英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

cousin [cousin 词源字典]: cousin: [13] The word cousin is etymologically related to sister. It comes via Old French cosin from Latin consobrīnus, which meant literally ‘child of one’s mother’s sister’ – that is, ‘cousin on one’s mother’s side’ (consobrīnus was a compound noun formed from the prefix com- ‘together’ and sobrīnus ‘maternal cousin’, a derivative of soror ‘sister’ and relative of English sister).

By the time it entered English, it had already broadened out in meaning to cover paternal as well as maternal cousins, and indeed in the Middle Ages it was applied more generally still to any relative other than one’s parents or brother and sister (probably through association with Latin consanguineus ‘blood relative’).
=> sister[cousin etymology, cousin origin, 英语词源]
father: father: [OE] Father is the English representative of a general Indo-European family of words for ‘male parent’. Its ancestor is Indo-European pətér, which probably originated (like the words for ‘mother’, and indeed like English daddy and papa and Welsh tad ‘father’) in prearticulate syllables interpreted by proud parents as words. Its multifarious descendants include Greek patér, Latin pater (whence French père, Italian and Spanish padre – borrowed into English in the 16th century – and English pater, paternal, patriarch, patrician, patriot, and patron), Irish athair, Armenian hayr, German vater, Dutch vader, Swedish and Danish fader, and English father.

A less obvious relation is perpetrate [16]; this comes ultimately from Latin perpetrāre, a derivative of the verb patrāre, which originally meant literally ‘perform or accomplish in the capacity of a father’.
=> paternal, patriot, patron, perpetrate
bot (n.): in Internet sense, c. 2000, short for robot. Its modern use has curious affinities with earlier uses, such as "parasitical worm or maggot" (1520s), of unknown origin; and Australian-New Zealand slang "worthless, troublesome person" (World War I-era). The method of minting new slang by clipping the heads off words does not seem to be old or widespread in English. Examples (za from pizza, zels from pretzels, rents from parents) are American English student or teen slang and seem to date back no further than late 1960s.
Byronic (adj.): 1823, pertaining to or resembling British poet George Gordon, 6th Baron Byron (1788-1824).
Perfect she was, but as perfection is
Insipid in this naughty world of ours,
Where our first parents never learn'd to kiss
Till they were exiled from their earlier bowers,
Where all was peace, and innocence, and bliss
(I wonder how they got through the twelve hours),
Don Jose like a lineal son of Eve,
Went plucking various fruit without her leave.

[from "Don Juan"]
child (n.): Old English cild "fetus, infant, unborn or newly born person," from Proto-Germanic *kiltham (cognates: Gothic kilþei "womb," inkilþo "pregnant;" Danish kuld "children of the same marriage;" Old Swedish kulder "litter;" Old English cildhama "womb," lit. "child-home"); no certain cognates outside Germanic. "App[arently] originally always used in relation to the mother as the 'fruit of the womb'" [Buck]. Also in late Old English, "a youth of gentle birth" (archaic, usually written childe). In 16c.-17c. especially "girl child."

The wider sense "young person before the onset of puberty" developed in late Old English. Phrase with child "pregnant" (late 12c.) retains the original sense. The sense extension from "infant" to "child" also is found in French enfant, Latin infans. Meaning "one's own child; offspring of parents" is from late 12c. (the Old English word was bearn; see bairn). Figurative use from late 14c. Most Indo-European languages use the same word for "a child" and "one's child," though there are exceptions (such as Latin liberi/pueri).

The difficulty with the plural began in Old English, where the nominative plural was at first cild, identical with the singular, then c.975 a plural form cildru (genitive cildra) arose, probably for clarity's sake, only to be re-pluraled late 12c. as children, which is thus a double plural. Middle English plural cildre survives in Lancashire dialect childer and in Childermas.

Child abuse is attested by 1963; child-molester from 1950. Child care is from 1915. Child's play, figurative of something easy, is in Chaucer (late 14c.).
elder (n.1): "elderly person, senior citizen," c. 1200, from Old English eldra "older person, parent; ancestor; chief, prince" (used in biblical translation for Greek presbyter); see elder (adj.). Compare German Eltern, Danish forældre, Swedish föräldrar "parents." The Old English for "grandfather" was ealdfæder.
Eros (n.): god of love, late 14c., from Greek eros (plural erotes), "god or personification of love," literally "love," from eran "to love," erasthai "to love, desire," which is of uncertain origin.

