| 单词 | 可以追溯 |
| 释义 | 〔desert〕When Shakespeare says in Sonnet 72,"Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,/To do more for me than mine own desert,”he is using the worddesert in the sense of "worthiness; deserving,” a word that is perhaps most familiar to us in the plural, meaning "something that is deserved,”as in the phrasejust deserts. This word goes back to the Latin worddēservīre, "to devote oneself to the service of,”which in Vulgar Latin came to mean "to merit by service.” Dēservīre is made up ofdē-, meaning "thoroughly,” and servīre, "to serve.” Knowing this,we can distinguish thisdesert from desert, "a wasteland,” and desert, "to abandon,” both of which go back to Latindēserere, "to forsake, leave uninhabited,” which is made up ofdē-, expressing the notion of undoing, and the verb serere, "to link together.” We can also distinguish all threedeserts from dessert, "a sweet course at the end of a meal,” which is from the French worddesservir, "to clear the table.” Desservir is made up ofdes-, expressing the notion of reversal, and servir (from Latin servīre ), "to serve,” hence, "to unserve" or "to clear the table.”当莎士比亚在第72首十四行诗中说：“除非你能编出善意的谎言/把我说得比我本人强得多”，这里desert 的意思就是“应得的东西”。 对这个词，我们最熟悉的大概是其复数形式（意思是“应得的东西”）。例如在词组just deserts 中。 该词的起源可以追溯到拉丁词deservire ， 意为“为…而献身”，在俗拉丁语中，意思就变成了“依据服务应得…”。 Deservire 由de- 意思是“完全地，彻底地”和 servire “服务”组成。 知道了这些，我们就可以把desert 与 desert “荒原”和 desert “放弃”区别开来。 后面两个意义可追溯到拉丁语deserere “遗弃，无人居住”， 它由de- 表示“不做”的概念和动词 serere “连接到一起”组成。 我们也能把所有这三个deserts 与 dessert “正餐最后上的一道甜食”区分开来， 后者来自法语词desservir “收拾桌子”。 Desservir 由表达“反，逆”概念的des- 和 servir 组成（来自拉丁语 servire ）， 意为“服务”、“因此“、“不上菜”或“清理桌子”〔pant〕It would seem unlikely that the name of a 4th-century Roman Catholic saint should be the ultimate source of a word for a modern article of clothing commonly worn by both men and women.Pants, however, can be traced back to Pantaleon, the patron saint of Venice. He became so closely associated with the inhabitants of that citythat the Venetians became popularly known asPantaloni. Consequently, among the commedia dell'arte's stock characters the representative Venetian (a stereotypically wealthy but miserly merchant) was calledPantalone. His name in French,Pantalon, was borrowed into English (first recorded around 1590). During the middle of the 17th centurythe French came to identify him with one particular style of trousers,and this same style became known aspantaloons in English. Pantaloons was later applied to another style of trousers that came into fashion toward the end of the 18th century, tight-fitting garments that had begun to replace knee breeches.After thatpantaloons was used to refer to trousers in general. The last step in the development of the wordpants met with some resistance. This abbreviation ofpantaloon was considered vulgar and, as Oliver Wendell Holmes put it,"a word not made for gentlemen, but ‘gents.’”First found in the writings of Edgar Allan Poe in 1840,pants has replaced the "gentleman's word" in English and has lost all obvious connection to Saint Pantaleon.看起来一位公元4世纪的罗马天主教徒的名字似乎不可能是这个做为男人和女人平常都穿的布做的现代物品的根本词源。Pants 但可以追溯到奥塔莱昂，威尼斯的庇护神。 他变得与这座城市里的居民联系得这样紧密，以至于威尼斯人也通俗的被称为Pantaloni 。 结果，在即兴喜剧的角色中那个有代表性的威尼斯人（一个愚富而吝啬的商人）被称作Pantalone。 他的法语名字Panlalon 被借用到英语中（初次记录大约在1590年）。 在17世纪中期，法国人开始把它与一种特殊类型的裤子等同起来，同一种类型的裤子在英语中是pantaloons 。 Pantaloons 后来被用作另一种类型的裤子并在18世纪末日渐流行， 紧身衣服已经开始取代齐膝马裤。在那以后，pantaloons 被用来泛指裤子。 在pants 一词发展的最后遇到了一些阻力。 Pantaloon 的缩写被认为是粗俗的， 并且正如奥立弗·温德尔·霍姆斯所说，“并不是为绅士而造的词，而是为‘家伙们所造’”。