| 单词 | 拉丁语中 |
| 释义 | 〔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〔carry〕A non-Southerner is always amused when a Southerner offers to "carry" rather than to drive him or her somewhere,imagining it to be an invitation to be picked up and bodily lugged to the destination.However, the verbcarry, which to Southerners means "to transport (someone) in a motor vehicle, such as an automobile,” is etymologicallymore precise in the Southern usage than anywhere else.Carry derives from the Latin noun carrus, "cart,” from which we get the nounscarriage and our modern car. Therefore,carry is more closely related to car than is drive, which only makes literal sense if the vehicle is drawn by a team of animals.当一个南方人提出把一个非南方人“运送”而不是开车带到某地时，这个非南方人总是觉得好笑，会以为是一个把他或她“拖运”到某地的邀请。然而，carry 这个动词对南方人来说意思是“用机动车辆（例如汽车）运送某人，” 从词源学的角度来讲，该词在南部的用法比在其它任何地方者更为确切。Carry 一词从拉丁语中的名词 carrus “货车”发展而来， 从此我们又得到了名词carriage 和现在的 car 。 因此，carry 比 drive 而更为与 car 的关系密切， 因为如果一辆车由一组动物拉着，那么它就只能表示字面上的意思〔larva〕The wordlarva referring to the newly hatched form of insects before they undergo metamorphosis comes from the Latin wordlārva, meaning "evil spirit, demon, devil.”To understand why this should be so,we need to know that the Latin word also was used for a terrifying mask,and it is this sense of the word that has come down to us.In Medieval Latinlarva could mean "mask or visor.” Larva is therefore an appropriate term for that stage of an insect's life during which its final form was still hidden or masked, and New Latinlārva was thus applied by Carolus Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist who originated our system of classifying plants and animals.The wordlarva is first recorded in English in its scientific sense in 1768, although it had been used in its "spirit" sense in 1651 and in a way that foreshadowed the usage by Linnaeus in 1691. larva 一词指昆虫在变形前刚孵化出来的幼虫， 来源于拉丁词larva ， 意为“邪恶的精灵，鬼怪，恶魔”。为了了解为什么，我们需要知道这个拉丁词语还用于指一种令人恐惧的面具，而且正是该词的这一层含义流传了下来。在中世纪的拉丁语中，larva 有“面具或面甲”的意思。 Larva 在形容昆虫成熟之前被隐藏或遮盖的这一段时期的时候，成为一个适合的名称， 这样新拉丁语的larva 一词首先由瑞典植物学家卡罗拉斯里纽斯赋予以上含义， 卡罗拉斯是首创动植物分类系统的第一人。虽然larva 一词在1651年曾经以其“精灵”一层意思被使用并在一定程度上预示了于1691年出现的里纽斯的用法，但是于1768年才以科学术语的形式首先在英语中出现的 〔fiction〕"The latest fiction" to most people means the latest novels or storiesrather than the most recently invented pretense or latest lie.All three senses of the wordfiction point back to its source, Latin fictiō, "the action of shaping, a feigning, that which is feigned.” Fictiō in turn was derived from fingere, "to make by shaping, feign, make up or invent a story or excuse.” Our first instance offiction, recorded in a work composed around 1412, was used in the sense "invention of the mind, that which is imaginatively invented.”It is not a far step from this meaning to the sense "imaginative literature,” first recorded in 1599.“最新的小说”对大多数人来说是指最新的小说或故事，而不是指最新捏造出的谎言。Fiction 这一词的所有的三个意思都追溯到拉丁语中的词源 fictio ，“假装，伪造，做假的行为。” 反过来fictio 则起源于 fingere， “捏造一个故事或编一个借口”。 我们可以在一部写于1412年前后的作品中找到fiction 的第一个例子， 文中所用的意思是“头脑中的虚构，是充满想象的虚构的”。这一意思已经和1599年首次记录的“虚构的文学作品”这层意思相去不远了〔hectic〕In the Usage Panel survey done for the first edition of theAmerican Heritage Dictionary (1969), 92 percent of the Panel approved of the use ofhectic in its most familiar sense, "characterized by feverish activity, confusion, or haste.”The question was put to the Panelbecause in earlier usage that sense was sometimes deprecated as a loose extension of the term's meaning in medicine.Unless one has some medical knowledgeone probably does not know the older medical uses of the term,for example, "relating to an undulating fever, such as those accompanying tuberculosis,”and unless one has some acquaintance with Middle Englishone would not recognize the first recorded instance of the word,etik, in a text written before 1398. The Middle English term comes from the Old French development of the Late Latin wordhecticus, whose form helped reshape our word in the 16th century.Late Latinhecticus in turn comes from Greek hektikos, "formed by habit or forming habit" and "consumptive,” developing the last sense because of the chronic nature of tuberculous fevers.Thus a word that once simply meant "habitual"eventually had an English descendant used to refer to circumstances that would be undesirable if they were habitual.