- abominable
[abominable 词源字典] - abominable: [14] The Latin original of this word meant ‘shun as an evil omen’. The prefix ab- ‘away’ was added to ōmen (source of English omen) to produce the verb abōminārī. From this was created the adjective abōminābilis, which reached English via Old French. From the 14th to the 17th century there was a general misapprehension that abominable was derived from Latin ab hominem ‘away from man’, hence ‘beastly, unnatural’.
This piece of fanciful folk etymology not only perpetuated the erroneous spelling abhominable throughout this period, but also seems to have contributed significantly to making the adjective much more strongly condemnatory.
=> omen[abominable etymology, abominable origin, 英语词源] - radio
- radio: [20] Radio began life, in the first decade of the 20th century, as an abbreviation of radiotelegraphy, a compound based on Latin radius. This originally meant ‘staff, stake’, but it is its secondary meanings that have contributed significantly to English: ‘spoke of a wheel’, for instance, lies behind English radius [16], and the notion of a ‘ray’ has produced radiant [15], radiate [17], radium [19] (etymologically a metal emitting ‘rays’), and indeed ray. Radiotelegraphy itself denoted the sending of messages by electromagnetic ‘rays’. Radar [20], coined in the USA in 1941, is an acronym formed from radio detection and ranging.
=> radar, radiate, radius, radium, ray - insignificant (adj.)
- 1650s, from in- (1) "not, opposite of" + significant. Related: Insignificantly.
- significant (adj.)
- 1570s, "having a meaning," from Latin significantem (nominative significans, present participle of significare "make known, indicate" (see signify). Earlier in the same sense was significative (c. 1400). Often "having a special or secret meaning," hence "important" (1761). Related: Significantly. Significant figure is from 1680s. Significant other (n.) attested by 1961, in psychology, "the most influential other person in the patient's world."