最早在1840年发现于艾德加·爱伦·坡的作品中，pants 在英语中已经替代了那个“绅士的语言”， 而且显然已失去了和圣奥塔莱昂的一切联系〔aggravate〕It is sometimes claimed thataggravate should be used only to mean "to make worse" and not "to irritate.” Based on this view it would be appropriate to sayThe endless wait for luggage aggravates the misery of modern air travel, but not It's the endless wait for luggage that aggravates me the most. But the latter use dates back as far as the 17th century and is accepted by 68 percent of the Usage Panel. As H.W. Fowler wrote, "the extension from aggravating a person's temper to aggravating the person himself is slight and natural,and when we are told that Wackford Squeers [in Dickens'sNicholas Nickleby ] pinched the boys in aggravating places we may reasonably infer that his choice of places aggravated both the pinches and the boys.”有时认为aggravate 应当只被用来表示“加重；使恶化”的意思而不表示“使恼火；激怒”。 根据这种观点，The endless wait for luggage aggravates the misery of modern air travel（无休止地等待行李加重了现代飞机旅行的困难） 这个句子是正确的，而 It's the endless wait for luggage that aggravates me the most（无休止地等待行李最为令我恼火） 这一句则不正确。 但是后一种用法可以追溯到17世纪，并且被百分之六十八的用法使用小组成员所接受。正如H·W·福勒写道，“从使一个人的脾气变得更坏到使一个人恼火的延伸是微小和自然的，当我们看到威克福特·斯贵尔斯［出自狄更斯的小说尼古拉斯·尼克尔贝 ］往令人恼火的地方拧孩子们时， 我们可以合理地推断出他所选择的地方既加剧了拧的疼痛又令孩子们大为恼火。”〔artichoke〕Those who have been warned to watch out for the sharp-tipped bracts toward the innermost part of an artichoke may have wondered whether the name of this vegetable has anything to do with choking.Originally it did not.Our word goes back to an Arabic word for the same plant,al-Caršūf. The Arabic word passed into Spanish,a not uncommon occurrence given the fact that Moslems ruled much of Spain for several centuries during the Middle Ages.The Old Spanish wordalcarchofa was variously modified as it passed through Italian, a Northern dialect form beingarticiocco, which looks more like artichoke than al-Caršūf. In English, where the word is first recorded in the early 16th century, a potpourri of spellings and explanations of it are found.For example, people who did not know the long history of the word explained it by the notion that the flower had a "choke,”that is, something that chokes, in its "heart.”那些被告知要当心这种朝鲜蓟的最内层部分的尖苞片的人，可能会猜想这种蔬菜与窒息有一些联系。最初并没有。这个词可以追溯到阿拉伯语言关于这种植物的名称，al-harsuf。 这个阿拉伯名称又传入了西班牙，这件极普通的事情指出，在中世纪时期穆斯林曾统治西班牙大部地区，长达几个世纪的事实。旧的西班牙词alcarchofa 又经历了不同的变化，如传入意大利， 北方方言的形式形成articicco， 这看起来更象 artichoke 而非 al-harsuf。 在英语中，这个词在16世纪初被记录下来时，有许多不同的拼法和解释。例如，不知道这个词的悠久历史的人解释这个词时依据的看法是花会令人“窒息”，也就是说，是一种在它“心中”窒息的东西。〔lemon〕Although we know neither where the lemon was first grownnor when it first came to Europe,we do know from its name alone that it came to us from the Middle East,because we can trace its etymological path.One of the earliest if not the earliest occurrences of our word is found in a Middle English customs document of 1420-1421.The Middle English word, which was of the formlimon, goes back to Old Frenchlimon, showing that yet another delicacy passed into England through France.The Old French word probably came from Italianlimone, another step on the route that leads back to the Arabic wordlaymūn or līmūn, which comes from the Persian wordlīmūn. 虽然我们既不知道柠檬是在哪儿被最早种植的，也不知道它是什么时候传到欧洲的，但是我们却能单从它的名字确切地判断出它是从中东地区传到我们的，因为我们可以追溯出它的语源的发展道路。如果不是最早出现的话，最早的发现记录于1420年至1421年之间的一份中古英语海关文件中。这个中古英语单词的形式是limon ， 可以追溯到古代法语中的limon 一词， 它表明又一种美味佳肴由法国传入了英国。这个古代法语单词很可能来源于意大利单词limone ， 这就更朝前一步地回到了阿拉伯语中的laymun 或 limun ， 这一单词来源于波斯语limun 〔kaput〕The games people play can become deadly serious,as exemplified by the wordkaput. Our word is an adoption of the German word kaputt, whose senses are similar to those of the English word.German in turn borrowed this word from the French gaming tables,wherecapot as an adjective meant "not having won a single trick at piquet.” Devastating as this might be to a piquet player,it would surprise kibitzers to see how widely the word's range of meaning has been extended in German and English,in which it is first recorded in 1895.For example, one's car can be kaput and so can oneself.As for the ultimate source of Frenchcapot we cannot be certain,but it seems to go back to a modern Provençal word,of which the first element iscap, "head.” 