Freudian sense of "urge to self-preservation and sexual pleasure" is from 1922. Ancient Greek distinguished four ways of love: erao "to be in love with, to desire passionately or sexually;" phileo "have affection for;" agapao "have regard for, be contented with;" and stergo, used especially of the love of parents and children or a ruler and his subjects.
family (n.): early 15c., "servants of a household," from Latin familia "family servants, domestics collectively, the servants in a household," thus also "members of a household, the estate, property; the household, including relatives and servants," from famulus "servant, slave," which is of unknown origin.

The Latin word rarely appears in the sense "parents with their children," for which domus (see domestic (adj.)) was used. Derivatives of famulus include famula "serving woman, maid," famulanter "in the manner of a servant," famulitas "servitude," familiaris "of one's household, private," familiaricus "of household slaves," familiaritas "close friendship."

In English, sense of "collective body of persons who form one household under one head and one domestic government, including parents, children, and servants, and as sometimes used even lodgers or boarders" [Century Dictionary] is from 1540s. From 1660s as "parents with their children, whether they dwell together or not," also in a more general sense, "persons closely related by blood, including aunts, uncles, cousins;" earlier "those who descend from a common progenitor, a house, a lineage" (1580s). Hence, "any group of things classed as kindred based on common distinguishing characteristics" (1620s); as a scientific classification, between genus and order, from 1753.
I have certainly known more men destroyed by the desire to have wife and child and to keep them in comfort than I have seen destroyed by drink and harlots. [William Butler Yeats, "Autobiography"]
Replaced Old English hiwscipe, hiwan "family," cognate with Old Norse hjon "one of the household; married couple, man and wife; domestic servant," and with Old High German hiwo "husband," hiwa "wife," also with Lithuanian šeimyna "family," Gothic haims "village," Old English ham "village, home" (see home (n.)).

As an adjective from c. 1600; with the meaning "suitable for a family," by 1807. Family values first recorded 1966. Phrase in a family way "pregnant" is from 1796. Family circle is 1809; family man "man devoted to wife and children, man inclined to lead a domestic life" is 1856 (earlier it meant "thief," 1788, from family in a slang sense of "the fraternity of thieves"). Family-tree "graph of ancestral relations" attested from 1752:
He was dressed in his best Coat, which had served him in the same Capacity before my Birth, and possibly, might be but little short in Antiquity, to the Root of his third Family Tree; and indeed, he made a venerable Figure in it. ["A Genuine Account of the Life and Transactions of Howell ap David Price, Gentleman of Wales," London, 1752]