在针对美国经典辞书 （1969年）第一版对用法专题使用小组的调查中， 92%的成员赞成hectic 一词最常用的意思， “以紧张的活动、忙乱或慌忙为特征的”。之所以要向这些成员提这个问题，是因为作为该词医学含义的模糊延伸，这个意义有时不为人们所接受。除非某人有医学方面的知识，否则他就很可能不知道这个词在医学方面的古老用法，比如“和起伏不定的热病有关的，如肺结核的伴随症”。另外，除非某人对中古英语有一度程度的了解，否则他也认不出1398年以前的一个文本中该词的首例etik 。 这个中古英语单词是由古法语经后期拉丁语hecticus 一词的发展而来的， 其形式在16世纪帮助重新形成了这个单词。而后期拉丁语中的这个词hecticus 又是由希腊语中的 hektikos 一词而来，这个词在希腊语中意指“由习惯形成的或形成习惯的”及“患肺痨的，肺痨的”， 之所以得到最后的意思，是出于肺痨病的特性。这样一来，原来只是表示“习惯性的”这个词，传到英语中最后竟变成了指一旦成为习惯则不被人所喜爱的情形〔crocodile〕The crocodile may owe its name to its resemblance to a much smaller creature, a lizard that lived in the stone walls of Ionia.This lizard's name,krokodilos, is thought to be a compound of krokē, "pebble, gravel,” and drilos, which is only attested as meaning "circumcised man" but is assumed to mean "worm" as well. According to Herodotus, Ionians in Egypt noted the resemblance, probably humorously, between basking crocodiles and their own "worm of the stones.”The modern form of Englishcrocodile represents a return to the Classical Latin spelling crocodīlus, Latin having borrowed the word from Greek.But other spellings occurred in Classical Greek and Latin, and one of these Latin spellings,cocodrillus, passed into Medieval Latin and Old French (cocodril ) and then into English, so that our earliest possible use of the word, in a work perhaps composed before 1300, is spelledcokedrille. It was not until the 16th century that the word came to have its present spelling.The various spellings met with in the history ofcrocodile reflect the same sort of variations that occurred in the history of alligator. 鳄鱼可能是因为与一种比它小得多的生物，即生长在爱奥尼亚的石墙中的蜥蜴外表相似而得名。这种蜥蜴的名字krokodilos 被认为是由 kroke （意为“卵石，砾石”）一词和 drilos 这一（只被证明有“受割的人”的意思但又被假定有“蠕虫”的意思的）词组成的复合词。 希罗多德认为，埃及境内的爱奥尼亚人可能出于幽默而记下了晒太阳的鳄鱼和他们本地的“石头中的蠕虫”之间的类似点。英语的crocodile 的现代形式反映了古拉丁语拼法 crocodilus 的回归， 拉丁语中的这个词是从希腊语中引入的。但是出现在古希腊语和古拉丁语中的其它拼法以及其中一种拉丁语拼法，cocodrillus ， 却进入到中世纪拉丁语和古法语(cocodril )中，然后又进入到英语中， 所以出现在可能写于1300年以前的一篇文章中的我们最早有可能使用该词时的拼法是cokedrille 。 直到16世纪，这个词才变成现在这种拼法。在crocodile 一词的演变历史中的多种拼法也反映了在 alligator 一词的演变历史中的相似变化 〔gringo〕The wordgringo is an offensive term in Latin America for a foreigner, particularly an American or English person.But the word existed in Spanish before this particular sense came into being.In fact,gringo may be an alteration of the word griego, the Spanish development of LatinGraecus, "Greek.” Griego first meant "Greek, Grecian,”as an adjective and "Greek, Greek language,” as a noun.The saying "It's Greek to me" exists in Spanish,as it does in English,and helps us understand whygriego came to mean "unintelligible language" and perhaps, by further extension of this idea,"stranger, that is, one who speaks a foreign language.”The altered formgringo lost touch with Greek but has the senses "unintelligible language,” "foreigner, especially an English person,”and in Latin America, "North American or Britisher.”Its first recorded English use (1849) is in John Woodhouse Audubon'sWestern Journal: "We were hooted and shouted at as we passed through, and called ‘Gringoes.’”在拉丁美洲，gringo 一词是对外国人， 尤其是英美人的不尊敬的称呼。但在有这一特定含义之前这个词已存在于西班牙语之中。事实上，gringo 也许是 griego 一词的变体， 而后者则是西班牙语对拉丁语中Graecus “希腊的”一词的发展。 Griego 开始作形容词时意为“希腊的”； 作名词时意为“希腊，希腊语”。在西班牙语中也有“这对我来说象希腊语一样”的说法，这同英语中一样。这就帮我们理解为什么griego 开始有“胡说八道”的意思， 随着这层意思地延伸，就指“陌生人，即一个讲外语的人”。gringo 的变体已与希腊毫无关系而却有了“胡说八道”、 “外国人，尤指讲英语的人”等含义；在拉丁美洲它更指“北美人或英国人”。此词有记载的第一次在英语中的运用（1849年）是在约翰·伍德豪斯·奥杜邦的西部游记 中： “我们走过时四周都是叫喊声、怪叫声和‘外国佬’的叫骂声”〔chivalry〕The Age of Chivalry was also the age of the horse.Bedecked in elaborate armor and other trappings,horses were certainly well dressedalthough they might have wished for lighter loads.That the horse should be featured so prominently during the Age of Chivalryis etymologically appropriate,becausechivalry goes back to the Latin word caballus, "horse, especially a riding horse or packhorse.”Borrowed from French, as were so many other important words having to do with medieval English culture,the English wordchivalry is first recorded in works composed around the beginning of the 14th century and is found in several senses,including "a body of armored mounted warriors serving a lord" and "knighthood as a ceremonially conferred rank in the social system.”Our modern sense,"the medieval system of knighthood,”could not exist until the passage of several centuries had allowed the perspective for such a conceptualization,with this sense being recorded first in 1765.