人们在玩牌时可能变得非常认真，如kaput 一词例示的这个英语单词是吸收了德语 kaputt 一词演变而来的。 该德语词的词义与它的词义相似。而德国人又从法国人的赌桌上借用了该词。在赌桌上，capot 作为一个形容词又为“打皮克牌时未赢一圈的”。 尽管这样可能会令玩皮克牌的人晦气，旁观并议论牌局的人也许会吃惊地发现该词在德语和英语中的引申义是多么广泛。该词于1895年首次记载在德语和英语中。例如，车主的车可能会损坏，车主也可能失败。至于法语capot 一词的词源， 我们不甚了解，但似乎可以追溯到现代普罗旺斯语，其中的第一个成分cap 表示“头”的意思 〔yes〕The wordyes is a good example of how an ordinary and frequently used word can have a complex etymology. We can traceyes back to two Indo-European roots, .i-, a pronominal stem, and .es-, "to be.” From two extended forms of.i-, .yām and .yāi, came the prehistoric Common Germanic forms.jā and jai, which gave us Old Englishgeā, an affirmative particle, the source of Modern Englishyea. The Indo-European root.es- is the source of our forms am and is. From the stem.sī- used to make verb forms in the optative mood, a mood used to express a wish, came the Germanic form.sijai-, which gave us Old Englishsīe, "may it be so.” This form, unlike the sources ofam and is, died out, but before disappearing it had combined with Old Englishgēa to form the compound gēse, the ancestor of our wordyes. Thissīe was destined to have even more of a triumph. Until around 1600yea was used to respond to positive expressions, whereasyes was used to respond to negative expressions. After that timeyes became a response to both positive and negative expressions, yea surviving primarily in voice votes. yes 一词是说明一个普通常用词如何拥有一复杂词源的极好例证。 我们可以追溯yes 到两个印欧语词根， 代名词词干i- 和 es- “是”。 从i-的两种扩展形式，yam 和 yai， 形成了史前普通日耳曼语形式ja 和 jai, 它们又带来了古英语中的肯定虚词gea ， 这便是现代英语yea 的来源。 而印欧语词根es- 是我们 am 和 is 两形式的源头。 以is- ，一个用于制造祈愿语气动词的词干， 产生出日尔曼形式sijai-， 并由此形成了古英语sie, “希望如此”。 这种形式不象am 和 is 的词源，已经灭绝了， 但在消失之前，它已经和古英语gea 混合形成复合词 gese， 即我们的单词yes 的前身。 这个sie 注定要获取更大的胜利。 直至1600年左右，yea 还被用于回答肯定的陈述； 而yes 则用于回答否定陈述。 此后，yes 既可作肯定也可否定表达的回答， yea 则主要在口头投票时使用 〔clever〕Being too clever is thought to be unwise,and support for this popular notion may be afforded by the fact that the devil seems to have been the first "clever" one in English.The source of our wordclever is probably the Middle English word cliver, recorded only once in a work written before 1250,in which it is said that the devil is "cliver on sinnes.”This means something like "skillful in respect to sins.”Cliver probably goes back to the Indo-European root gleubh-, "to cut, cleave.” Although the intermediate ancestry ofcliver is unclear, the semantic connection has to do with penetration or incisiveness—that is, cutting through to the heart of the matter,just as a woodcarver cuts through material in order to realize a certain vision.太聪明被认为是愚蠢的，英语中魔鬼被认为是第一“聪明的”，这一事实可能是这一普遍概念的例证。clever 的词源可能是中世纪英语单词 cliver , 仅在一本1250年以前写的著作中出现过一次，书中说魔鬼“在犯罪方面很聪明”。这个含义有些类似于“在犯罪方面很有本事。”Cliver 可以追溯到印欧词根 gleubh- “切、削”。 虽然cliver 的中介来源尚不清楚， 但语义的联系肯定与穿透力或透彻性有关--即穿透事物的本质，就象木工劈开材料以了解其内在材质〔redd〕The termsredd and redd up came to the American Midlands from the many Scottish immigrants who settled there. Meaning "to clear an area or to make it tidy,” redd is still used in Scotland and Northern Ireland;in the United States it is especially common in Pennsylvania as the phrasal verbredd up. The term, which goes back to Old Norserydhja, can be traced from the 15th century to the present, particularly in dialects of Scotland and the North of England.词语redd 和 redd up 通过许多苏格兰移民传到了他们的定居地-北美中部地区。 意为“清理出一块区域或使干净”， redd 仍用于苏格兰和北爱尔兰；在美国动词词组redd up 尤其在宾夕法尼亚州常见。 