单词 | 上溯 |
释义 | 〔vum〕A New Englander expressing surprise is liable to say,"Well, I vum!” This odd-sounding word is in fact an alteration of the verbvow that goes back to the days of the American Revolution.It is also heard simply as"Vum!” or as a sort of past participle: "I'll be vummed!” A southern equivalent isswanny, also meaning "swear": Now, I swanny! According to theOxford English Dictionary, the word swanny derives from the dialect of the North of England: Is' wan ye, "I shall warrant ye.” 一个新英格兰人表示惊讶时会说“嗯,我发誓!” 这个听起来有些古老的词实际上是vow 这个动词的变体, 它可以上溯到美国独立战争时期。也可以仅用"Vum!"(“发誓!”) 或作为过去分词: "I'll be vummed!"(“我可以发誓!”) 南方相同的词是Swanny, 也是“发誓”的意思: Now, I swanny!(现在,我起誓!) 按照牛津英语字典, swanny 一词由北英格兰方言派生而来: Is' wan ye, “我向你保证” 〔anadromous〕From Greek anadromos [running up] 源自 希腊语 anadromos [上溯] 〔midwife〕The wordmidwife is the sort of word whose etymology is perfectly clear until one tries to figure it out.Wife would seem to refer to the woman giving birth, who is usually a wife,butmid ? A knowledge of older senses of words helps us with this puzzle.Wife in its earlier history meant "woman,” as it still did when the compoundmidwife was formed in Middle English (first recorded around 1300). Mid is probably a preposition, meaning "together with.”Thus amidwife was literally a "with woman" or "a woman who assists other women in childbirth.” Even though obstetrics has been rather resistant to midwifery until fairly recently,the etymology ofobstetric is rather similar, going back to the Latin wordobstetrīx, "a midwife,” from the verbobstāre, "to stand in front of,” and the feminine suffix -trix; theobstetrīx would thus literally stand in front of the baby. 单词midwife 属于那类语源看起来相当明了的词, 可当人们试着搞清楚时,才发现并不那么简单。Wife 似乎是指临产的妇女, 通常都身为人妇,但是mid 指的是什么呢? 通过了解词语原有的含义我们可以解开这个谜。Wife 早期时意指“妇女”, 当midwife 这个复合词在中古英语中形成的时候它仍然有此含义(首次记载于1300年前后)。 Mid 有可能是个介词, 意为“与…在一起”。这样midwife 字面上的意思就是“与妇女在一起”或者“帮助临产妇女生产的妇女”。 虽然直到近期产科学还一直抵制助产术一词,但是obstetric 的语源却与其很相似。 它可以上溯到拉丁词语obstetrix 意为“接生者”, 该词由动词obstare “站在…的前面”再加上阴性后缀 -trix 构成; 于是obstetrix 这个词字面上的意思是站在婴儿前面的人 〔Kaluga〕A city of central European U.S.S.R. southwest of Moscow. Dating to the 14th century, it is an industrial center and a river port. Population, 297,000.卡卢加:苏联欧洲部分中部的一座城市,位于莫斯科西南部。该市的历史可上溯到14世纪,如今成为一座工业中心和河港。人口297,000〔favor〕When a Southernerfavors a relative, he or she is not giving that person special privileges;rather, the Southerner looks like that relative.Favor can be either transitive— She favors her father — or intransitive with a compound subject: She and her father favor. This sense offavor goes back to early modern English: "This young lord Chamont/Favors my mother" (Ben Jonson).The verb derives from the nounfavor, which was used from the 15th to the 19th century to mean "appearance, aspect; the countenance, face": "What makes thy favor like the bloodless head/Fall'n on the block?” (Tennyson).This sense of the noun is now archaic,but the verb thrives in the English of the Southern United States.当一个南方人favors 一个亲属, 他(或她)不是给这个人特权;而是这个南方人长得像那个亲属。Favor 可以是及物的—— 她像她父亲—— 或不及物的,与复合主语连用: 她和她父亲相象。 Favor 的这种含义可以上溯到早期的现代英语: “这个年轻的贵族像我妈妈” (本·杰森)。这动词来源于名词favor, 在15世纪到19世纪被作为“外貌,样子;面貌,脸部”的意思用: “什么使你的脸毫无血色,脑袋耷拉下来?” (坦尼森)。