骑士时代同时也是马的时代。马被用精美的铠甲和其它马饰打扮起来，它们显然穿戴得很好，虽然它们可能会喜欢稍轻一些的负担。在骑士时代马被放在如此显要的地位，这从词源学上来看是恰当的，因为chivalry 一词可追溯到拉丁语中 caballus 一词， 即“马，尤其是用来骑的马或驮马”的意思。象与中世纪英国文化有关的许多其它重要的词一样，英语中chivalry 一词也是从法语中借用来的，最初出现在大约写于14世纪初的书籍中， 当时有好几个含义，其中包括：“为一名贵族服务的一队穿着铠甲、骑着马的武士”和“作为一种被正式授予的社会制度中等级的骑士资格”。我们现代的意义，即“中世纪的骑士制度”，是在几个世纪以后对这样一个概念的视角成为可能之时才出现的，这个意义最早出现在文字记载中是1765年〔fornication〕The wordfornication had a lowly beginning suitable to what has long been the low moral status of the word. The Latin wordfornix, from which fornicātiō, the ancestor offornication, is derived, meant "a vault, an arch.” The term also referred to a vaulted cellar or similar place where prostitutes plied their trade.This sense offornix in Late Latin yielded the verb fornicārī, "to commit fornication,” from which is derivedfornicātiō, "whoredom, fornication.” Our word is first recorded in Middle English about 1303.单词fornication 开始时用作指道德水准低的含义。 拉丁语中fornix 一词源自于单词 fornicatio， fornication 一词的前身，词义为“拱顶，穹隆”。 此词也指一个拱顶室或类似结构的妓院。后期拉丁语中fornix 的这种含义衍生出动词 fornicario， 来表示“私通”的含义， 又由此衍生而来fornicari ，表示“卖淫，通奸。” 此词于1303年左右首次出现于中世纪英语中〔leprechaun〕Nothing seems more Irish than the leprechaun;yet, hiding within the wordleprechaun is a word from another language entirely. If we look back beyond Modern Irish Gaelicluprachán and Middle Irish luchrupán to Old Irish luchorpān, we can see the connection.Luchorpān is a compound of Old Irish lū, meaning "small,” and the Old Irish word corp, "body.” Corp is borrowed from Latin corpus (which we know from habeas corpus ). Here is a piece of evidence attesting to the deep influence of Church Latin on the Irish language.Although the word is old in Irishit is fairly new in English,being first recorded in 1604.没有什么东西看上去比矮妖精更具有爱尔兰特色；但是，leprechaum （矮妖精）这个单词里却隐藏着一个完全来源于另一种语言的单词。 如果我们通过现代爱尔兰语中的luprachan 和中世纪爱尔兰语 luchrupan 一词，追溯到古代爱尔兰语中的 luchorpan 这个单词， 我们就可以看出其中的联系了。luchorpan 是由古代爱尔兰语中表示“小、矮小”，意思的 lu 和古代爱尔兰语中表示“身体”的 corp 一词所构成的复合词。 corp 一词是从拉丁语中 corpus 借用过来的（这一点我们可以从 habeas corpus 【人身保护令】得知）。 这是一个证明教堂拉丁语对爱尔兰语有着重大影响的证据。虽然该词在爱尔兰语中已经很古老了，但在英语中却很新，首次记录于1604年〔haplology〕The loss of one of two identical or similar adjacent syllables in a word, as in Latinnūtrīx, "nurse,” from earlier .nūtrītrīx. 重复或类似音节的漏读：在同一单词中，当出现两个相同或相邻近似的音节时，对其中之一的漏读，例如在拉丁语中，单词护士 即“护士,”就是由早期的 护士 一词变化而来的 〔premise〕Why do we call a single buildingthe premises ? To answer this question,we must go back to the Middle Ages.But first, let it be noted thatpremises comes from the past participle praemissa, which is both a feminine singular and a neuter plural form of the Latin verbpraemittere, "to send in advance, utter by way of preface, place in front, prefix.” In Medieval Latin the feminine formpraemissa was used as a term in logic, for which we still use the termpremise descended from the Medieval Latin word (first recorded in a work composed before 1380).Medieval Latinpraemissa in the plural meant "things mentioned before" and was used in legal documents, almost always in the plural,a use that was followed in Old French and Middle English, both of which borrowed the word from Latin.A more specific legal sense in Middle English,"that property, collectively, which is specified in the beginning of a legal document and which is conveyed, as by grant,”was also always in the plural in Middle English and later Modern English.And so it remained when this sense was extended to mean "a house or building with its grounds or appurtenances,”a usage first recorded before 1730.为什么我们把单独的一幢建筑称为the premises ？ 为了回答这个问题，我们必须回到中世纪。但首先必须注意的是premises 是从过去式 praemissa 而来的， 这是意思为“预先发送,以前言的方式说出，放在前边，前缀”的拉丁动词praemittere 的阴性单数形式及中性复数形式。 在中世纪拉丁语中，praemissa 作为阴性形式被用作逻辑状语， 因此我们仍然使用这个来源于中世纪拉丁语的术语premise （第一次记载于1380年前编纂的作品中）。中世纪拉丁语praemissa 的复数形式意为“前面提到的事物”， 用于法律文件并总是以复数形式出现，古法语和中古英语中都从拉丁语中借用了这个词及其用法。中古英语中有一种更特殊的法律方面的意义，“法律文件开头指明并根据转让的财产，如通过赠送”,在中世纪英语和后来的现代英语中也是以复数形式使用。因此当它的意思被扩展为“连同其土地及设施一所房子或一幢建筑”时仍保留这一用法，该用法最初记载于1730年前。