这个词可以追溯到北欧语rydhja， 其发展从15世纪一直延续到现在， 尤其在苏格兰和英格兰北部的方言中使用〔sanguine〕Perhaps one has wondered what the connection betweensanguinary, "bloodthirsty,” and sanguine, "cheerfully optimistic,” could be. The connection can be found in medieval physiology with its notion of the four humors (blood, bile, phlegm, and black bile).These four body fluids were thought to determine a person's temperament,or distinguishing mental and physical characteristics.Thus, if blood was the predominant humor, one had a ruddy face and a disposition marked by courage, hope, and a readiness to fall in love.Such a temperament was calledsanguine, the Middle English ancestor of our wordsanguine. The sources of the Middle English word were Old Frenchsanguin and Latin sanguineus, the source of the French word. Both the Old French and Latin words meant "bloody,” "blood-colored,”Old Frenchsanguin having the sense "sanguine in temperament" as well. Latinsanguineus in turn was derived from sanguīs, "blood,” just as English sanguinary is. The English adjectivesanguine, first recorded in Middle English before 1350, went on to refer simply to the cheerfulness and optimism that accompanied a sanguine temperament,no longer having any direct reference to medieval physiology.也许有人对sanguinary （“嗜血的”）和 sanguine （“愉快乐观的”）两词之间的联系感到不解。 这种联系可以追溯到中世纪生理学中四种体液的概念（多血质型、胆汁型、黏液型和抑郁型）。这四种体液被认为可决定人的性格，或者能区分出精神和肉体上的特征。因此，如果血液是最主要的体液，一个人就应有红润的脸庞和以勇敢、充满希望、易于陷入情网为特征的性情。这种性情被称为sanguine ， 也就是我们sanguine 一词的中世纪英语的原形。 中世纪英语中该词源于古法语sanguin 一词和拉丁文 sanguineus （法语词的来源）。 在古法语和拉丁文中，该词意思都是“流血的”、“血色的”，古法语sanguin 还含有“生性乐天派的”之意。 拉丁文的sanguineus 也是由 sanguis （“血的”）而来，正如英语中的 sanguinary 一词。 英语形容词sanguine 最初记载于1350年以前的中古英语中， 演化为仅指伴随乐天派性情而具有的愉快和乐观之义，与中世纪生理学没有直接联系〔empty〕In Old EnglishIc eom ǣmtig could mean "I am empty,” "I am unoccupied,” or "I am unmarried.” The sense "unoccupied, at leisure,” which did not survive Old English,points to the derivation ofǣmtig from the Old English word ǣmetta, "leisure, rest.” The wordǣmetta may in turn go back to the Germanic root mōt-, meaning "ability, leisure.”In any case, Old Englishǣmtig also meant "vacant,” a sense that was destined to take over the meaning of the word. Empty, the Modern English descendant of Old Englishǣmtig, has come to have the sense "idle,” so that one can speak of empty leisure.在古英语里，Ic eom cemfig 可以表示“我饿”，“我现在失业”或“我没有结婚。” “未占用的，空闲的”这个意思没有在古英语中保留下来，这表明æmtig ， 派生自古英语词 æmetta ，意为“空闲，休息”。 鎚etta 可以追溯到日耳曼语词根 mot-， 意为“能力，空闲”。无论如何，古英语æmtig 也表示“空的”， 这个意思是注定要取代这个词的意义。 Empty 这个古英语鎚tig 在现代英语中的变形具有了“空闲的”的意思， 所以我们可以说空闲〔mediterranean〕When one hears the wordmediterranean, one thinks of a specific placeand perhaps of the great cultures that have surrounded it.But the word can also apply to any large body of water that is surrounded completely or almost completely by dry land.This usage goes back to the use in Late Latin of the Latin wordmediterrāneus, the source of our word,as part of the nameMediterrāneum mare for the mostly landlocked Mediterranean Sea. But Latinmediterrāneus, which is derived from medius, "the middle of, the heart of,” and terra, "land,” in Classical Latin actually meant "remote from the coast, inland.”In Late Latin,in referring to the sea,mediterrāneus probably meant originally "in the middle of the earth"rather than "surrounded by land,”for to the Mediterranean cultures without knowledge of much of the earth,the Mediterranean Sea was in the center of the world.Our wordmediterranean is first recorded in English in 1594 as the name of the sea.当一个人听说mediterranean 这个词时， 他所想到的是一具体的地方，而且可能还想到了这个地方周围的那些伟大文明。但这个词同样可以用来指任何几乎被陆地所包围或完全被陆地所包围的大水体。这个用法可以追溯到近代拉丁文中mediterraneus 这个词， 就是我们这个词的词源，亦即表绝大部分被陆地所包围的地中海的名称Mediterraneum mare 的组成部分。 但是拉丁词mediterraneus ，从 medius 意为“…中间的，…的中心”派生而来的，以及意为“陆地”的 terra 这个词， 在古典拉丁语中的确切含义为“远离海岸的，内陆的”。在近代拉丁语中，当mediterraneus 这个词用来指地中海时， 其最早的含义可能是“在地球中央的”，而不是“被陆地所包围的”，因为对于缺乏有关地球知识的各地中海文明来说，地中海就是世界的中心。