8天攻克英语六级8000词汇(六)
2009-10-15来源:和谐英语
CUE: first a tail
The long, tapering stick that we use in billiards takes its name from the Latin cauda, “tail.” The spelling form is greatly changed, but this is natural, for the game of billiards was popular and played by all classes, and the name of the stick that is used in the game passed through dozens of dialects before it emerged as coe, then cue. Our word queue is exactly the same term, but its form was adopted from the modern French spelling. Its common meaning, of course, is “pigtail.” But other thing can be long and tapering too, like the queue that waits for the second show at the movies.
FORFEIT: originally a crime
With us a forfeit is not much more than a penalty in games. As Augustin Daly said in one of his plays back in the 8o’s: “I wish to gracious we could have one of those old-fashion forfeit games where kissing comes in.” But in Old English days a forfaite was a crime, as was a forfait in Old French. If you were discovered committing a forfait, you were arrested. This French word is a compound of the Old French words fors, “outside,” and fait, “done,” hence it literally meant “done outside” or “beyond,” and thus beyond the bounds of the law. This led to the original meaning of transgression, and transgress, itself, simply means “to step across,” that is, across the legal line. A sister word of forfeit is counterfeit from the French word contrefaire, “imitate” or “make parallel with.”
GOLF: named from a club
It is unfortunate that the origin of the name of such a popular game cannot be traced with absolute surety. The majority of the scholars claim that it came from the Dutch word kolf, the term for a club that was used in such games as hockey and croquet. This might indicate that golf began in Holland. It is true that most of the early accounts of the game are out of Scotland, but the records show, nevertheless, that the Scotch imported their best golf balls from the Dutch. The game grew to such popularity in Scotland that the government became disturbed. Golf was crowding out archery as a sport, and practice in archery was important to war. So in March,1457, the Scottish Parliament decreed that golf be “utterly cryit doun and nochtusit.” A few years later James I forbade it entirely, as he had done with bowling, yet the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer for 1503-1506 still show that the Crown’s money was going for golf balls. As s side light, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, was a golf fiend and played a few rounds several days after the murder of her husband. However, as students of history will recall, the girl came to no good end.
GYMNASTICS: in the nude
It is easy to see the resemblance between our word gymnastics and its Greek parent gymnazo, which means “train naked” and comes from gymnos, meaning just plain “naked.” In ancient Greece, exercises were often performed in the nude by both boys and men, and, at one period, the famous Olympic track meets were run off in the nude. The Greeks of the time believed that nudity was conducive to health, just as our passionate sunbathers do today. The great Greek physician Hippocrates claimed that the sun was health and soothing to the nerves of the back. As an amusing side note, our mineral “gymnite” is so called because it is found at Bare Hills, Maryland! With us modern gymnastics are usually performed in a gymnasium while the term athletics generally applies to outdoor contests. The word athletics descends to us from the Greek athlon, the “prize” that the winning athlete received.
HAZARD: the die is cast
At one time hazard simply meant a dice game, as is indicated by the Arabic origin of the word, al, “the,” and zahr, “die.” But since the cast of the dice is uncertain, the Arabic word al-zahr came into Spanish as azar, meaning “an unexpected accident.” This entered French as hasard, English as hazard. Hazard is still a gambling game, but the word now also means exposure to the chance of loss or injury.
MARATHON: recalls an ancient battle
Nearly two and one-half millenniums ago a little band of 10,000 Athenians defeated 100,000 Persians at the battle of Marathon. A courageous runner brought the news of the thrilling victory to the city of Athens that lay some 26miles away. When the Olympic Games were revived for the first time in 1869, a long distance race was planned to cover the same ground that the earlier runner had traversed almost 2,400 years before. Quite properly, a Greek won this event. Now the word marathon can
11.Terms of Place,Time, Shape, and Size, and their Origins
FATHOM
Fathom is now six feet.And since sailors are primarily interested in depth,we finally devised the abstract verb fathom which meant “to get to the bottom of ”as of a problem or mystery.
FURLONG:as long as a furrow
The modern fancier of race horses calls this measure of distance a furlong,but there was a period in England when the word was spelled furlang,furh for the “furrow”that the farmer turns with his plow,and lang for “long.”That is,a furlong was just as long as a furrow,and in those days a furrow was reasonably constant in length because a furrow was thought of as existing in a field of ten acres.But this measure was still a little elastic for accuracy and by the 9th century the wise men decided to call a furlong an eighth of a mile and let it go at that.Today a furlong is 220 yards.
GEYSER: a gusher
In Iceland in an area of about two square miles there are approximately a hundred hot springs that have been a source of wonder to men for centuries .The Icelandic name for such a spring is hver.The largest of the group,however ,has been named the geysir,and from this came our word geyser. The literal meaning of geysir in Iceland is gusher.
HALCYON:started as a kingfisher
Halcyon days are days of peace and calm when the skies are clear and the winds are still.These days had an actual place on the ancient calendar and were the fourteen days at about the time of the winter solstice .It was during this period that the halcyon,or kingfisher,was supposed to sit on her nest as it floated in the sea.She was believed,you see,to have a magic power to calm the winds and waves so that her nest would be secure .Halcyon is a Latin word that came from the Grddk term,alcyon,or “kingfisher.”
JOURNEY: a day’s mileage
This word is based,with several shifts of sound and derivation ,on the Latin word diurnum,”day.”A journey used to mean the distance covered in a “day”;and that journal of yours is what you have written in a “day.”So is a diary (from dies ,another Latin word for day).When we sojourn we spend the “day”and when we adjourn we have finished those things,”belonging to the day.”Or should we adjourn sine die,Latin for “without a day,”our meeting is adjourned indefinitely.And you could guess that a journeyman plumber is really a “day laborer.”