〔mantis〕The female mantis has the habit of eating the male after mating.In spite of such behaviorthe mantis is graced with a religious name.Mantis is from the Greek word mantis, meaning "prophet, seer.”The Greeks, who made the connection between the upraised front legs of a mantis waiting for its prey and the hands of a prophet in prayer,used the namemantis to mean "the praying mantis.” This word and sense were picked up in Modern Latin and from there came into English,being first recorded in 1658.Once we know the origin of the termmantis, we realize that the species namespraying mantis and Mantis religiosa are a bit redundant. Two other names of this sort that have been used for mantises arepraying locust and orator mantis. To understand the latter,we must keep in mind the obsolete sense oforator, "one who makes a prayer or petition.” 雌性螳螂习惯于在交配后吃掉雄性螳螂。尽管存在着这种行为，螳螂还是被赋予了一个具有宗教色彩的名字。Mantis 来源于希腊语 mantis 一词， 意为“先知，预言家”。希腊人把螳螂捕食前高举的前肢与预言家祷告时的双手联系起来，用mantis 一词来表示“祈祷的预言家”。 新拉丁语吸收了这个词及其意义，英语又从拉丁语中吸取了该词，最早记载见于1658年。我们既然知道了mantis 的来源， 就会发现其属种名praying mantis 和 Mantis religiosa 略有重复。 用来表示螳螂的其它类似名称还有praying locust 和 orator mantis。 要想弄清楚后者，我们必须想到orator 一词的过时的意思“做祷告或祈求的人” 〔etymon〕A foreign word from which a particular loanword is derived. For example, Latinduo, "two,” is an etymon of English duodecimal. 外来语的词源：某一外来语来源于某一外国语中的单词。例如，拉丁语中的duo 即是英语中 dueodecimal 这个外来语的词源 〔fraction〕One might think that a word likefraction as well as its ancestors might have always referred to the mathematical fraction. Certainly the mathematical notion of a fraction was known to the Babylonians, perhaps as early as 2000b.c. But our wordfraction goes back only to the Latin word frangere, "to break.” From the stem of the past participlefrāctus is derived Late Latin frāctiō, "a breaking" or "a breaking in pieces,”as in the breaking of the Eucharistic Host.In Medieval Latin the wordfrāctiō developed its mathematical sense, which was taken into Middle English along with the word.The earliest recorded sense of our word is "an aliquot part of a unit, a fraction or subdivision,”found in a work by Chaucer written about 1400.One of the next recorded instances of the word recalls its origins, referring to the "brekying or fraccioun" of a bone.人们也许认为一个词如fraction 以及它的词源总是指数学上的分数。 当然，分数的数学概念也许早在公元前 2000年就已被巴比伦人所熟知。 但fraction 一词仅能追溯到拉丁词 frangere ，“打碎”。 源自过去分词fractus 的词干是派生的后期拉丁语 fractio ， 意为“破裂”或“碎成一片片的”，如感恩节的饼的碎块。在中世纪拉丁语中，fractio 一词出现了数学意义， 这个词连同此意义都被记入中世纪英语中。这个词最早记载的意义是“一个数学单元，繁分数或再分数的约数”，出现在约1400年乔臾写的一部作品里。后来此词有记录的例子之一，指骨头上的“裂痕或碎片”，使人回忆起它的起源〔joke〕It is hard to imagine the English language without the wordjoke , butjoke is only first recorded in 1670. Sincejoke was originally considered a slang or informal usage, it was not suitable to all contexts.The change in status ofjoke from then to now provides us with an excellent example of how usage changes. Joke has a decent enough heritage at any rate, coming from Latiniocus, "jest, sport, laughingstock, trifle.”Iocus in turn can be traced back to the Indo-European root yek-, meaning "to speak,” from which also comes the Umbrian wordiuka, "prayers,” and the Welsh wordiaith, "speech.” 我们很难想象英语中如果没有joke 这个词会怎样， 但是joke 在1670年才首次有文字记载。 因为joke 起初被认为是俚语或非正式用语， 以前它并不是在所有的文章中都适用的。从那时到现在joke 地位上的变化给我们提供了一个关于语言用法如何变化的极好的例子。 不管怎样joke 的词源算得上很体面， 它来自于拉丁语中iocus 一词， 表示“玩笑，游戏，笑柄，琐事”。Iocus 反过来又可追溯到印欧语系中的词根 yek- 表示“说话”， 从这个词根还派生出翁布里亚语中iuka 一词，即“祈祷”， 以及威尔士语中iaith 一词，即“讲话，演说” 〔pay〕Given the unpeaceful feelings one often has in paying bills or income taxes,it is difficult to believe that the wordpay ultimately derives from the Latin word pāx, "peace.” However, it is not the peace of the one who pays that is involved in this development of meaning.Frompāx, meaning "peace" and also "a settlement of hostilities,” was derived the word pācāre, "to impose a settlement on peoples or territories.” In Late Latinpācāre was extended in sense to mean "to appease.” The Old French wordpaiier that developed from Latin pācāre came to have the specific application "to pacify or satisfy a creditor,”a sense that came into Middle English along with the wordpaien (first recorded around the beginning of the 13th century), the ancestor of our wordpay. 人常常在支付帐单或收入调节税时有不安之感情，因而很难令人相信单词pay 来源于拉丁词语 pax “和平”。 但是，并不是支付人内心的平和与这个词意义的延伸意有关连。因为意思是“和平”和“敌视的和解”的单词pax 源于 pacare “给人民或领土以安宁”。 在后拉丁语中pacare 的意义被引申为“抚慰，使缓和。” 