我们这里所说的英语单词mediterranean 最早于1594年出现于英语中， 也是用来指地中海〔war〕A piece of liverwurst may perhaps help us gain some insight into the nature of war,at least into the semantic history of the wordwar. War and the -wurst part of liverwurst can be traced back to the same Indo-European root, wers-, "to confuse, mix up.” In the Germanic family of the Indo-European languages,this root gave rise to several words having to do with confusion or mixture of various kinds.In the case of the ancestry ofwar, the hypothetical Germanic stem .werza-, "confusion,” became .werra-, which passed into Old French, a language descended from spoken Latin but supplemented by more than 200 words borrowed from the Frankish invaders of the 5th century.From the Germanic stem came both the formwerre in Old North French, the form borrowed into English in the 12th century, and guerre (the source of guerilla ) in the rest of the Old French-speaking area. Both forms meant "war,” a very confused condition indeed.Meanwhile another Indo-European form derived from the same Indo-European root had developed into Old High Germanwurst, meaning "sausage,” from an underlying sense of "mixture,” which is, of course, related to the sense of the root "to confuse, mix up.”Modern Germanwurst was borrowed into English in the 19th century, first by itself (recorded in 1855) and then as part of the wordliverwurst (1869), the liver being a translation of Germanleber in leberwurst. 一块肝肠也许会帮助我们对战争的性质增加些认识，至少可了解war这一词的语义史。 War和 liverwurst 的一部分 -wurst 可以追溯到同一印欧语系词根 wers- “使迷惑，混杂”。 在印欧语系中的日耳曼语系中，该词根造出了好几个与迷惑或各种东西的混合物有关的词语。在war 的词源一例中，假定的日耳曼语词干 werza- “迷惑”变成了 werra- ， 又传入了来自拉丁语口语的古法语中，但是又附加了由5世纪法兰克侵略者带来的200多个单词。从日耳曼语词干中，既产生了古老的北部法语中的werre (12世纪该词传入英语），又产生了其它讲古法语地区的人用的 guerre ( guerilla 的词源）。 两个形式都表示“战争”，一个的确很糟糕的局面。同时，另一个从相同的印欧语系词根派生来的印欧语形式发展成了旧高地德语wurst “香肠”， 这是从其潜含义“混合物”而来的，“混合物”显然与“使困惑，混杂”的词根的含义有关。现代德语中的wurst 于19世纪传入英语中， 首先是它的独立形式（记载于1855年），然后是liverwurst 的一部分(1869年）， “肝”这层含义是由德语leberwurst 中的 leber 翻译而来 〔noise〕For those who find that too much noise makes them ill,it will come as no surprise that the wordnoise possibly can be traced back to the Latin word nausea, "seasickness, feeling of sickness.” Our wordsnausea and noise are doublets, that is, words borrowed in different forms from the same word.Nausea, first recorded probably before 1425, was borrowed directly from Latin.Noise, on the other hand, first recorded around the beginning of the 13th century, came to us through Old French,probably ultimately from Latin,which explains its change in form.The unrecorded change in sense probably took place in Vulgar Latin.Old Frenchnois, descended from Latin nausea, meant "sound, din, uproar, quarrel,” all senses that came into Middle English with the word.Noise, however, is an example of how words can change for the better, for a noise can be pleasantas well as unpleasant,as in the sentence "The only noise was the wind in the pines.”对那些发现太多的嘈杂声使他们很不舒服的人来说，无须惊奇词语noise 很可能可以追溯到拉丁语 nausea “晕船，不舒服的感觉”。 词语nausea 和 noise 是同源词， 也就是说这两个词是同一单词的不同形式。Nausea 第一次记录也许在1425年以前， 它直接来自于拉丁语。另一方面，noise 大约在13世纪初第一次记录下来， 在古法语中使用，可能最终源自拉丁语，这解释了它的形式变化。这种意义上讲未被记录的变化可能在民间拉丁文中。古法语nois 从拉丁语 nausea “声音，嘈杂声，喧嚣，吵闹”转变过来， 所有意义都随此词进入中世纪英语。然而noise 是一个词语如何演变向更好的方面的例子， 因为一种声音可能是悦耳的，也可能是不悦耳的，如在句子"The only noise was the wind in the pines"中〔date〕This statue dates from 500b.c. 这座雕像可以追溯到公元前 500年 〔orgy〕The wordorgy has become connected in the minds of many of us with unrestrained sexual activity, but its origins are much less licentious.We can trace the word as far back as the Indo-European rootwerg-, meaning "to do"and the source of our wordwork. Greekorgia, "secret rites, worship,” also comes from the rootwerg-, by way of the form.worg-. The Greek word was used with reference to the worship and the ritespracticed in the worship of various deities,such as Orpheus and Dionysus.The word in Greek did not denote sexual activity,although this was a part of some of the various rites.The rites of Dionysus, for example, included only music, dancing, drinking, and the eating of animal sacrifices.Having passed through Latin and Old French into Englishthe wordorgy is first recorded in English with reference to the secret rites of the Greek and Roman religions in 1589. It is interesting to note that the word is first recorded with its modern sense in 18th-century English and perhaps in 17th-century French.Whether this speaks to a greater licentiousness in society or not must be left to the historian,but certainly the religious nature of the word has gone into eclipse.