名词的这一用法现在已经陈旧了,但动词仍在美国南部英语中流行〔dungeon〕The worddungeon may have gone down in the world quite literally, if one etymology of the word is correct. Dungeon may go back to a Vulgar Latin word,domniō, meaning "the lord's tower,”which came from Latindominus, "master.” In Middle English,in which our word is first recorded in a work composed around the beginning of the 14th century,it meant "a fortress, castle,” and "the keep of a castle" as well as "a prison cell underneath the keep of the castle.”Dungeon can still mean "keep,” although the usual spelling for this sense is donjon, but the meaning most usually associated with it is certainly not elevated.It is also possible thatdungeon goes back to a Germanic word related to our word dung. This assumed Germanic word would have meant "an underground house constructed of dung.”If this etymology is correct, the worddungeon has ended up where it began. 单词dungeon 的一种词源是它以其字面意义流传下来, 如果这个单词其中的一种语源是正确的话。 Dungeon 可追溯到拉丁俗词domnio, 意为“领主的塔”,这一拉丁俗词又来自拉丁文dominus, 意为“主人”。 在中古英语时期,该词首次记录于作于14世纪初的一部作品,意为“要塞,城堡”,“城堡主楼”以及“城堡方楼下的地牢”。Dungeon 仍有城堡主楼的意思,但最常与之联系在一起的这一拼法为 donjon, 但最常与之联系在一起的这一意义显然流传不广。Dungeon 还可能上溯到与之相联系的日耳曼语词 dung。 这一假设的日耳曼语词可能曾意为“由粪建构的地下房屋“。假如这一词源正确,dungeon 一词结束于它起源的地方 〔caricature〕The history of the wordcaricature takes us back through the centuries to a time when the Romans occupied Gaul, offering the blessings of civilization to the Gaulsbut also borrowing from them as well.One such borrowing, the Gaulish word.karros, meaning "a wagon or cart,” became Latincarrus, "a Gallic type of wagon.” This Latin word has continued to roll through the English language,giving uscar, career, cargo, carry, and charge, among others. Caricature, another offspring of carrus, came to us via French from Italian,in whichcaricatura, the source of the French word, was derived from Italian caricare, "to load, burden, or exaggerate.” Caricare in turn came from Late Latin carricāre, "to load,” derived from the Romans' Gaulish borrowingcarrus. Caricature 一词的历史可上溯到很多世纪以前当古罗马人占领高卢的时候。 古罗马人给高卢人带去文明开化的好处,同时也从高卢人那里有所借鉴。其中一个借用语,即意为“运货马车或畜拉车”的高卢语词karros , 演变成拉丁语carrus ,意为“一种高卢式运货马车”。 这一拉丁词语在英语中继续发展,使我们得到了car,career,cargo,carry 和 charge 等诸多词汇。 Caricature 是 carrus 的另一产物, 从意大利语经法语而演变过来的。演变过程中,做为法语词源的caricatura 是从意大利语,即意为“装货,使负重荷或夸张”的 caricare 衍生而来。 反过来,Caricare 源自后期拉丁语 carricare ,意为“装货”, 而它又衍生自古罗马人从高卢语中借来的carrus 〔Mulhouse〕A city of northeast France south of Colmar. Dating from at least 803, it became a free imperial city in 1308, allied itself with the Swiss from the 15th to the 18th century, and in 1798 voted to join France. Population, 112,157.摩洛斯:法国东北部城市,位于科尔马以南。其历史至少可上溯到803年,1308年成它为自由帝国城市,并于15世纪到18世纪于瑞士结成联盟,1798年投票表决并入法国。人口112,157〔Ernakulum〕A city of southwest India on the Malabar Coast west of Madurai. It has a Jewish sector that may date to the second or third centurya.d. Population, 213,811. 埃纳库拉姆:印度西南部城市,位于马拉巴尔海岸,马杜拉以西,该城内有一犹太区,其历史上溯至公元 2至3世纪。人口213,811 〔Brentwood〕An urban district of southeast England east-northeast of London. A grammar school in the district dates from the mid-16th century. Population, 72,700.布伦特伍德:英国东南部一市区,位于伦敦东北偏东。该区的一所中学可上溯到16世纪中叶。人口72,700〔Moab〕An ancient kingdom east of the Dead Sea in present-day southwest Jordan. According to the Old Testament, its inhabitants were descendants of Lot. Archaeological exploration has traced settlement in the area to at least the 13th centuryb.c. 摩押国:死海东部,今约旦西南的一个古国。据旧约全书,这里的居民是罗德的后代。