古法语单词paiier 来源于拉丁语 pacave， 后来开始具有“缓和、平息或使债主满意”这个具体用意，这种意思随同单词paien （大约在13世纪初首次记录）进入中世纪英语， 这个词就是单词pay 的前身 〔prison〕The wordprison has its origins not in the notions of what such a place is but rather in the notion of how one gets there. Prison can be traced back to the Latin word prēnsiō, "the action or power of making an arrest.” This in turn is derived from the verbprehendere or prendere, which meant "to take hold of, take into custody, arrest.”Prēnsiō then dives into the obscurity of the time when Romance languages such as French were being formed from Vulgar Latin and resurfaces in the Old French of the 12th century with the formprison and the senses "capture" and "place of imprisonment.”This new sense could have already been developed in Latinand not been recorded,but we have to wait until the 12th century to see it,the sense "captivity" being added in the same century.From Old French as well as the Medieval Latin wordpriso, "prison,” derived from Old French, came our Middle English word prisoun, first recorded in a work written before 1121in the sense "imprisonment.”The sense "place of imprisonment" is recorded shortly afterward in a text copied down before 1225but perhaps actually written in the Old English period before the Norman Conquest.Prison 这个单词的来源不在于它是一个什么样的地方而在于一个人是怎么进去的。 Prison 可追溯到意思是“进行逮捕的行动或力量”的拉丁词 prensio。 这个词也是从动词prehendere 或 prendere 派生出来的， 意思是“捉住，逮捕，拘留。”Prensio 这个词在罗马语系中的语言（如法语）逐渐从通俗拉丁语形成时被人们忘却了， 12世纪又以prison 的形式在古法语中重新露面， 其含义是“捉住”和“囚禁人的地方。”这个新的含义很可能在拉丁语中已得到了发展，只是没有被记录下来，但是我们直到12世纪才看到它，在同一世纪“囚禁，俘虏”的意思被加了进去。从古法语、同时也是从源于古法语的中世纪拉丁语词priso “监狱，监禁”中产生了中古英语单词 prison， 这个词最早的记录是在一部著于1121年的作品中，意思是“监禁，拘留。”“监禁或囚禁的地方”这层意思在稍后出现的、在1225年以前被抄录下来的一篇文章中出现，但可能实际写作的时间是在诺曼征服之前的古英语时期〔sack〕The wordsack may seem an odd candidate for preserving a few thousand years of history, but this word for an ordinary thing probably goes back to Middle Eastern antiquity.Sack owes its long history to the fact that it and its ancestors denoted an object that was used in trade between peoples. Thus the Greeks got their wordsakkos, "a bag made out of coarse cloth or hair,” from the Phoenicians with whom they traded. We do not know the Phoenician word,but we know words that are akin to it,such as Hebrewsaq and Akkadian saqqu. The Greeks then passed the sack, as it were, to the Latin-speaking Romans, who transmitted their wordsaccus, "a large bag or sack,” to the Germanic tribes with whom they traded, who gave it the form .sakkiz (other peoples as well have taken this word from Greek or Latin, including speakers of Welsh, Russian, Polish, and Albanian).The speakers of Old English, a Germanic language, used two forms of the word,sæc, from .sakkiz, and sacc, directly from Latin; the second Old English form is the ancestor of oursack. sack 这个词具有几百年的历史看起来可能很奇怪， 但这个词用来指一件普通的物品大概可追溯到古代中东。Sack 的长久历史归功于它和它的前身，即指用于人们之间贸易的一个物品。 因此希腊人从与他们做买卖的腓尼基人处得到sakkos 这个词，指“用粗布或毛发制成的袋子”。 我们不懂腓尼基语指什么，但知道一些与它相关的词，如希伯莱语中的Saq 和阿卡德语中的 Saqqu。 希腊人于是又把这个词传到说拉丁语的罗马人中，罗马人把他们的词saccus （“大袋子，大麻袋”）传给与他们做贸易的日耳曼人部落，他们用 Sakkiz 这种形式 （其他民族也从希腊语或拉丁语中得到这个词，其中包括说威尔士语、俄语、波兰语和阿尔巴尼亚语的人们）。讲古英语（一种日耳曼语言）的人用这个词的两种形式：源自sakkiz 的 sæc 和源自拉丁语的 sacc ； 这第二种古英语的形式是我们现在的sack 的前身 〔mill〕Industrial mill towns are a far cry from the small water mill grinding grain near an Anglo-Saxon settlement,but the same wordmill is used in both contexts, showing how the meaning of a word can be generalized.The Old English wordmylen, "water mill for grinding grain,” is itself adopted from Late Latinmolīna or molīnum, "mill,” just as the Germanic peoples, such as the Anglo-Saxons, adopted the water mill from the Romans.In Middle Englishmilne, the descendant of the Old English word, was generalized to refer to a windmill, any power-driven mill for grinding grain, and a fulling mill.But it was left for the postmedieval,increasingly industrialized world really to generalize the meaning ofmill, applying it to machines such as pepper mills and cider millsand buildings such as textile mills and steel mills.Mill town is first recorded in 1847. 工业化的制造区与原来盎格鲁-撒克逊人居住地附近那种靠水力推动来磨谷物的小型磨臼大不相同，但mill 这个词对这两种情况都适用， 这可以体现出某一词汇的意思是可以有概括性的。古英语中mylen 一词有“磨谷物的水磨”的意思， 这个词由后期拉丁语中的molina 或 molinum 而来，意为“磨臼”， 正如日尔曼民族中的盎格鲁-撒克逊人从罗马人那里引进了水磨。中古英语中milne 一词由古英语词而来， 它的词义已扩大，可指风车、任何靠动力驱动来磨谷物的磨以及缩洗机。不过在中世纪晚期，不断发展的工业化世界真正使mill 这个词在意义上有所扩大， 它可以指胡椒研磨机或苹果榨汁机等机器，也可以指纺织厂或钢铁厂等工厂。