on Latin aetāt- (stem of aetās), which was a shortening of aevitās, which in turn came from aevum ‘lifetime’.

This entered English in more recognizable form in medieval, primeval, etc; it is related to Greek aión ‘age’, from which English gets aeon [17], and it can be traced back to the same root that produced (via Old Norse eí) the now archaic adverb ay(e) ‘ever’ (as in ‘will aye endure’).
=> aeon, aye[age etymology, age origin, 英语词源]
bank: bank: [12] The various disparate meanings of modern English bank all come ultimately from the same source, Germanic *bangk-, but they have taken different routes to reach us. Earliest to arrive was ‘ridge, mound, bordering slope’, which came via a hypothetical Old Norse *banki. Then came ‘bench’ [13] (now obsolete except in the sense ‘series of rows or tiers’ – as in a typewriter’s bank of keys); this arrived from Old French banc, which was originally borrowed from Germanic *bangk- (also the source of English bench).

Finally came ‘moneylender’s counter’ [15], whose source was either French banque or Italian banca – both in any case deriving ultimately once again from Germanic *bangk-. The current sense, ‘place where money is kept’, developed in the 17th century. The derived bankrupt [16] comes originally from Italian banca rotta, literally ‘broken counter’ (rotta is related to English bereave and rupture); in early times a broken counter or bench was symbolic of an insolvent moneylender.

The diminutive of Old French banc was banquet ‘little bench’ (perhaps modelled on Italian banchetto), from which English gets banquet [15]. It has undergone a complete reversal in meaning over the centuries; originally it signified a ‘small snack eaten while seated on a bench (rather than at table)’.
=> bench
buff: buff: [16] Buff originally meant ‘buffalo’; it was presumably an alteration of the French word buffe ‘buffalo’. That sense had died out by the early 18th century, but since then the word has undergone a bizarre series of semantic changes. First, it came to mean ‘leather’, originally from buffalo hides, but later from ox hides. This was commonly used in the 16th and 17th centuries for making military uniforms, so be in buff came to mean ‘be in the army’.

Then in the 17th century the associations of ‘hide’ and ‘skin’ led to the expression in the buff ‘naked’. The colour of buff leather, a sort of dull yellowish-brown, led to the word’s adoption in the 18th century as a colour term. In the 19th century, soft buff or suede leather was used for the small pads or wheels used by silversmiths, watchmakers, etc for polishing: hence the verb buff ‘polish’.

And finally, in the 1820s New York City volunteer firemen were known as ‘buffs’, from the colour of their uniforms; thus anyone who was a volunteer or enthusiastic for something became known as a buff (as in ‘film buff’). The buff of blind-man’s buff is a different word. It meant ‘blow, punch’, and was borrowed in the 15th century from Old French buffe, source also of English buffet ‘blow’ [13].

The term blind-man’s buff is first recorded around 1600, some what later than its now obsolete synonym hoodman blind.
=> buffalo, buffet
bully: bully: [16] Bullies have undergone a sad decline in status. In the 16th century the word meant ‘sweetheart’: ‘Though she be somewhat old, it is my own sweet bully’, John Bale, Three laws 1538. But gradually the rot set in, its meaning passing through ‘fine fellow’ to ‘blusterer’ to the present-day harasser of inferiors. In the 18th and 19th centuries it also meant ‘pimp’.

It is probably a modification of Dutch boele ‘lover’ which, as a term of endearment, may have originated as baby-talk. This bully has no connection with the bully of bully beef [18], which comes from French bouilli, the past participle of bouillir ‘boil’. The bully of bully off [19], a now discontinued way of starting play in hockey, appears to come from a term for ‘scrummage’ in Eton football, but whether that is related to the cruel bully is not clear.
exact: exact: [15] The adjective exact ‘precise’ and the verb exact ‘demand with severity’ have undergone considerable semantic divergence over the centuries, but they both go back to the same source, the Latin verb exigere (from which English also got essay, examine, exigent [15], and exiguous [17]). This, a compound of the prefix ex- ‘out’ and agere ‘lead, drive’ (source of English act and agent), meant originally ‘drive out’, but in due course it developed the metaphorical senses ‘demand’ (preserved in the English verb), ‘weigh accurately’, and ‘bring to completion or perfection’.