考古学测定,已把该地有定居人口的历史上溯至公元前 13世纪 〔university〕The universe in the worduniversity is not the universe as we know it, thoughuniversity is derived from the ancestor of our word universe. This ancestor, Latinūniversus, was made up of ūnus, "one,” and versus, "in a specified direction.” Universus thus literally meant "in one specified direction" but actually meant "the whole of, entire,” and "regarded as a whole, regarded as a group.”Universum, the neuter singular of ūniversus, used as a noun, meant "the universe,”as did the derivativeūniversitās, which also meant "a corporate body of persons, community.” During the Middle Ages, when Latin continued to be used in areas such as government, religion, and education,the wordūniversitās was applied to the new corporate bodies of teachers and students, as at Salerno, Paris, and Oxford, that were the ancestors of our universities of today.Our worduniversity, going back to the Latin word, is first recorded around 1300, with reference to this corporate body.University 一词中的"universe"并不是我们所知道的宇宙这个词, 虽然university 是由我们的 universe 这个词的前身派生而来的。 这一前身,即拉丁文中的universus 是由表示“一”的 unus 和表示“沿着某一特定的方向”的 versus 构成的。 Universus 字面上的意思因此就是“沿着一个特定的方向”, 但它实际的意思却是“整个、全部”和“被视为一个整体的,被视为一个群体的”。Universum ,是 universus 的中性单数形式, 用作名词时指“宇宙”,同样派生词universitas 也指“一群个人的联合体,社团”。 在中世纪,拉丁文继续在诸如政府、宗教和教育等领域得到使用,universitas 这个词被用来指由教师和学生所构成的新联合体,比如在萨勒诺、巴黎和牛津出现的这种联合体, 而这类联合体即是我们今天的大学的最初形式。我们今天的university 这个词可以上溯到拉丁词, 它首次被记录下来是在大约1300年,当时就是用来指这种联合体〔menu〕An enormous menu might be considered an oxymoronif one were to restrict the word etymologically.Menu can be traced back to the Latin word minūtus, meaning "small in size, amount, or degree"and also "possessing or involving minute knowledge.”Latinminūtus became Old French menut and Modern French menu, "small, fine, trifling, minute.” The French adjective came to be used as a nounwith the sense of "detail, details collectively,” and "detailed list.”As such, it was used in the phrasemenu de repas, "list of items of a meal,” which was shortened tomenu. This word was borrowed into English,being first recorded in 1837.The French word had been borrowed before,perhaps only briefly,as a shortening of the French phrasemenu peuple, "the common people.” This usage, however, is recorded in only one text, in 1658.“一个庞大的菜单”这一说法可能会被看成是一种矛盾的修辞法,如果人们从语源学角度对这个词进行限制的话。Menu 这个词的词源可上溯到拉丁词 minutus, 意为“尺寸、数量或程度小的”,或者“具备或涉及到精细知识的。”这个拉丁词minutus 而后又成为古法语单词 menut 和现代法语单词 menu, 意为“小的、精巧的、琐碎的、详细的。” 这个法语形容词逐渐被用作名词,意为“细节、诸多细节”及“详细的名单”。就这样,它被用于词组menu de repas, 意为“一张菜肴明细单”, 后来这个词组又被简略为menu。 这个简略词被引入英语中,最早出现于1837年。这个法语单词以前也曾被英语借用过,但也许只用了很短一段时间,而且是作为意为“普通民众”的法语词组menu peuple 的简略词。 然而这一用法仅在1658年的一篇文章中出现过〔ascent〕A going back in time or upward in genealogical succession.追本溯源:家谱系统在时间上的追溯或上溯〔stove〕A stove to us is something we expect to find in a room,but at one timea stove was a room,specifically, a room for taking a hot-air or steam bath (first recorded in 1456).Around 1545 the word is recorded with reference to another room, such as a bedroom, heated with a furnace.The devices used to heat these rooms came to be calledstoves as well, a use first found sometime between 1550 and 1625.Of course, heating devices that we would callstoves had long been in existence, going back to Roman times.However, the stove as the chief cooking device, taking the place of the fireplace, dates only to around the mid-19th century with the widespread use of wood-burning or coal-burning cooking stoves.对于我们来说,火炉是我们可以在屋内找到的东西,但是有一段时间,这种东西指的是一个房间,尤其是取得热空气或供蒸汽浴的房间(首次记载于1456年)。1545年前后,该词又记载了另一含义,指另一种带有火炉取暖的房间,如卧室。这些屋内用于取暖的器具也被称作stoves, 该用法首次发现于1550年到1625年间。当然,我们称为stoves 的加热器具已经很久以前就存在了, 可以上溯到古罗马时期。但是,该词代替壁炉成为主要的烹饪器具只能追溯到19世纪中期,那时以木材或煤作燃料的烹饪火炉得到大规模地推广使用 |
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