- smack
[smack 词源字典] - smack: English has four separate words smack. The oldest, ‘taste’ [OE], is now mainly used metaphorically (as in smack of ‘suggest’). It has relatives in German geschmack, Dutch smaak, Swedish smak, and Danish smag ‘taste’, and may be distantly linked to Lithuanian smagus ‘pleasing’. Smack ‘hit’ [16] at first meant ‘open the lips noisily’, and was borrowed from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch smacken, which no doubt originated in imitation of the noise made.
It was not used for ‘hit with the palm of the hand’ until the mid 19th century. The slang use of the derivative smacker for ‘money’ originated in the USA around the end of World War I. Smack ‘small sailing boat’ [17] was borrowed from Dutch smak, a word of unknown origin. And smack ‘heroin’ [20] is probably an alteration of schmeck ‘heroin or other drug’ [20], which in turn comes from Yiddish schmeck ‘sniff’.
[smack etymology, smack origin, 英语词源] - small
- small: [OE] Small comes from a prehistoric Germanic *smalaz, which in turn probably goes back ultimately to *smel-, a variant of the Indo- European base *mel- ‘grind’ (source of English meal, mill, etc). Etymologically, therefore, it could well denote ‘ground up into little bits’. Its Germanic relatives, such as German schmal and Dutch smal, have become specialized in meaning to ‘narrow’, but while English did start off down this semantic path, it has long since abandoned it.
=> meal, mill, molar - smallpox
- smallpox: see pox
- smart
- smart: [OE] Smart originated as a verb, meaning ‘be painful’. It came from a West Germanic base *smert-, *smart- (source also of German schmerz and Dutch smart ‘pain’), which may go back ultimately to the same Indo-European ancestor that produced Greek smerdnós ‘terrible’ and Latin mordēre ‘bite’ (source of English morsel, remorse, etc). The adjective smart was derived from the verb in the 11th century, and at first meant ‘stinging, painful’. Its modern senses ‘clever’ and ‘neat’ emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries respectively.
=> morsel, remorse - smear
- smear: [OE] Smear comes from a prehistoric Germanic *smerwjan, which also produced German schmieren, Dutch smeren, Swedish smörja, and Danish smøre. The Swedish and Danish words for ‘butter’, smör and smør, come from the same source (the former is the first element in the compound smörgåsbord ‘opensandwich table’, literally ‘butter goose table’, from which English gets smorgasbord [19]). Also closely related are Irish smir ‘marrow’ and Greek smúris ‘polishing powder’ (source of English emery [15]).
=> emery, smorgasbord - smell
- smell: [12] Smell is something of a mystery word. It is assumed to go back to an Old English *smiellan or *smyllan, but no such verb has been recorded, nor have any related forms in other languages been pin-pointed for certain. One theory links it with English smoulder [14] and the related Dutch smeulen ‘smoulder’, as if the notion of ‘smelling’ arose from the idea of breathing vapour or smoke through the nose.
- smelt
- smelt: see melt
- smile
- smile: [13] The Old English word for ‘smile’ was smearcian, ancestor of modern English smirk. This was descended ultimately from the Indo- European base *smei-, which also produced Greek meidos ‘laugh’, Sanskrit smeras ‘smiling’, Latvian smaidīt ‘smile’, and Russian smejat’ sja ‘laugh’. Smile, which from the 13th century began to push smirk towards the more specialized sense ‘smile in a self-satisfied way’, comes from the same base, and was probably borrowed from a Scandinavian source (Swedish has smila and Danish smile).
=> smirk - smite
- smite: [OE] Old English smītan meant ‘smear’ (it came from a prehistoric Germanic *smītan, which also produced German schmeissen ‘throw’, and probably went back ultimately to the Indo-European base *smēi-, source of Greek smékhein ‘rub, cleanse’, from which English gets smegma [19]). Exactly the same odd semantic development from ‘smear’ to ‘hit’, presumably via an intervening ‘stroke’, happened in the case of strike.
=> smegma, smut - smith
- smith: [OE] Smith is a general Germanic word, with relatives in German schmied, Dutch smid, and Swedish and Danish smed. These point back to a prehistoric Germanic ancestor *smithaz. This appears to have meant simply ‘worker, craftsman’, a sense which survived into Old Norse smithr. The specialization to ‘metalworker’ is a secondary development.
- smock
- smock: [OE] Smock originally denoted a woman’s undergarment, and etymologically it may be a garment one ‘creeps’ or ‘burrows’ into. For it may be related to Old English smūgan ‘creep’ and smygel ‘burrow’ and to Old Norse smjúga ‘creep into, put on a garment’. The underlying comparison seems to be between pulling on a tight undershirt over one’s head and burrowing into a narrow space. Low German smukkelen or smuggelen, the source of English smuggle [17], may come from the same source.
=> smuggle - smoke
- smoke: [OE] Smoke has close relatives in German schmauch and Dutch smook, now specialized in meaning to ‘thick smoke’. And more distantly it is linked to Welsh mwg and Breton moged ‘smoke’, Lithuanian smaugti ‘choke with smoke’, Greek smugenai ‘be consumed with heat’, and Armenian mux ‘smoke’. The use of the verb smoke in connection with tobacco is first recorded in 1604, in James I’s Counterblast to Tobacco.
- smooth
- smooth: [OE] Smooth is a mystery word, with no known relatives in any other Indo-European language. The usual term in Old English was smēthe, which survived into modern English dialect speech as smeeth. Smooth comes from the late Old English variant smōth.
- smorgasbord
- smorgasbord: see smear
- smuggle
- smuggle: see smock
- smut
- smut: [16] Smut is a member of a large but loosely-knit family of West Germanic words beginning with sm and ending in t or d that convey the general notion of ‘putting dirt on something’. Others include German schmutzen ‘get dirty’ and English smudge [15], and also English smite, which originally meant ‘smear’. Smut itself may have been borrowed from Low German smutt.
=> smite, smudge - snack
- snack: [15] Snack originally meant ‘bite’ (‘The … Tuscan hound … with his wide chafts [jaws] at him makes a snack’, Gavin Douglas, Æneid 1513). It was not used for a ‘quick meal’ (as in ‘have a bite to eat’) until the 18th century. It was borrowed from Middle Dutch snac or snack ‘bite’, which was closely related to snappen ‘seize’, source of English snap [15]. From snappen was derived the noun snaps ‘gulp, mouthful’, which was borrowed by German as schnapps ‘gin-like drink’, source of English schnapps [19]. And English snatch [13] is probably closely related to snack.
=> schnapps, snap, snatch - snail
- snail: [OE] Snail, like German dialect schnägel, Swedish snigel, and Danish snegl, comes from a prehistoric Germanic base *snag-, *sneg- ‘crawl’, which also produced German schnecke ‘snail’ and English snake. Lithuanian snāke ‘snail’ is a distant relative.
=> snake - snake
- snake: [OE] The snake, like the serpent (and indeed the snail) is etymologically the ‘crawling’ animal. Along with Swedish snok and Danish snog, it comes from a prehistoric Germanic base denoting ‘crawl’, which also produced English snail and German dialect schnaacken ‘crawl’.
=> snail - snap
- snap: see snack
