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saint [saint 词源字典]: saint: [OE] Latin sancīre meant ‘consecrate’ (it was formed from the same base as produced sacer ‘holy’, source of English sacred, sacrifice, etc). Its past participle was sanctus. This came to be used as an adjective meaning ‘holy, sacred’, and in due course as a noun too, ‘holy person’. English originally borrowed it direct from Latin, as sanct, but this was superseded in the 12th century by saint, acquired via Old French. Other English words based on the Latin stem sanctinclude sanction, sanctity, etc, and saunter may be related to saint.
=> sacred[saint etymology, saint origin, 英语词源]
sake: sake: English has two nouns sake. The older, now used only in the expression for the sake of, was originally an independent fully-fledged noun, with a range of meanings including ‘strife’, ‘guilt’, and ‘lawsuit’ [OE]. Its use in for the sake of, which emerged in the 13th century, probably arose out of its legal usage, and thus denoted originally ‘on behalf of a litigant’s case in a lawsuit’.

The word itself came from a prehistoric Germanic *sakō ‘affair, thing, charge, accusation’, which also produced German sache ‘affair, subject, lawsuit’. It is also represented in English forsake [OE], which etymologically means ‘accuse, quarrel with’, hence ‘decline’, and finally ‘give up’; keepsake [18], etymologically something that is kept for the ‘sake’ of the giver; and namesake [17], which probably arose from the notion of two people being linked or associated for the ‘sake’ of their names. Seek is a distant relation. Sake, or saki, ‘rice wine’ [17] was borrowed from Japanese, where it literally means ‘alcohol’.
=> forsake, keepsake, namesake, seek, seize
salacious: salacious: see salient
salad: salad: [15] Etymologically, a salad is a ‘salted’ dish. The word comes via Old French salade from Vulgar Latin *salāta, a noun use of the feminine past participle of Latin *salāre ‘put salt on to, treat with salt’. This is turn was a derivative of sāl ‘salt’, a relative of English salt. The Romans were fond of dishes of assorted raw vegetables with a dressing, and this often consisted of brine – hence the name, which is short for herba salāta ‘salted vegetables’.
=> salt
salary: salary: [14] Salary goes back to a Latin word that originally denoted an ‘allowance given to Roman soldiers for buying salt’ (salt being in former times a valued commodity, over which wars were fought, rather than taken for granted as it is today). This was salārium, a derivative of sāl ‘salt’. It soon broadened out to mean ‘fixed periodic payment for work done’, and passed in this sense via Anglo-Norman salarie into English.
=> salt
sale: sale: [11] Sale was borrowed from Old Norse sala. This came from the same prehistoric Germanic base, *sal-, that produced English sell. The word’s specific application to the ‘selling of goods at lower-than-normal prices’ did not emerge until the 1860s.
=> sell
salient: salient: [16] Salient is one of a large number of English words that go back ultimately to Latin salīre ‘jump’. Others include assail, assault, desultory, insult, sally, sauté, and also salacious [17], which goes back to Latin salāx ‘given to leaping on to females in order to copulate’, a derivative of salīre. Salient itself comes from the present participle saliēns, and was originally used as a heraldic term, meaning ‘jumping’; the metaphorical ‘prominent’ did not emerge until the 18th century.
=> assail, assault, desultory, insult, result, salacious, sally, sauté
sallow: sallow: [OE] English has two distinct words sallow. The adjective goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *salwa-, which was also borrowed into French as sale ‘dirty’. The underlying meaning appears to be ‘dark-coloured’. Its only surviving relative among the mainstream Germanic languages is Icelandic sölr ‘yellow’. Sallow ‘willow’ comes from a prehistoric Germanic *salkhaz, which also produced French saule ‘willow’ and was distantly related to Latin salix ‘willow’.
sally: sally: [16] To sally is etymologically to ‘jump’. For the word comes ultimately from Latin salīre ‘jump’, source also of English assail, insult, salient, etc. It passed into Old French as salir, which later became saillir. From this was derived a noun saillie ‘jump’, hence ‘sudden breaking out from a defended position to attack’, which English took over and soon turned into a verb. (The name Sally, incidentally, is an alteration of Sarah, by the same phonetic process that produced Del, Hal, Moll, and Tel from Derek, Harry, Mary, and Terence.)
