英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

spathe [spathe 词源字典]: spathe: see spade
[spathe etymology, spathe origin, 英语词源]
spatial: spatial: see space
spatula: spatula: see spade
spawn: spawn: [14] Spawn is ultimately the same word as expand, and etymologically it denotes the ‘spreading out’ of a fish’s eggs by its shedding them into the water. The word comes from espaundre, an Anglo-Norman variant of Old French espandre ‘spread, shed’. This was descended from Latin expandere ‘spread out’ (source of English expand [15]), a compound verb formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and pandere ‘spread’.
=> expand
spay: spay: see spade
speak: speak: [OE] The usual Old English word for ‘speak’ was sprecan, which has close living relatives in German sprechen and Dutch spreken. Specan, the ancestor of modern English speak, did not appear until around the year 1000, but already by the 12th century it had virtually replaced sprecan. It is not known how the r-less form (which has no surviving relatives in other Germanic languages) arose, but it is clearly a secondary development of the r-form.

This seems to be connected with Danish spage ‘crackle’, Lithuanian sprageti ‘crackle’, and Sanskrit sphūrj- ‘crackle, rustle’, suggesting that the English word’s use for ‘utter, say’ arose via an earlier ‘crackle, prattle, babble, chatter’ (English ‘crack on about something’, ‘not what it’s cracked up to be’, and ‘crack a joke’ are remnants of an earlier widespread use of English crack for ‘speak’).
=> speech
spear: spear: [OE] Spear is a general Germanic word, with relatives in German and Dutch speer (the Scandinavian forms have died out). Its ultimate ancestry is uncertain, although it may have distant links with English spar and Latin sparus ‘hunting spear’.
special: special: [13] Latin speciēs originally denoted the ‘outward aspect’, the ‘look’ of something (it was derived from specere ‘look’, source of English spectacle, spectator, spy, etc). It later evolved metaphorically to ‘type, kind’, and in that sense was adopted by English as species [16] (spice is ultimately the same word). From it was derived the adjective speciālis ‘of a particular type’, which has given English special (especial [14] came via Old French especial). Other derivatives have given English specific [17], specify [13], specimen [17], and specious [17] (from Latin speciōsus ‘good-looking’).
=> spectacle, spectator, spice, spy
spectacle: spectacle: [14] Spectacle is one of a large family of English words that go back ultimately to Latin specere ‘look’ (a descendant of the Indo- European base *spek- ‘look’, of which a reversed Greek version *skep- gave English sceptic and scope). Others include special, species, spectator [16], spectre [17] (etymologically an ‘appearance’ or ‘image’), spectrum [17] (from Latin spectrum ‘appearance’, ultimate source also of spectre, and first used for the ‘band of colours’ by Isaac Newton around 1671), speculate [16], spite, and spy, not to mention prefixed forms such as aspect [14], auspice, conspicuous [16], espionage, expect, frontispiece, inspect [17], respect, and suspect. Spectacle itself comes via Old French spectacle from the Latin derivative spectāculum ‘show, sight’.

The application to a ‘device for seeing with’, which lies behind English spectacles [15] and its abbreviation specs [19], is a post-Latin development.
=> auspice, conspicuous, espionage, expect, frontispiece, inspect, respect, special, species, suspect
speech: speech: [OE] Speech originated as a derivative of the late Old English verb specan, ancestor of modern English speak. It was originally used for the ‘action of speaking’ in general, or for ‘conversation’; the modern application to an ‘address delivered to an audience’ did not emerge until the 16th century.
=> speak
speed: speed: [OE] Speed originally meant ‘success, prosperity’ – and when you wish someone Godspeed, you are wishing them ‘good fortune’. Largely, though, it is the secondary sense ‘quickness’, which first emerged in the late Old English period, that has survived to the present day. It has a surviving Germanic relative in Dutch spoed ‘quickness’, and it also has possible links with Old Church Slavonic speti ‘succeed’. It was first used as a slang term for ‘amphetamine’ in the mid 1960s.
spell: spell: English has three distinct words spell, although two of them come from the same ultimate source. Spell ‘name the letters of a word’ [13] was adapted from Old French espeler ‘read out’. This was descended from an earlier *espeldre, which was borrowed from prehistoric Germanic *spellōn. And it was a noun relative of this, *spellam, which gave English spell ‘magic formula’ [OE]. Spell ‘period of time’ [16] may go back ultimately to Old English spelian ‘substitute’; its original meaning was ‘replace someone else at a job’, and the main modern sense ‘period of time’ did not emerge, via ‘period of work’, until the 18th century.
spend: spend: [OE] Spend is a blend of verbs from two distinct sources, but both going back ultimately to Latin pendere ‘weigh, pay’. The earlier was Latin expendere ‘pay out’ (later to give English expend [15]), which Old English took over as spendan. (It was also the source of German spenden.) This was later reinforced by dispend, a borrowing from Old French despendre which now survives only in dispense.
=> dispense, expend, pendant, pendulum
sperm: sperm: [14] Sperm is etymologically something that is ‘sown’, like ‘seed’. The word comes, via late Latin sperma, from Greek spérma ‘seed’. This was a derivative of the same base as produced English diaspora, sporadic, and spore, and it may ultimately be related to English spray.
=> diaspora, sporadic, spore
spew: spew: see spit
sphere: sphere: [17] Sphere goes back ultimately to Greek sphaira, a word of uncertain origin, which reached English via Latin sphaera or sphēra and Old French espere. Amongst the theories put forward to account for its ancestry are that it was derived from Greek sphurás ‘fall of dung, round pellet of dung, pill’, which has relatives in Lithuanian spira ‘sheep-dung’ and modern Icelandic sperthill ‘goat-dung’; and that it is related to Greek spaírein ‘quiver’ and Sanskrit sphur- ‘spring, quiver, trouble’. It metaphorical use in English for ‘area of activity’ dates from the early 17th century.
sphinx: sphinx: [16] The original Sphinx was a monster, half woman and half lion, which terrorized the country around Thebes in ancient Greece. According to legend, it would waylay travellers and ask them a riddle; and if they could not solve it, it killed them. One of its favoured methods was strangulation, and its name supposedly means ‘the strangler’ – as if it were derived from Greek sphíggein ‘bind tight’ (source of English sphincter [16]).

However, this account of its name sounds as mythological as the account of its existence, and a more likely explanation is perhaps that the word was derived from the name of Mount Phikion, not far from ancient Thebes. One of the first yachts to carry a spinnaker sail, in the mid-1860s, was the Sphinx, and it has been conjectured that its name (or rather a mispronunciation /spingks/) formed the basis of the term spinnaker [19], perhaps as a partial blend with spanker, the name of another type of sail.
=> spinnaker
spice: spice: [13] Spice is ultimately the same word as species. It comes via Old French espice from Latin speciēs ‘appearance, kind’. In late Latin its plural came to be used for ‘goods, wares’, probably from the notion of a particular ‘sort’ of merchandise, and by the time the word reached English its usage had narrowed still further to ‘aromatic plant substances of oriental or tropical origin, used in cooking’.
=> special
spick and span: spick and span: see spike
spider: spider: [OE] The spider is etymologically the ‘spinner’. Its name goes back to a primitive Old English *spinthron, a derivative of the verb spinnan ‘spin’. The inspiration is the same, and much more obvious, behind other Germanic words for ‘spider’, such as German spinne, Dutch spinner, Swedish spindel, and Danish spinder.
=> spin