英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

sinuous [sinuous 词源字典]: sinuous: see sine
[sinuous etymology, sinuous origin, 英语词源]
sinus: sinus: see sine
sir: sir: [13] In common with many other European terms of address for men (such as monsieur and señor), sir goes back ultimately to Latin senior ‘older’ (source also of English senior). This was reduced in Vulgar Latin to *seior, which found its way into Old French as *sieire, later sire. English borrowed this as sire [13], which in weakly-stressed positions (prefixed to names, for instance) became sir.

Other titles based on senior that have found their way into English include French monsieur [15] (literally ‘my sire’), together with its plural messieurs [17], abbreviated to messrs [18]; French seigneur [16]; Spanish señor [17]; and Italian signor [16]. Surly [16] is an alteration of an earlier sirly ‘lordly’, a derivative of sir.

The meaning ‘grumpy’ evolved via an intermediate ‘haughty’.
=> senator, senior, sire, surly
siren: siren: [14] The Seirēnes were sea nymphs who, according to Greek mythology, sat on rocks luring impressionable sailors to their doom with the sweetness of their singing. Latin took the word over as sīrēna, and it passed into English via Old French sereine. The term was applied to an acoustical instrument invented in 1819 by Cagniard de la Tour, that produced musical sounds and was used for measuring the frequency of sound waves, and it was this that formed the basis of its later use (in the 1870s) for a device for giving loud warning signals.
sirloin: sirloin: [16] One of the oldest of etymological chestnuts is that sirloin got its name because a particular English king found the joint of beef so excellent that he knighted it. The monarch in question has been variously identified as Henry VIII, James I, and Charles II, but while the first of these is chronologically possible, in fact the story has no truth in it at all. The more sober facts are that the word was borrowed from Old French *surloigne, a compound formed from sur ‘above’ and loigne ‘loin’ (source of English loin). The spelling sir- (first recorded in the 18th century) no doubt owes something to the ‘knighting’ story.
=> loin, lumbar
sirocco: sirocco: [17] The sirocco is a hot wind that blows into southern Europe from North Africa. Etymologically its name means ‘east’ wind. The term comes via French sirocco and Italian scirocco from Arabic sharūq ‘east’, hence ‘east wind’, a derivative of the verbal past form sharaqa ‘rose’ (the allusion being to the direction of the rising sun).
sister: sister: [OE] Sister is one of a widespread family of ‘sister’-words that go back ultimately to Indo- European *swesor. Amongst its other descendants are Latin soror (source of French soeur, Italian sorella, and Romanian sora, not to mention English sorority [16]), Russian, Czech, and Serbo-Croat sestra, Polish siostra, Welsh chwaer, Breton c’hoar, Lithuanian sesuo, and Sanskrit svasar-. To prehistoric Germanic it contributed *swestr, which has evolved into German schwester, Dutch zuster, Swedish syster, Danish søster, and English sister. English cousin goes back ultimately to a compound based on *swesor, the Old Latin antecedent of soror.
=> sorority
sit: sit: [OE] Sit comes from a prehistoric Germanic *sitjan or *setjan, which also produced German sitzen, Dutch zitten, Swedish sitta, and Danish sidde. This was derived from a base *set-, source also of English seat, set (etymologically ‘cause to sit’), and settle. And this in turn went back to the Indo-European base *sed- ‘sit’, which has contributed hugely to English vocabulary – mainly through its Latin descendant sedēre ‘sit’ (source of English assess, insidious, séance, session, size, subsidy, etc), but also via Welsh, in the form of eisteddfod.

It lies in addition behind English saddle and soot, and its other progeny include Russian sidet’, Serbo-Croat sjediti, and Latvian sēdēt ‘sit’.
=> assess, eisteddfod, insidious, saddle, séance, seat, session, set, settle, size, subsidy
situate: situate: [16] Situate, originally an adjective, goes back to late Latin situātus ‘placed’, a derivative of Latin situs ‘position’ (from which English gets site [14]). This probably originated as a noun use of situs, the past participle of sinere ‘allow’, hence ‘allow to stay’, hence ‘put’.
=> site
six: six: [OE] The Indo-European ancestor of six was *seks, which also produced Latin sex (source of English sextant, sextuplet, etc), Greek héx, Welsh chwech, Russian shest’, etc. The word’s Germanic relatives include German sechs, Dutch zes, and Swedish and Danish sex.
=> sextant
size: size: [13] The etymological notion underlying size is of ‘settling’ something, of fixing an amount. The word is a curtailed version of assize, which went back ultimately to Latin assidēre, literally ‘sit beside someone’. By the time it reached English, via Old French, it had acquired connotations of ‘sitting down to make a judgment on something’, such as a law case (hence the meaning of English assize).