Happy family an assemblage of animals of diverse habits and propensities living amicably, or at least quietly, together in one cage. [Century Dictionary, 1902]
The phrase is attested from 1844.
german (adj.): "of the same parents or grandparents," c. 1300, from Old French germain "own, full; born of the same mother and father; closely related" (12c.), from Latin germanus "full, own (of brothers and sisters); one's own brother; genuine, real, actual, true," related to germen (genitive germinis) "sprout, bud," of uncertain origin; perhaps dissimilated from PIE *gen(e)-men-, from root *gene- "to give birth, beget" (see genus). Your cousin-german (also first cousin) is the son or daughter of an uncle or aunt; your children and your first cousin's are second cousins to one another; to you, your first cousin's children are first cousin once removed.
germane (adj.): mid-14c., "having the same parents," same as german (adj.) but directly from Latin germanus instead of via French (compare urbane/urban). Main modern sense of "closely connected, relevant" (c. 1600) derives from use in "Hamlet" Act V, Scene ii: "The phrase would bee more Germaine to the matter: If we could carry Cannon by our sides," which is a figurative use of the word in the now-obsolete loosened sense of "closely related, akin" (late 15c.) in reference to things, not persons.
grandparent (n.): 1802, from grand- + parent (n.). Related: Grandparents; grandparental.
latchkey: also latch-key, 1825, a key to draw back the latch of a door, from latch (n.) + key (n.1). Latchkey child first recorded 1944, American English, in reference to children who come home from school while both parents are at work.
mulatto (n.): 1590s, "offspring of a European and a black African," from Spanish or Portuguese mulato "of mixed breed," literally "young mule," from mulo "mule," from Latin mulus (fem. mula) "mule" (see mule (n.1)); possibly in reference to hybrid origin of mules. As an adjective from 1670s. Fem. mulatta is attested from 1620s; mulattress from 1805.
American culture, even in its most rigidly segregated precincts, is patently and irrevocably composite. It is, regardless of all the hysterical protestations of those who would have it otherwise, incontestibly mulatto. Indeed, for all their traditional antagonisms and obvious differences, the so-called black and so-called white people of the United States resemble nobody else in the world so much as they resemble each other. [Albert Murray, "The Omni-Americans: Black Experience & American Culture," 1970]
Old English had sunderboren "born of disparate parents."
nisei (n.): "American born of Japanese parents," from Japanese ni- "second" + sei "generation." Use limited to U.S. West Coast until c. 1942.
orphan (n.): c. 1300, from Late Latin orphanus "parentless child" (source of Old French orfeno, Italian orfano), from Greek orphanos "orphaned, without parents, fatherless," literally "deprived," from orphos "bereft," from PIE *orbho- "bereft of father," also "deprived of free status," from root *orbh- "to change allegiance, to pass from one status to another" (cognates: Hittite harb- "change allegiance," Latin orbus "bereft," Sanskrit arbhah "weak, child," Armenian orb "orphan," Old Irish orbe "heir," Old Church Slavonic rabu "slave," rabota "servitude" (see robot), Gothic arbja, German erbe, Old English ierfa "heir," Old High German arabeit, German Arbeit "work," Old Frisian arbed, Old English earfoð "hardship, suffering, trouble"). As an adjective from late 15c.
parental (adj.): 1620s, from Latin parentalis "of parents," from parens (see parent (n.)). Related: Parentally.
quark (n.): 1964, applied by U.S. physicist Murray Gell-Mann (b.1929), who said in correspondence with the editors of the OED in 1978 that he took it from a word in James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" (1939), but also that the sound of the word was in his head before he encountered the printed form in Joyce. German Quark "curds, rubbish" has been proposed as the ultimate inspiration [Barnhart; Gell-Mann's parents were immigrants from Austria-Hungary]. George Zweig, Gell-Mann's co-proposer of the theory, is said to have preferred the name ace for them.
sansei (n.): "American born of nisei parents; third-generation Japanese-American," 1945, from Japanese san "three, third" + sei "generation."
step-: Old English steop-, with connotations of "loss," in combinations like steopcild "orphan," related to astiepan, bestiepan "to bereave, to deprive of parents or children," from Proto-Germanic *steupa- "bereft" (cognates: Old Frisian stiap-, Old Norse stjup-, Swedish styv-, Middle Low German stef-, Dutch stief-, Old High German stiof-, German stief-), literally "pushed out," from PIE *steup-, from root *(s)teu- (1) "to push, stick, knock," with derivatives referring to fragments (see steep (adj.)). Barnhart suggests the forms in -f- are by assimilation of the first sound in following words for "father."

Etymologically, a stepfather or stepmother is one who becomes father or mother to an orphan, but the notion of orphanage faded in 20c. and came to denote simply relation through marriage. For sense evolution, compare Latin privignus "stepson," related to privus "deprived." Compare orphan (n.).
thou (pron.): 2nd nominative singular personal pronoun, Old English þu, from Proto-Germanic *thu (cognates: Old Frisian thu, Middle Dutch and Middle Low German du, Old High German and German du, Old Norse þu, Gothic þu), from PIE *tu-, second person singular pronoun (cognates: Latin tu, Irish tu, Welsh ti, Greek su, Lithuanian tu, Old Church Slavonic ty, Sanskrit twa-m).

Superseded in Middle English by plural form you (from a different root), but retained in certain dialects (e.g. early Quakers). The plural at first was used in addressing superior individuals, later also (to err on the side of propriety) strangers, and ultimately all equals. By c. 1450 the use of thou to address inferiors gave it a tinge of insult unless addressed by parents to children, or intimates to one another. Hence the verb meaning "to use 'thou' to a person" (mid-15c.).
Avaunt, caitiff, dost thou thou me! I am come of good kin, I tell thee! ["Hickscorner," c. 1530]
A brief history of the second person pronoun in English can be found here.
altricial: "(Of a young bird or other animal) hatched or born in an undeveloped state and requiring care and feeding by the parents", Late 19th century: from Latin altrix, altric-, feminine of altor 'nourisher', from alere 'nourish'.
adventive: "That comes from outside or from some external source; extrinsically added; extraneous; foreign", Early 17th cent.; earliest use found in Francis Bacon (1561–1626), lord chancellor, politician, and philosopher. From post-classical Latin adventivus (of a dowry) not derived from parents, of foreign origin from classical Latin advent-, past participial stem of advenīre + -īvus. Compare Middle French, French adventif.