- disgust
[disgust 词源字典] - disgust: [16] Something that disgusts one is literally ‘not to one’s taste’. The word comes from Old French desguster, a compound verb formed from the prefix des- ‘not’ and goust ‘taste’. This in turn came from Latin gustus (ultimate source of English gusto); its modern French descendant is goût. Originally, as its derivation implies, disgust meant simply ‘cause to feel aversion, displease’ (and also, with subject and object reversed, ‘dislike, loathe’: ‘Had he not known that I disgusted it, it had never been spoke or done by him’, Robert South, Sermons 1716); but over the centuries it has hardened into ‘sicken, repel’.
=> gusto[disgust etymology, disgust origin, 英语词源] - dish
- dish: [OE] Like dais, desk, and disc, dish comes ultimately from Greek dískos ‘quoit’. As their diversity of form and meaning suggests, they were acquired at various times and by various routes. English got dish around 700 AD from Latin discus, in which the original meaning ‘quoit’ had been extended metaphorically to ‘tray, platter, dish’ on the basis of the semantic features ‘roundness’ and ‘flatness’.
=> dais, desk, disc - dishevelled
- dishevelled: [15] Semantically, dishevelled ‘with untidy hair’ and unkempt ‘with uncombed hair’ are closely parallel formations. Dishevelled originated as an adaptation of deschevele, the past participle of Old French descheveler ‘disarrange the hair’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix dis- ‘apart’ and chevel ‘hair’, a descendant of Latin capillus ‘hair’ (from which English got capillary [17]).
In Middle English its meaning was extended to ‘without a head-dress’, and even to ‘undressed’, but its modern metaphorical application is the more general ‘untidy’. (The verb dishevel was a late 16th-century back-formation from dishevelled.)
=> capillary - dismal
- dismal: [13] Etymologically, dismal means ‘bad day’. It comes, via Anglo-Norman dis mal, from Latin diēs malī, literally ‘evil days’, a term used to denote the two days in each month which according to ancient superstition were supposed to be unlucky (these days, of set date, were said originally to have been computed by Egyptian astrologers, and were hence also called Egyptian days). The term dismal thus acquired connotations of ‘gloom’ and ‘calamity’. Its earliest adjectival use, somewhat tautologically, was in the phrase dismal day, but in the late 16th century it broadened out considerably in application.
- dismay
- dismay: [13] The underlying meaning of dismay is ‘deprive of power’ – its second syllable is ultimately the same word as the verb may. It comes via Old French desmaier from Vulgar Latin *dismagāre ‘deprive of power’, a compound verb formed from the prefix dis- ‘un-’ and the borrowed Germanic base *mag- ‘power, ability’ (source of English may).
=> may - dismiss
- dismiss: [15] Ultimately, dismiss and demise [16] are the same word: both come from Old French desmis or demis ‘sent away’. These in turn came from dismissus, the medieval descendant of Latin dīmissus, which was the past participle of dīmittere, a compound verb formed from dis- ‘away’ and mittere ‘send’. In the case of dismiss, English originally acquired the word, more logically, in the form dismit, based on the Latin infinitive, but in the late 15th century dismiss, in the past participial form dismissed modelled on the French past participle, began to replace it. Demise comes from Anglo-Norman *demise, which represents a nominal use of the feminine form of Old French demis.
It was originally a technical legal term signifying the transference of property or title, and only in the 18th century came to be used for the ‘death’ which often brought this about.
=> commit, demise, mission, transmit - disparage
- disparage: see pair
- dispatch
- dispatch: [16] Dispatch appears to have been borrowed from Spanish despachar ‘expedite’, but its ultimate origins are not clear. The likeliest source of the Spanish word is Old French despeechier ‘set free’ (source of modern French dépêcher ‘hurry’), a compound verb formed from the prefix des- ‘un-’ and the verbal element -peechier ‘impede, hinder’, which is also represented in English impeach and goes back ultimately to Latin pedica ‘shackle’.
The semantic history of dispatch thus appears to be ‘unshackle’, ‘set free’, ‘send away, get rid of’, and hence (with the notion of ‘freeing from restraint’) ‘send away quickly’. (The currency of the alternative spelling despatch is due to its occurrence in Dr Johnson’s Dictionary 1755.)
=> impeach - dispel
- dispel: see pulse
- dispense
- dispense: [14] Dispense comes ultimately from Latin dispendere ‘weigh out’ (partial source of English spend). This was a compound verb formed from the prefix dis- ‘away’ and pendere ‘weigh’, a relative of pendēre ‘hang’, from which English gets pendulum, pendant, and penthouse. It had a derivative, dispensāre, denoting repeated action: hence ‘pay out, distribute’, senses which passed into English via Old French dispenser. In medieval Latin dispensāre also came to mean ‘administer justice’, and hence ‘exempt, condone’; this was the source of the English usage dispense with ‘do without’.
=> pendulum, pendant, penthouse, spend - display
- display: [14] Display originally meant ‘unfold’, and it is related not to modern English play but to ply. It comes via Old French despleier (whose modern French descendant, déployer, is the source of English deploy [18]) from Latin displicāre. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix dis- ‘un-’ and plicāre ‘fold’ (source of or related to English accomplish, complicated, ply, and simple), and in classical Latin seems only to have had the metaphorical meaning ‘scatter’.
In medieval Latin, however, it returned to its underlying literal sense ‘unfold’, which was originally retained in English, particularly with reference to sails or flags. The notion of ‘spreading out’ is retained in splay, which was formed by lopping off the first syllable of display in the 14th century.
=> accomplish, complicate, deploy, ply, simple - disport
- disport: see sport
- dispose
- dispose: see position
- dispute
- dispute: [13] Dispute comes via Old French disputer from Latin disputāre, a compound verb formed from the prefix dis- ‘separately’ and putāre ‘consider, reckon, think’ (source of a wide range of English words, from computer to reputation). It was originally a commercial term, denoting the calculation of a sum by considering each of its items separately, but its meaning eventually broadened out to ‘estimate, examine, weigh up’ – either mentally or (the sense which prevailed) by discussion with others.
The neutral sense ‘discuss’ held centre stage in classical Latin, but later (in the Vulgate, for instance) a note of acrimony appeared, signalling the beginnings of dispute’s current sense ‘argue’.
=> computer, count, putative, reputation - disrupt
- disrupt: see rout
- dissect
- dissect: see section
- dissemble
- dissemble: see similar
- disseminate
- disseminate: see seed
- dissent
- dissent: see sense
- dissolve
- dissolve: see solve