Other matters decided on in this way included the standardization of amounts (of taxes, for example, or food), and this led to the word size being used for ‘dimension’. Size ‘gum’ [15] may be the same word, but the nature of the relationship between the two is unclear.
=> assize, sit
skate: skate: English has two words skate. The older is the fish-name [14], which was borrowed from Old Norse skata. Skate used for gliding over ice [17] comes from an Old French word for ‘stilt’ – eschasse. Its northern dialect form was escase. This was borrowed into English in the 16th century as the now obsolete scatch ‘stilt’, and into Middle Dutch as schaetse, its meaning unaccountably changed to ‘skate’.

Its modern Dutch descendant schaats was borrowed into English as scates, which soon came to be regarded as a plural, and was ‘singularized’ to skate. Eschasse itself came from a Frankish *skakkja, a derivative of the verb *skakan ‘run fast’, which in turn was descended from prehistoric Germanic *skakan (source of English shake).
=> shake
skeleton: skeleton: [16] A skeleton is etymologically a ‘dried-up’ or ‘withered’ body. The word comes via modern Latin from Greek skeletón, short for sóma skeletón ‘dried-up body’. The adjective skeletós was derived from skéllein ‘dry up, wither’, and was related to sklērós ‘dry, hard’, from which English gets sclerosis [14].
=> sclerosis
sketch: sketch: [17] Sketch comes ultimately from Greek skhédios ‘impromptu’. This reached English by a rather roundabout route: via Latin schedius, which led to a Vulgar Latin verb schediāre ‘do hastily’, source of Italian schizzare ‘make a sketch’, which in turn produced the noun schizzo ‘sketch’, borrowed into English via German skizze or Dutch schets.
skew: skew: see eschew
skewbald: skewbald: [17] Skewbald, which denotes a horse with brown and white patches, is a compound formed (on the model of piebald) from an earlier skued ‘skewbald’ and bald (in the ancestral sense ‘having white patches on the coat’). It is not clear where skued came from. One candidate as its ancestor is Old French escu ‘shield’, as if it meant etymologically ‘marked with shield shapes’ or ‘chequered’, but another possibility is Middle English skew ‘(cloudy) skies’.
ski: ski: [19] A ski is etymologically a piece of wood ‘split’ from a tree trunk. The word was borrowed from Norwegian ski, a descendant of Old Norse skíth ‘piece of split wood, ski’. This in turn came from the prehistoric Germanic base *skīth-, *skaith- ‘divide, split’, source also of English sheath, shed, etc. The Norwegian word is pronounced /she/, and that is the way in which it was once often said (and indeed sometimes spelled) in English. (Old Norse skíth may also lie behind English skid [17], which originally meant ‘block of wood used as a support’, hence ‘wooden chock for stopping a wheel’.

The modern sense only emerged in the 19th century, from the notion of a wheel slipping when it is prevented from revolving.)
=> sheath, shed, skid
skiff: skiff: see ship
skill: skill: [12] Skill etymologically denotes not a physical accomplishment, but the mental capacity to make ‘distinctions’. It was borrowed from Old Norse skil ‘distinction, discernment, knowledge’, whose relatives include Dutch geschil ‘difference’, and which goes back ultimately to the prehistoric Germanic base *skel- ‘divide, separate’ (source also of English scale, shell, shield, etc). The modern English sense emerged in the 13th century.
=> scale, shell, shield
skillet: skillet: [15] Skillet may come ultimately from the same source as English scuttle ‘large container’ – Latin scutella, a diminutive form of scutra ‘dish, platter’. This was altered in the postclassical period to *scūtella, which passed into Old French as escuele (source of Middle English skele ‘dish’, recorded only once). A further diminutive form escuelete ‘small platter’ emerged, which is a plausible source of English skillet. (An alternative possibility is that it was derived from the now virtually obsolete English skeel ‘bucket’ [14], which was borrowed from a Scandinavian source related to Old Norse skjóla ‘bucket’.)
=> scuttle