These last two were taken up adjectivally in the Latin past participle exactus, from which English gets exact.
=> act, agent, essay, examine
experience: experience: [14] Experience, experiment [14], and expert [14] all come from the same source, Latin experīrī. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and a prehistoric base *per- denoting ‘attempt, trial’ (found also in English empirical, peril, pirate, and repertory), and meant ‘try, test’. The original meaning is best preserved in experiment, but in fact experience too meant at first ‘putting to the test’ in English.

From this developed the notion of ‘actually observing phenomena in order to gain knowledge of them’, which in turn led to the more subjective ‘condition of having undergone or been affected by a particular event’. The sense ‘knowledge or skill gained from such observation or from undergoing such events’ did not, however, emerge until the late 15th century. Expert was originally only an adjective, meaning ‘having experience of something’, or ‘trained by such experience’; its use as a noun only developed in the 19th century.
=> empirical, experiment, expert, peril, pirate, repertory
pope: pope: [OE] Etymologically, the pope is the ‘daddy’ of the Roman Catholic church. Greek páppas was a nursery word for ‘father’, based no doubt on the first syllable of patér ‘father’ (a relative of English father). In the form pápas it came to be used by early Christians for ‘bishop’, and its Latin descendant pāpa was applied from the 5th century onwards to the bishop of Rome, the pope.

English acquired the word in the Anglo-Saxon period, and so it has undergone the normal medieval phonetic changes to become pope, but the derivatives papacy [14] and papal [14] arrived later, and retain their a. Latin pāpa also gave English papa [17], via French papa.
=> papa, papacy, poplin
precarious: precarious: [17] Precarious comes from Latin precārius (source also of English prayer), which meant ‘obtained by asking or praying’. It was originally used in English as a legal term, in which ‘obtained by asking’ had undergone a slight change in focus to ‘held through the favour of another’. This introduced the notion that the favour might be withdrawn, and that the possession was therefore uncertain, and so the adjective soon came to be used for ‘depending on chance or caprice’ and, in the 18th century, ‘risky’.

Latin precārius was derived from prex ‘prayer’, a close relative of precārī ‘ask, entreat, pray’, from which English gets pray.
=> pray
topsy-turvy (adv.): 1520s, "but prob. in popular use from an earlier period" [OED]; compare top over terve "to fall over" (mid-15c.); likely from tops, plural of top (n.1) "highest point" + obsolete terve "turn upside down, topple over," from Old English tearflian "to roll over, overturn," from Proto-Germanic *terbanan (cognates: Old High German zerben "to turn round"). Century Dictionary calls it "A word which, owing to its popular nature, its alliterative type, and to ignorance of its origin, leading to various perversions made to suggest some plausible origin, has undergone, besides the usual variations of spelling, extraordinary modifications of form." It lists 31 variations. As an adjective from 1610s.
undergo (v.): Old English undergan "obtain, get; undertake," from under + gan (see go (v.)). Compare similarly formed Middle Dutch ondergaen, Old High German untarkun, German untergehen, Danish undergaa. Sense of "submit to, endure" is attested from c. 1300. Meaning "to pass through" (an alteration, etc.) is attested from 1630s. Related: Undergone; underwent.
lysimeter: "An apparatus for measuring changes due to moisture loss, percolation, etc. undergone by a body of soil under controlled conditions", Late 19th century: from Greek lusis 'loosening' + -meter.
post-choreic: "Subsequent to an attack of chorea; having undergone an attack of chorea", Late 19th cent.; earliest use found in T. Clifford Allbutt (1836–1925), physician.
incorrupt: "(Especially of a human body) not having undergone decomposition", Late Middle English: from Latin incorruptus, from in- 'not' + corruptus 'destroyed, marred' (see corrupt).