quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- coin[coin 词源字典]
- coin: [14] Latin cuneus meant ‘wedge’ (from it we get cuneiform ‘wedge-shaped script’). It passed into Old French as coing or coin, where it developed a variety of new meanings. Primary amongst these was ‘corner-stone’ or ‘corner’, a sense preserved in English mainly in the now archaic spelling quoin. But also, since the die for stamping out money was often wedge-shaped, or operated in the manner of a wedge, it came to be referred to as a coin, and the term soon came to be transferred to the pieces of money themselves.
=> quoin[coin etymology, coin origin, 英语词源] - frog
- frog: [OE] Frog comes from Old English frogga, which probably started life as a playful alternative to the more serious frosc or forsc. This derived from the pre-historic Germanic *fruskaz, which also produced German frosch and Dutch vorsch. Its use as a derogatory synonym for ‘French person’ goes back to the late 18th century, and was presumably inspired by the proverbial French appetite for the animals’ legs (although in fact frog as a general term of abuse can be traced back to the 14th century, and in the 17th century it was used for ‘Dutch person’).
It is not clear whether frog ‘horny wedge-shaped pad in a horse’s hoof’ [17] and frog ‘ornamental braiding’ [18] are the same word; the former may have been influenced by French fourchette and Italian forchetta, both literally ‘little fork’.
- coin (n.)
- c. 1300, "a wedge," from Old French coing (12c.) "a wedge; stamp; piece of money; corner, angle," from Latin cuneus "a wedge." The die for stamping metal was wedge-shaped, and the English word came to mean "thing stamped, a piece of money" by late 14c. (a sense that already had developed in French). Compare quoin, which split off from this word 16c. Modern French coin is "corner, angle, nook." Coins were first struck in western Asia Minor in 7c. B.C.E.; Greek tradition and Herodotus credit the Lydians with being first to make and use coins of silver and gold.
- cuneiform (adj.)
- 1670s, "wedge shaped," from French cunéiforme (16c.), from Latin cuneus "a wedge, wedge-shaped thing," which is of unknown origin, + French -forme (see form (n.)). Applied to characters in ancient Middle Eastern inscriptions made with wedge-shaped writing tools; first used in this sense by German physician and traveler Engelbert Kämpfer (1681-1716); in English from 1818. As a noun from 1862.
- flat-iron (n.)
- "iron for smoothing," 1810, from flat (adj.) + iron (n.). Applied to triangular or wedge-shaped buildings from 1862.
- wedge (n.)
- Old English wecg "a wedge," from Proto-Germanic *wagjaz (cognates: Old Norse veggr, Middle Dutch wegge, Dutch wig, Old High German weggi "wedge," dialectal German Weck "wedge-shaped bread roll"), of uncertain origin; perhaps related to Latin vomer "plowshare." From 1610s in reference to other things shaped like a wedge. Of women's shoes or shoe-heels, from 1939. Wedge issue is attested from 1999.
- cuneus
- "A wedge-shaped lobule of the medial surface of the occipital lobe of the brain, located between the calcarine and parieto-occipital fissures", Mid 19th cent.; earliest use found in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. From German Cuneus from classical Latin cuneus wedge.
- cuneate
- "Wedge-shaped", Early 19th century: from Latin cuneus 'wedge' + -ate2.