Mill town 这个词最早见载于1847年 〔impeach〕Nothing hobbles a President so much as impeachment,and there is an etymologicalas well as procedural reason for this.The wordimpeach can be traced back through Anglo-Norman empecher to Late Latin impedicāre, "to catch, entangle,”from Latinpedica, "fetter for the ankle, snare.” Thus we find that Middle Englishempechen, the ancestor of our word,means such things as "to cause to get stuck fast,” "hinder or impede,” "interfere with,” and "criticize unfavorably.”A legal sense ofempechen is first recorded in 1384. This sense, which had previously developed in Old French,was "to accuse, bring charges against.”A further development of the sense had specific reference to Parliament and its formal accusation of treason or other high crimes,a process that the United States borrowed from the British.Although we have used it rarely at the federal level,impeachment stands as the ultimate snare for those who would take advantage of the public trust.没有事能象弹劾那样会使总统陷入窘境了，这既有词源的原因，又有程序上的原因。impeach 这个词能够通过英国法语中的 empecher 追溯到后期拉丁语中的 impedicare ， 意思为“抓住，牵连”，源自拉丁语中的pedica ，意思是“脚镣，圈套”。 于是我们发现中古英语中的empechen ， 我们现在这个词的前身，有着诸如“使牢牢困住”，“妨碍或阻止”，“干涉”和“令人不利地批评”等意思。empechen 在法律方面的意思最早在1384年被记录下来。 这个意思，原先在古法语中有一定发展，意思是“控告，指控。”这个意思的进一步发展到议会和议会对叛国罪或其他重大罪行的指控，这一程序是美国从英国那里借鉴而来的。尽管我们在联邦一级上很少使用，但是弹劾对于那些滥用公众信任的人来说是最终的陷阱〔period〕Perhaps more than once one may have wonderedwhy the wordperiod has the sense "punctuation mark ( . )” as well as some of its other senses having to do with time.The answer to this question lies in the senses of the Greek wordperiodos from which our word is descended. Periodos, made up of peri-, "around,” and hodos, "way,” meant such things as "going round, way round, going round in a circle, circuit,”and with regard to time "cycle or period of time.”The word also meant "the period of menstruation.”In rhetoric it referred to "a group of words organically related in grammar and sense.”The Greek word was adopted into Latin asperihodos with only its rhetorical sense and one other sense,but in Medieval Latin it reacquired senses it had in Greek,such as "cycle,” and acquired a new sense,"a punctuation mark used at the end of a rhetorical period.”Although this sense is recorded in Medieval Latin,it is not recorded in English until 1609.But the wordperiod had entered Middle English from Medieval Latin and Old French, first being recorded in a work written around 1425in the sense "a cycle of recurrence of a disease.”或许任何人都会不止一次的发出疑问，为什么period 有“标点符号（。）”的意思， 同时其它意思与时间有关。此问的答案来自我们的单词源自的希腊语单词periodos 的意思。 Periodos ，由意为“周围”的 peri- 和意为“方式”的 hodos 组成， 该词意味着“围绕…走，围绕…的路，转圈走，围绕，”同时也指时间，意为“一段时间或时间周期”。此词也意为“经期”。在修辞学中指“一组在语法和词意上有机相连的词。”这个希腊词作为perihodos 被拉丁文所采用， 仅带有修辞和一个其他的意思，但在中世纪拉丁语中它重新得到了它在希腊语中的意思，例如“周期”，后来又得到一个新的意思，即“用于修辞部分末尾的标点符号”。尽管此意在中世纪拉丁语中有记载，但直到1609年才在英语中有记载。而period 从中世纪拉丁文和古法语中进入中世纪英语， 并首次记载于约1425年所著的作品中，意为“疾病发作的周期”〔fool〕The pejorative nature of the termfool is only strengthened by a knowledge of its etymology. Its source, the Latin wordfollis, meant "a bag or sack, a large inflated ball, a pair of bellows.” Users of the word in Late Latin, however, saw a resemblance between the bellows or the inflated ball and a person who was what we would call "a windbag" or "an airhead.”The word, which passed into English by way of French,is first recorded in English in a work written around the beginning of the 13th centurywith the sense "a foolish, stupid, or ignorant person.”词语fool 的轻蔑性质只有用它的语源知识才能体会深刻。 它的词源，拉丁词fillis 意思是“一个袋子，一个大的充气球，一对风箱”。 然而在后期拉丁语中此词使用者发现一个风箱或充气球与一个我们称为“空谈者”或“自大者”之间有相似之处。这个词通过法语传入英语，在英语中最早记录在一本写于大约为13世纪初的书中，意思是“笨的，傻的或愚昧的人”〔immaterial〕The wordimmaterial, meaning "of no importance or relevance,” has made its way in the world in spite of the opposition of no less a figure than Samuel Johnson. Johnson stated that "this sense has crept into the conversation and writings of barbarians; but ought to be utterly rejected.”More than two centuries laterit is difficult for us to recover Johnson's strength of feeling,and this tale might in fact serve as a warning to those who believe that the usages they abominate will not survive and become standard.Although Johnson was a man of immense learning,he did not have the lexicographical resources available today.If Johnson had had access to theOxford Latin Dictionary and the Middle English Dictionary, among other works, he would have seen that frommāter, meaning "a mother,” "a plant as the source of things such as cuttings or fruit,” and "a source,”was derived the