=> salient
salmon: salmon: [13] The ancestral Indo-European word for ‘salmon’ is lax. It survives in numerous modern European languages, including German lachs, Swedish lax (whence English gravlax), Yiddish laks (source of English lox ‘smoked salmon’), and Russian losos’. The Old English member of the family was læx, but in the 13th century this was replaced by salmon, a borrowing from Anglo-Norman saumoun. This in turn went back to Latin salmō, which some have linked with salīre ‘jump’ (source of English assail, insult, salient, etc) – hence the ‘leaping’ fish.
saloon: saloon: [18] Saloon is part of a widespread western European family of words for ‘large room’. They go back to a prehistoric Germanic *salaz, ancestor of German saal. This was borrowed into Vulgar Latin as *sala, whose descendants include French salle and Italian sala. A derivative of this, denoting ‘large size’, was salone, which was borrowed into French as salon. English acquired this at the beginning of the 18th century in two forms: the original salon and the anglicized saloon.
salt: salt: [OE] Salt was a key element in the diet of our Indo-European ancestors, and their word for it, *sal-, is the source of virtually all the modern European terms, including Russian sol’, Polish sól, Serbo-Croat so, Irish salann, and Welsh halen. Greek háls has given English halogen [19]. And Latin sāl, besides evolving into French sel, Italian sale, Spanish sal, and Romanian sare, has contributed an enormous range of vocabulary to English, including salad, salary, saline [15], salsa, sauce, saucer, and sausage.

Its Germanic descendant was *salt-, which has produced Swedish, Danish, and English salt and Dutch zout, and also lies behind English silt and souse.
=> halogen, salad, salary, saline, salsa, sauce, saucer, sausage, silt, souse
saltcellar: saltcellar: [15] Saltcellar is a tautology – for etymologically it means ‘saltcellar for salt’. Its second element has no connection with underground rooms. Its spelling merely disguises its origins, which are in Anglo- Norman *saler ‘saltcellar’, a derivative ultimately of Latin sāl ‘salt’. This was adopted into English in the 14th century as saler, later seler, but when its etymological links with salt began to fade from people’s awareness, salt was tacked on to the front to reinforce the meaning, and when they disappeared altogether in the 16th century the spelling became assimilated to that of the similar-sounding cellar.
saltpetre: saltpetre: see petrol
salute: salute: [14] Salute goes back ultimately to the Latin noun salūs, a relative of salvus ‘safe, healthy’ (source of English safe and save). This had two main strands of meaning. The primary one was ‘health, well-being’, and in that sense it lies behind English salubrious [16] and salutary [15]. But by extension it also denoted a ‘wish for someone’s well-being’, hence a ‘greeting’, and it is this that has given English, via its derived verb salūtāre ‘greet’, salute.
=> safe, salubrious, save
salvage: salvage: [17] The salvage of a ship is etymologically simply a payment made for ‘saving’ it. The word comes via Old French salvage from medieval Latin salvāgium, a derivative of late Latin salvāre ‘save’ (source of English save). The use of English salvage as a verb is a comparatively recent development, dating from the 1880s.
=> save
salvation: salvation: see save
salve: salve: [OE] The central semantic element of modern English salve is ‘healing’, but its underlying etymological meaning is ‘oily substance’. It goes back to a prehistoric West Germanic *salbō, which had relatives in Greek élpos ‘oil’ and Sanskrit srpras ‘greasy’. The Germanic from has evolved into German salbe and Dutch zalf as well as English salve.
salver: salver: [17] The word salver recalls the ancient practice of paranoid monarchs employing a special servant to taste their food before it was committed to the royal mouth, in case it was poisoned. The Spanish term for this was salva, a derivative of the verb salvar ‘save’, hence ‘make safe, try something out to make sure it is safe’, which in turn was descended from Latin salvāre ‘save’ (source of English save). By extension the Spanish noun came to be used for a tray on which the tested food was presented to the king, and it passed into French as salve. When English adopted it, the ending -er was added, perhaps on the model of platter.
=> save
salvia: salvia: see safe