单词orgy 已经以不加节制的性行为的概念深植于我们许多人的头脑之中， 但它的原意却并非是很放荡的。我们可以追溯该词到印欧的词根werg- 当中， 意思是“做”，并且是我们work 一词的来源。 希腊语orgia, “秘密仪式，崇拜”， 也来源于词根werg-， 形式为worg- 。 希腊语中用其指崇拜以及一些仪式，这些仪式用于表达对各神明的崇拜，比如俄耳甫斯和狄俄尼索斯。该词在希腊语中并不是表示性行为，尽管性行为也是各种仪式中的一个部分。例如，狄俄尼索斯的仪式中仅仅包括音乐、舞蹈、饮酒和吃祭祀动物。从拉丁语和古法语转到英语，orgy 这一词在1589年首次在英文有记载表示希腊和罗马秘密宗教仪式含义。 有趣的是，该词早在18世纪也许17世纪就已有其现代意义的首次记载了。不论它是不是指社会中的一种大型的狂欢节（这是历史学家的事了），有一点是非常明确的，那就是这个词的宗教本质已经逐渐消失了〔trace〕To have origins; be traceable:有起源；可以追溯的：〔Borobudur〕A ruined Buddhist shrine in central Java, Indonesia. Dating probably from the ninth century, the ruins include intricately carved stone blocks illustrating episodes in the life of Buddha.婆罗浮屠：印度尼西亚爪哇中部的佛教神殿遗址，大约可以追溯到9世纪，遗址内有描绘释迦牟尼（释迦牟尼（佛陀））生活片断的复杂石雕〔sierra〕Perhaps in formal contextsit is wise after mentioning a mountain range such as the Sierra Nevadato refer to it next asthe Sierras rather thanthe Sierra Mountains, sincemountains is inherent in sierra. Nonetheless, many Californians and Nevadans in particular will be very familiar with phrases such asthe Sierra Mountains. Such phrases are used because to a non-Spanish speakersierra does not necessarily have a meaning, unless one is familiar with the English wordsierra, "a rugged range of mountains having an irregular profile,” borrowed from Spanish. In Spanishsierra originally meant "saw" and so was aptly applied to a range of hills or mountains rising in peaks that suggested the teeth of a saw.It comes from Latinserra, "saw,” to which can also be traced our wordserrated. 也许在正式的语境中，提到了一山脉如内华达山脉之后，紧接着再提到时称为the Sierra ， 而不是the Sierra Mountains ， 因为mountains 是包含在 sierra 之中的。 尽管如此，许多加利福尼亚人，尤其是内华达人对类似the Sierra Mountains 这样的词组很熟悉。 使用这样的词组是因为对一个非西班牙语的人来说，sierra 一词并不一定有意义， 除非是一个熟悉这个从西班牙语中借用来的英语单词sierra （一崎岖的山脉，有曲折的轮廓）的人。 在西班牙语中，sierra 原意为“锯子”， 所以很恰当地被用来指峰峦叠起，使人联想起锯齿的山脉或群山。这个词来源于拉丁文serra （锯子）， serrated 也可以追溯到这个拉丁词 〔soldier〕Why do soldiers fight?One answer is hidden away in the wordsoldier itself. Its first recorded occurrence is found in a work composed around 1300,the word having come into Middle English (assoudier ) from Old French soudoior and Anglo-Norman soudeour. The Old French word,first recorded in the 12th century,is derived fromsol or soud, Old French forms of Modern French sou. There is no longer a French coin namedsou, but the meaning of the wordsou alerts us to the fact that money is involved. Indeed, Old Frenchsol referred to a coin and also meant "pay,”and asoudoior was a man who fought for pay. This was a concept worth expressing in an era when many men were not paid for fighting but did it in service to a feudal superior.Thussoldier is parallel to the word mercenary, which goes back to Latinmercēnnārius, derived frommerces, "pay,” and meaning "working for pay.”The word could also be used as a noun,one of whose senses was "a soldier of fortune.”士兵们为什么而打仗?其中一个答案就隐藏在soldier 这个单词里面。 在大约1300年的一本著作中发现了这个词的最早记载。这个词由古法语的soudoior 和盎格鲁诺曼底语中的 soudeour 进入中古英语（形式为 soudier )。 古法语中的这个单词，最早记录于12世纪，是由sol 或 soud ，现代法语单词 sou 的古法语形式衍变而来的。 已经没有叫做sou 的法国硬币了， 但是单词sou 的意思使我们意识到这和钱有关。 实际上，古法语中的sol 指的是一枚硬币， 也意味着“报酬”，而soudoior 是一个为了报酬而打仗的人。 在许多人打仗并没有得到报酬而是给封建王服役的时代里，这种概念是值得表达出来的。这样，士兵(soldier) 类似于 雇佣兵(mercenary) ， 可以追溯到拉丁文mercennarius ， 由merces “报酬”衍变而来， 意思是“为报酬而工作”。