英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

seize [seize 词源字典]: seize: [13] Seize entered English as a term in the feudal legal system, meaning ‘take possession of property’. It was borrowed from Old French seisir, which went back via a Gallo-Latin *sacīre ‘claim’ to a prehistoric Germanic *sakjan. This in turn was derived from the base *sak- ‘process’, which also produced English sake (one of whose ancestral meanings was ‘legal action’).
=> sake[seize etymology, seize origin, 英语词源]
seldom: seldom: [OE] Seldom goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *selda-, of which the underlying notion appears to have been ‘strange and rare’. Its modern Germanic relatives include German selten, Dutch zelten, Swedish sällan, and Danish sjelden.
select: select: [16] Select is one of a wide range of English words that go back ultimately to Latin legere ‘choose’ or its past participle lectus (others include collect and elect and, from its later extended meaning ‘read’, lectern and lecture). Addition of the prefix sē- ‘apart’ produced sēligere ‘choose out’, whose past participle sēlectus gave English select, both as adjective and verb.
=> collect, elect, lecture, legible
self: self: [OE] Self is a general Germanic word, closely related to German selbe, Dutch zelf, Swedish sjelv, and Danish selv. These all point back to a prehistoric Germanic *selba-. Where this came from is not known for certain, although it seems likely to be related in some way to various pronouns denoting ‘oneself’, such as German sich and French se. According to John Hacket in his Scrinia reserata 1693, the word selfish was coined in the early 1640s by the Presbyterians.
sell: sell: [OE] The underlying etymological meaning of sell is ‘give up, hand over’, but gradually the notion of handing something over in exchange for something else, particularly money, led to its present-day sense. Both meanings co-existed in Old English, but the original one had largely died out by the 14th century. The word comes from a prehistoric Germanic *saljan, which also produced Swedish sälga and Danish sælge ‘sell’. The noun sale is a product of the same base.
=> sale
semantic: semantic: [17] Sēma was the Greek word for ‘sign’. It has been widely pressed into service in the modern European languages for coining new terms, including semaphore [19] (a borrowing from French, which etymologically means ‘signal-carrier’), semasiology [19] (a German coinage), and semiology [17]. The adjective derived from sēma was semantikós which reached English via French sémantique. It was fleetingly adopted in the mid-17th century as a word for ‘interpreting the ‘signs’ of weather’, but it did not come into its own as a linguistic term until the end of the 19th century.
=> semaphore, semiology
semblance: semblance: see similar
semen: semen: see seed
seminar: seminar: see seed
semolina: semolina: [18] Latin simila meant ‘fine flour’ (it has given English the simnel [13] of simnel cake, which originally denoted ‘bread made from fine flour’). From it was descended Italian semola ‘bran’, whose diminutive form semolino was adapted into English as semolina.
=> simnel
senate: senate: [13] The Roman senate was etymologically an assembly of ‘elders’. Latin senātus was a derivative of senex ‘old’, which has also given English senile, senior, sir, etc. English acquired the word via Old French senat. Senator [13] comes from the Latin derivative senātor.
=> senile, senior, sir
send: send: [OE] English shares send with the other Germanic languages – German senden, Dutch zenden, Swedish sönda, and Danish sende. These all go back to a prehistoric ancestor *santhjan, which originated as a causative derivative of a base denoting ‘go, journey’ – so etymologically send means ‘cause to go’.
senior: senior: [14] Senior was borrowed direct from Latin senior, which was the comparative form of senex ‘old’. This in turn was descended from the Indo-European base *sen-, which also produced Welsh hen, Gothic sineigs, Lithuanian senas, and Armenian hin, all meaning ‘old’. English is also indebted to senex for senate and senile [17], while senior has contributed sir and the whole range of Romance terms of address, including monsieur, sennor, and signor.
=> senate, senior, sir
sennight: sennight: see fortnight
señor: señor: see sir
sense: sense: [14] Sense comes ultimately from Latin sentīre ‘feel’, a prodigious contributor to English vocabulary (it is also the source of assent [13], consent, dissent [16], resent, sentence, sentient [17], and sentiment). From it was derived the noun sēnsus ‘faculty of perceiving’, which was borrowed by English as sense. And sēnsus in turn spawned its own derivatives, which have given English sensation [17], sensible [14], sensitive [14], sensual [15], and sensuous [17].
=> assent, consent, dissent, resent, sensible, sentence, sentiment
sentence: sentence: [13] ‘Complete grammatical unit’ is a comparatively recent meaning of sentence, which only emerged in English in the 15th century. Its Latin ancestor sententia originally meant ‘feeling’, for it was a derivative of sentīre ‘feel’ (source also of English sense, sentiment, etc). It subsequently broadened out to ‘opinion, judgment’, which was the starting point for the use of English sentence for ‘judicial declaration of punishment’. Sententia also came to denote ‘meaning’, and hence ‘meaning expressed in words’ and ‘maxim’.

The former lies behind the grammatical sense of English sentence, while the latter survives in the derived adjective sententious [15].
=> sense, sententious
sentiment: sentiment: [17] Sentiment comes via Old French sentiment from medieval Latin sentīmentum ‘feeling’, a derivative of Latin sentīre ‘feel’ (from which English gets sensation, sense, sentence, etc). It originally meant ‘feeling’ and ‘opinion’ (the former now defunct, the latter surviving with a somewhat old-fashioned air in such expressions as ‘My sentiments exactly!’). The sense ‘(excessively) refined feeling’ did not emerge until the mid-18th century.
=> sense
sentry: sentry: [17] Sentry is probably short for the now obsolete centrinell ‘sentry’. This first appeared in the 16th century as a variant of sentinel [16], which came via French sentinelle from Italian sentinella. It is not altogether clear where the Italian noun came from, but it may well have been derived from the verb sentire ‘perceive, watch’, a descendant of Latin sentīre ‘feel’ (from which English gets sense, sentence, sentiment, etc).
=> sentinel
separate: separate: [15] Etymologically, separate means ‘arrange apart’. It comes from the past participle of Latin sēparāre, a compound verb formed from the prefix sē- ‘apart’ and parāre ‘arrange (in advance), furnish, make ready’ (source also of English prepare). Sever is essentially the same word as separate, in reduced form.
=> prepare, sever