wordmāteria, meaning "wood as a building material,” "any substance of which a physical object is made,” "the subject matter of a speech or book,” and "the condition whereby an action is effected.”The adjectivemāteriālis derived from māteria only meant "of or concerned with subject matter" in Classical Latin, but its descendant in Late and Medieval Latin and its descendants in Old French (materiel ) and Middle English ( material ) developed other meanings, such as "consisting of matter.”One Middle English sense, "important, relevant,”that probably harks back to senses of Classical Latinmāteria such as "subject matter" continued in existence after Middle English times. So it was natural for the English wordimmaterial, first recorded in the 15th century, to come to mean "not important,” in spite of Johnson's wrath.尽管不只塞缪尔·约翰逊一个人反对意思为“不重要的，无关紧要的”，immaterial 这个词还是产生了。 约翰逊声明：“这个意思偷偷出现在野蛮民族的对话和写作中；但应该遭到完全抵制。”两个多世纪之后，我们很难重新找到约翰逊强烈的感受。这个故事实际上可以算是对那些认为他们厌恶的用法不可能生存和标准化的人的一种警告。尽管约翰逊是一个博学的人，但是他没有今天可以得到的词汇学的资料。如果约翰逊除了其他著作外能得到牛津拉丁语词典 和 中古英语词典 的话， 他就能从中认识到这一点：mater ， 意思为“母亲”，“作为诸如剪下的东西或水果来源的一株植物”和“来源”，是由materia ， 意思为“建筑用的木材”，“用于制造物体的任何材料”，“讲话或著作的主题”和“影响一个行动的条件”而衍变而来的。形容词materalis 是由在古典拉丁语中仅仅意味着“和主题有关的” materia 衍变而来的， 但它在中古拉丁语和后期拉丁语中的衍生词和古法语中的衍生词(materiel )以及中古英语中的衍生词( material )继续发展有了其他的意思， 如“由物质组成的”。中古英语的一个意思“重要的、有关的”，很可能追溯到古典拉丁语materia 的意思如“主题”在中古英语时期之后继续存在。 因此，最早在15世纪被记录下来的英语单词immaterial 至今仍有“不重要的”的意思是很自然的， 尽管约翰逊对此很愤怒〔insignia〕Insignia in Latin is the plural form of insigne, but it has long been used in English as both a singular and a plural form: Insignia 在拉丁语中是 insigne 的复数形式， 但是在英语中很长时间来一直既被用作单数又被用作复数形式： 〔dialect〕Spanish and French are Romance dialects.西班牙语和法语是拉丁语中的一支〔announce〕The injunction not to shoot the messenger could as well be not to shoot the announcer, given the etymology of the wordannounce. First recorded in English before 1500 in the sense "to proclaim, make known,”announce came into English via Old French from Latin. The Latin sourceannūntiāre is made up of the directional prefix ad- and the verb nūntiāre, "to bring word of a fact or occurrence.” This verb is in turn derived from the nounnūntium, "a message,” which also yieldednūntius, "a messenger.” 不准枪毙使者的禁令也意味着不准枪毙公告人，给出了announce 这个词的词源。 1500年之前该词以“宣布，告知”的意思第一次出现在英语里，announce 通过拉丁语中的古法语进入英语。 拉丁词annuntiare 由指示性前缀 ad- 和动词 nuntiare “提到一个事实或事件”组成。 这个动词依次由名词nuntium “消息”派生而来， 也可作nuntius 的意思是“使者，送信人” 〔gerund〕In Latin, a noun derived from a verb and having all case forms except the nominative.动名词：拉丁语中的动名词，有除主格外的所有格的形式〔gerundive〕A verbal adjective in Latin that in the nominative case expresses the notion of fitness or obligation and in other cases functions as a future passive participle.动形词：拉丁语中动形词，在主格中表示适合性和必要性，并在其它格中作将来被动分词〔penthouse〕The wordpenthouse and the structure it denotes have both come a long way. The word goes back to Latinappendere, "to cause to be suspended.”In Medieval Latinappendere developed the sense "to belong, depend,” a sense that passed intoapendre, the Old French development ofappendere. Fromapent, the past participle of apendre, came the derivative apentiz, "low building behind or beside a house,” and the Anglo-Norman plural form pentiz. The form without thea- was then borrowed into Middle English, giving uspentis (first recorded about 1300), which was applied to sheds or lean-tos added on to buildings.Because these structures often had sloping roofs,the word was connected with the French wordpente, "slope,” and the second part of the word changed tohouse, which could mean simply "a building for human use.”The use of the term with reference to fancy penthouse apartments developed from the application of the word to a structure built on the roof to cover such things as a stairway or an elevator shaft.Penthouse then came to mean an apartment built on a rooftop and finally the top floor of an apartment building.单词penthouse 及其所代表的结构都经过了长期的演变。 此词可追溯至拉丁语appendere ， 意为“使悬浮”。在中世纪拉丁语中，appendere 的意思演变为“附属，依靠”， 是词形变为apendre 的意义， 由古法语appendere 发展而来。 从apendre 的过去分词 apent 产生出意为“房屋旁边或后面低矮的建筑”的派生词 apentiz 及盎格鲁-诺尔曼复数形式 pentiz 。 没有a- 的形式被借用到中世纪英语， 变成pentis （首次记载于1300年）， 用作加在建筑上的小棚或单倾斜面的小屋。因为这些结构常有斜屋顶，因此该词与法语词pente “斜面”有关， 且此词的第二部分变成house ， 只简单地意为“住人的建筑”。该词与使人想象楼顶房屋有关的使用源自需要用一个词来表示建在屋顶上用来遮挡楼梯或电梯通道的建筑。