这个词也能当名词使用，其中的一个意思是“雇佣兵”〔transpire〕Transpire has been used since the mid-18th century in the sense "leak out, become publicly known,” as inDespite efforts to hush the matter up, it soon transpired that the colonels had met with the rebel leaders. This usage was objected to as a Gallicism when it was first introducedbut has long been standard.The more common use oftranspire to mean "occur" or "happen" has had a more troubled history.Though it dates at least to the beginning of the 19th century,it has been the object of critical opprobrium for more than a hundred years,charged with being both pretentious and unetymological.There is some signthat resistance to this sense oftranspire is abating, however. In a 1969 survey the usagewas acceptable only to 38 percent of the Usage Panel;in the most recent surveyit was acceptable to 58 percent in the sentenceAll of these events transpired after last week's announcement (though many of the Panelists who accepted the usage also remarked that it was pretentious or pompous).Transpire 这个词从18世纪中叶开始一直有“泄漏，为公众所知”的意思， 如尽管竭力掩盖事实真相，但人们很快就得知军官们已经与反叛者的领导人会晤。 当这种用法一开始出现时，有人把它当作法国式用法而提出异议，但现在它早已成为标准用法。Transpire 更为普通的用法是“发生”或“碰巧发生”的意思， 这个用法的历史更为复杂。尽管这种用法至少可以追溯到19世纪初期，但一百多年以来它一直遭到批评反对，人们认为这个用法不仅矫饰而且在词源上毫无根据。但是有迹象表明，对transpire 的这个词义的异议正在消失。 在一次1969年进行的调查中，用法委员会成员中只有38%的人接受这种用法。在最近进行的一次调查中，有58%的人认为象在所有这些事件都发生在上个星期的宣告之后 这样的句子中，这个词的用法是可以接受的 （许多接受这种用法的使用者也指出这种用法很矫柔造作）〔exorcise〕An oath is to be found at the etymological heart ofexorcise, a term going back to the Greek wordexorkizein, meaning "to swear in,” "to take an oath by,” "to conjure,” and "to exorcise.” Exorkizein in turn is formed from the prefixex-, "thoroughly,” and the verb horkizein, "to make one swear, administer an oath to,” derived from horkos, "oath.” Our wordexorcise is first recorded in English in a work composed possibly before the beginning of the 15th century, and in this useexorcise means "to call up or conjure spirits" rather than "to drive out spirits,” a sense first recorded in 1546.誓言在语源学中是exorcise 的基本意思， 而这个词又可以追溯到希腊语exorkizein， 后者意味着“宣誓”、“发誓”、“恳求”和“驱赶”。 Exorkizein 依次由含有“完全地”这个意思的前缀ex- 和含有“使发誓，在誓言约束下”这个意思的动词 horkizein 构成，后者源自 horkos “誓言”。 我们现在用的exorcise 最早在英文中的记录出自一本可能早于15世纪初写的一本著作中。 在当时，exorcise 通常意味着“召回灵魂”， 而不是1546年才最早记录到的“驱赶鬼魂”这个含义〔shivaree〕Shivaree is the most common American regional form of charivari, a French word meaning "a noisy mock serenade for newlyweds"and probably deriving in turn from a Late Latin word meaning "headache.”The term, most likely borrowed from French traders and settlers along the Mississippi River,was well established in the United States by 1805;an account dating from that year describes a shivaree in New Orleans: "The house is mobbed by thousands of the people of the town, vociferating and shouting with loud acclaim . . . many[are] in disguises and masks; and all have some kind of discordant and noisy music, such as old kettles, and shovels, and tongs. . . . All civil authority and rule seems laid aside" (John F. Watson).The wordshivaree is especially common along and west of the Mississippi River, giving it an unusual north-south dialect boundary (most dialect boundaries run east-west in the United States).Alva L. Davis and Raven I. McDavid, Jr., callshivaree "one of the most widely distributed folk terms borrowed by American English from any European language.” Some regional equivalents arebelling, used in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio; horning, from upstate New York, Rhode Island, and western New England; andserenade, a term used chiefly in the South Atlantic states. Shivaree 是 charivari 这个词在美国的最普通的地方形式， charivari是个法语词，意思是“一种为新婚夫妇演奏的喧闹的嘲弄式小夜曲”，这个词本身可能是从一个意思为“头痛”的后期拉丁文演变而来。这个词极有可能是从密西西比河沿岸的法国商人和拓居者那儿借用而来，到了1805年这个词已经在美国深深地扎根了；一份可以追溯到这一年的记录描写了新奥良的演奏这种小夜曲的情况： “房子里挤满了成千从镇上来的人，喧嚷着，叫喊着，大声欢呼…许多人 化了装，带了面具，所有的人都搞出某种不和协、喧闹的音响，比如用旧水壶，铲子，钳子…一切世俗的权威和规则好象已经被放到了一边” （约翰F·华生） 。shivaree 这个词在密西西比河沿岸和该河以西尤为常见， 这样密西西比河就成了一个不寻常的方言区的南北分界线（而在美国大多数方言区的分界线都是东西向的）。阿尔瓦·L·戴维斯和小拉文·I·麦克戴维把shivaree 这个词称为“美国英语从欧洲语言中借来的民间用语中流传最广的一个”。 