Penthouse 于是逐渐意为建在屋顶上的房间， 最终意为一个公寓楼的顶层〔firm〕In these days of agribusiness,a farm and a firm are probably closer than they have been since the time before the wordsfarm and firm developed from the same Latin word, firmāre, "to strengthen, make fast, confirm, attest,” which is derived from Latinfirmus, the source offirm, meaning "secure.” In Medieval Latinfirmāre came to mean "to ratify by signature,” from which sense eventually came our word firm, first recorded in 1574 with the meaning "signature.”This wordfirm later added the senses "designation under which a firm transacts business" and "commercial house.” Latinfirmāre by way of Old French also gave us Middle English ferme, the ancestor of our wordfarm. 大农场经营年代，农场和商行也许比在farm 和 firm 从同一拉丁语 firmare， 意为“加强，使牢固，使确定，使证明”发展来之前联系更为紧密， 它是从拉丁词firmus 派生而来， 即firm 一词的来源，意为“确定的”。 在中世纪拉丁语中，firmare 开始取意为“用签名来批准，”从此含义出发，最终有了我们的 firm 这个词， 1574年它首次被记录下来，意为“签名”。Firm 这个词后来增加了两个含义，“商行借以办理事务的名称”和“经商的房屋。” 拉丁词firmare 也通过古法语给了我们中世纪英语 ferme 这个词， 它是我们的单词farm 的前身 〔impersonal〕Of, relating to, or being the action of a verb that expresses the action of an unspecified subject, as inmethinks, "it seems to me"; Latin pluit, "it rains"; or, with an expletive subject, English it snowed. 非人称的：表示不定主体的动作的动词的，如methinks 意思为“在我看来”；拉丁语中的 pluit ，意思为“下雨了”；或者带有一个无意义的主语，如在英语中 it snowed 〔paradise〕Perhaps the supreme example of the semantic process known as melioration is the wordparadise. In tracing this word from its origins to its present status,we see an elevation, or melioration, of meaning that raises the word to new heights.The history begins with the Avestan (the eastern dialect of Old Iranian) wordpairi-daēza-, "enclosure,” made up ofpairi, "around,” and daēza-, "wall.” The Greek military leader and historian Xenophon, who served with Greek mercenaries in Persia,first used the Greek wordparadeisos adopted from the Avestan wordto refer to the Persian kings' and nobles' parks or pleasure grounds.This Greek word extended to mean "garden" or "orchard" was an obvious choice for translators of the Bible into Greekto use both for the Garden of Eden and the Abode of the Blessed, or heaven.The Greek word was adopted into Late Latin and was used much as we might expect in its biblical senses in ecclesiastical Latin (Late Latinparadīsus ). The Old English wordparadis taken from Latin is found, but our word probably really established itself in Middle English (first recorded before 1200),derived both from Latin and from Old French, which had adopted the word from Latin.paradise. 这个词也许能作为词义进化最典型的例子， 从它的起源到现在的地位，我们可以看到词义的进化或改进把这个词带到了一个新的高度。这个历史过程从意为“领地，圈地”的阿维斯陀语（古伊朗人西部方言）pairi-daeza-, 开始， 由意为“环形的”pairi, 和意为“墙”的 daeza-, 组成。 曾随希腊雇佣军到波斯服役的希腊军事将领和历史学家色诺芬，首先使用了希腊语词paradeisos, ， 该词采用了阿维斯陀词，指波斯国王和贵族们的花园或游乐场，这个希腊词衍生到表示“花园”或“果园”，显然是译者在把《圣经》翻译成希腊文时所做出的选择，以用来表明伊甸园和天国或天堂，有这两种含义的希腊词被引入后期的拉丁语中且当它们在教会拉丁文（后期拉丁语paradisus )中意为《圣经》方面的意义时被更广泛地使用， 古英语paradis 一词来自拉丁文， 但我们用的这个词可能在中古英语（首次记录在1200年前）中真正确立了起来，人们发现它源于拉丁文和从拉丁文中采纳了这个词的古法语〔dicker〕Perhaps a desire to see history repeat itself has been at work in the case of an etymology suggested for the verbdicker, first recorded in 1802with reference to horse trading and the haggling that accompanies it.In a work published in 1848James Fenimore Cooper used the word with reference to frontier trade.This use would support a connection with the noundicker, which denotes a quantity of ten and was a common unit used in trading hides or furs. If the verbdicker originated in the fur trade, a parallel would exist with the noundicker. The noun may have come into the Germanic languages and hence to English by way of trade or tribute in furs between the Germanic peoples and the Roman Empire, with the Germanic word coming from the Latin worddecuria, "a group of ten men,” which in Late Latin was used as a measure of skins. The difficulty with this parallel isthat no existing evidence proves conclusively the derivation of the verbdicker from the noun dicker. 关于对动词dicker 提出的词源问题，也许是想看看历史重演的一种欲望在起作用， 此单词第一次记载是在1802年，同马匹交易和与之伴随的价格争论有关。在1848年出版的一本著作中，詹姆斯·费尼莫尔·库珀根据边境贸易使用了这个词。这种使用将会支持与名词dicker 代表数量“十”并用于皮毛交易的联系。 如果动词dicker 起源于毛皮生意， 那么便会与名词dicker 一起并行存在。 该名词也许是随着来自于拉丁语decuria “十人一组”的日耳曼语单词一起（在拉丁语中它被用作皮革的计量单位），通过日耳曼人和罗马帝国之间毛皮交易或进贡的途径进入日耳曼语中，而从此以后进入英语中。 但是对于这种并行的困难是，没有现成的证据确凿地证明动词dicker 是从名词 dicker 中衍生来的 |
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