其它地方方言中相当于这个词的词有belling 在宾夕法尼亚州、弗吉尼亚西部和俄亥俄州流传； 纽约州上半部份，罗德岛州，新英格兰西部的horning ， 而大西洋沿岸南部各州主要用serenade 这个词 〔Izhevsk〕A city of west-central Russia northeast of Kazan. Its ironworks date to 1760. Population, 611,000.伊热夫斯克，乌斯提诺夫：俄国中西部一城市，位于喀山东北。其钢铁工业可以追溯到1760年。人口611,000〔Jerusalem〕The capital of Israel, in the east-central part of the country in the West Bank. Of immense religious and historical importance, the city was occupied as far back as the fourth millenniumb.c. and became the capital of King David c. 1000 b.c. Destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in the sixth century b.c. , it was later ruled by Greeks, Romans, Persians, Arabs, Crusaders, and Turks and by Great Britain under a League of Nations mandate. Israeli forces took control of the city in 1967. Jerusalem is considered a holy city to Jews, Moslems, and Christians. Population, 446,500. 耶路撒冷：以色列的首都，位于西岸上该国中东部。该城在宗教上和历史上极大的重要性可以追溯到公元前 4000年， 公元前 1000年成为大卫王国的首都。于 公元前 6世纪被尼布甲尼撒毁灭。后被希腊人、罗马人、波斯人、阿拉伯人、十字军和土耳其统治过，最后受国际联盟的托管国英国控制。以色列军队在1967年控制该城。耶路撒冷是犹太教、穆斯林和基督教的圣地。人口446,500 〔hall〕Thehalls of academe and city hall remind us that what we commonly mean by the wordhall, "a passageway, an entrance room,” represents a shrunken version of whathall once commonly designated. Going back to the Indo-European rootkel- 1, "to cover,” the Old English wordheall, ancestor of our hall, referred to "a large place covered by a roof, whether a royal residence, an official building, or a large private residence, or a large room in a residencewhere the public life of the household is carried on.”These senses and related ones are still in use,as is attested bytown hall and halls of academe. Our common use of the termhall for a vestibule or a corridor harks back to medieval times when the hall was the main public room of a residenceand people lived much less privately than now.As private rooms in houses took on the importance they have today,the hall lost its function.Hall also had come to mean any large room, and the vestibule was at one time one of the main sitting rooms in a house,but this sort of room has largely disappeared also,andhall has become the designation for the small vestibule of today as well as for an entrance passage or any passageway.halls of academe 以及 city hall 提醒我们注意： 我们通常把hall 这个词定义为“走廊，门厅”， 反映出hall 这词当初设定时的通常含义的种种痕迹。 追溯到该词的印欧语词根kel- 1， 意思是“去覆盖”， 我们hall 这个词的来源是古英语中 heall 这个词， 它指的是“一个有屋顶覆盖的大地方或者属于皇室住宅、政府建筑或是一座大的私人府第或者是一所住宅中的大房子，主人在其中进行社交活动”。这些概念或与之相关的意思直到今天还有，比如说town hall 和 halls of academe 。 我们现在一般所用的，把hall 当作门厅或走廊的用法可以追溯到中世纪， 那时大厅是居住者的最主要的起居室，人们生活还没有今天这么隐私化，于今日个人房间在生活中占主要地位，大厅失去了它当年的功用。Hall 还曾意味着大房间， 而门厅在过去一段时间内曾是房屋中主要的一处起居室，但这样的房子大部分也都消失了，而hall 的意思已经变成指那些当今小的走廊， 或者是进出口处的走廊，或者是随便哪个走廊〔slatch〕In New Englandaslatch can be a lull between breaking waves or a lull in a high windstorm.Its use is recorded as far back as the 17th century: "Whan it hath beene a sett of foule weather and that there comes an Interim . . . of faire weather . . . they call it a little Slatch of faire weather" (Nomenclator Navalis).Occurrence of the word in both its senses,formerly in Britainand now in New England,attests continuous use down through the centuries of the Old English wordslæc, which is pronounced today as it was in Old English.Slæc is also the source of modern slack, the relationship ofslatch and slack being evidenced in the use of slatch in 17th-century nautical parlance to denote the slack part of a rope or cable on a ship. 在新英格兰，slatch 可能是中断的波浪之间的平静， 也可能是强烈风暴中的平静。它有记载的使用可以追溯到17世纪： “当一段坏天气中出现一阵…好天气时…他们把它叫做一小强烈风暴间的好天气” （诺曼克莱特·那瓦利斯）。这个词出现在这两个意思中，以前在英国使用，现在是在新英格兰，这证明了古英语中sloc 这个词经历几个世纪的不断的使用， 它现在的发音与它在古英语中的发音一样。Sloc 还是现代英语中 slack 这个词的词源， 17世纪航海用语中用slatch 这个词来表示船上绳索松散的部分，这清楚地表明了 slatch 与 slack 这两个词之间的联系 |
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