MILESTONE: a thousand paces
It seems that Augustus,first of the Roman emperors,set up a central stone in the Forum called a milliarium from which all distances were reckoned. The mane of this key stone was derived from the Latin word mille which meant a “thousand,”for the Roman mile was calculated as a thousand paces with each pace equalling five feet. Under the imperial regime,the roads were systematically marked off every mille passuum,or thousand paces.and a stone,or milliarium,was set up with the mane of the emperor carved on it,the date ,the place from which the distance was measured,and usually the name of the roadmaker.In forming our word milestone,we took the first half from the Latin word ,mille,but for the second half we adopted the simple native word stan,now stone.
The long, tapering stick that we use in billiards takes its name from the Latin cauda, “tail.” The spelling form is greatly changed, but this is natural, for the game of billiards was popular and played by all classes, and the name of the stick that is used in the game passed through dozens of dialects before it emerged as coe, then cue. Our word queue is exactly the same term, but its form was adopted from the modern French spelling. Its common meaning, of course, is “pigtail.” But other thing can be long and tapering too, like the queue that waits for the second show at the movies.
FORFEIT: originally a crime
With us a forfeit is not much more than a penalty in games. As Augustin Daly said in one of his plays back in the 8o’s: “I wish to gracious we could have one of those old-fashion forfeit games where kissing comes in.” But in Old English days a forfaite was a crime, as was a forfait in Old French. If you were discovered committing a forfait, you were arrested. This French word is a compound of the Old French words fors, “outside,” and fait, “done,” hence it literally meant “done outside” or “beyond,” and thus beyond the bounds of the law. This led to the original meaning of transgression, and transgress, itself, simply means “to step across,” that is, across the legal line. A sister word of forfeit is counterfeit from the French word contrefaire, “imitate” or “make parallel with.”
GOLF: named from a club
It is unfortunate that the origin of the name of such a popular game cannot be traced with absolute surety. The majority of the scholars claim that it came from the Dutch word kolf, the term for a club that was used in such games as hockey and croquet. This might indicate that golf began in Holland. It is true that most of the early accounts of the game are out of Scotland, but the records show, nevertheless, that the Scotch imported their best golf balls from the Dutch. The game grew to such popularity in Scotland that the government became disturbed. Golf was crowding out archery as a sport, and practice in archery was important to war. So in March,1457, the Scottish Parliament decreed that golf be “utterly cryit doun and nochtusit.” A few years later James I forbade it entirely, as he had done with bowling, yet the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer for 1503-1506 still show that the Crown’s money was going for golf balls. As s side light, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, was a golf fiend and played a few rounds several days after the murder of her husband. However, as students of history will recall, the girl came to no good end.
GYMNASTICS: in the nude
It is easy to see the resemblance between our word gymnastics and its Greek parent gymnazo, which means “train naked” and comes from gymnos, meaning just plain “naked.” In ancient Greece, exercises were often performed in the nude by both boys and men, and, at one period, the famous Olympic track meets were run off in the nude. The Greeks of the time believed that nudity was conducive to health, just as our passionate sunbathers do today. The great Greek physician Hippocrates claimed that the sun was health and soothing to the nerves of the back. As an amusing side note, our mineral “gymnite” is so called because it is found at Bare Hills, Maryland! With us modern gymnastics are usually performed in a gymnasium while the term athletics generally applies to outdoor contests. The word athletics descends to us from the Greek athlon, the “prize” that the winning athlete received.
HAZARD: the die is cast
At one time hazard simply meant a dice game, as is indicated by the Arabic origin of the word, al, “the,” and zahr, “die.” But since the cast of the dice is uncertain, the Arabic word al-zahr came into Spanish as azar, meaning “an unexpected accident.” This entered French as hasard, English as hazard. Hazard is still a gambling game, but the word now also means exposure to the chance of loss or injury.
MARATHON: recalls an ancient battle
Nearly two and one-half millenniums ago a little band of 10,000 Athenians defeated 100,000 Persians at the battle of Marathon. A courageous runner brought the news of the thrilling victory to the city of Athens that lay some 26miles away. When the Olympic Games were revived for the first time in 1869, a long distance race was planned to cover the same ground that the earlier runner had traversed almost 2,400 years before. Quite properly, a Greek won this event. Now the word marathon can
11.Terms of Place,Time, Shape, and Size, and their Origins
FATHOM
Fathom is now six feet.And since sailors are primarily interested in depth,we finally devised the abstract verb fathom which meant “to get to the bottom of ”as of a problem or mystery.
FURLONG:as long as a furrow
The modern fancier of race horses calls this measure of distance a furlong,but there was a period in England when the word was spelled furlang,furh for the “furrow”that the farmer turns with his plow,and lang for “long.”That is,a furlong was just as long as a furrow,and in those days a furrow was reasonably constant in length because a furrow was thought of as existing in a field of ten acres.But this measure was still a little elastic for accuracy and by the 9th century the wise men decided to call a furlong an eighth of a mile and let it go at that.Today a furlong is 220 yards.
GEYSER: a gusher
In Iceland in an area of about two square miles there are approximately a hundred hot springs that have been a source of wonder to men for centuries .The Icelandic name for such a spring is hver.The largest of the group,however ,has been named the geysir,and from this came our word geyser. The literal meaning of geysir in Iceland is gusher.
HALCYON:started as a kingfisher
Halcyon days are days of peace and calm when the skies are clear and the winds are still.These days had an actual place on the ancient calendar and were the fourteen days at about the time of the winter solstice .It was during this period that the halcyon,or kingfisher,was supposed to sit on her nest as it floated in the sea.She was believed,you see,to have a magic power to calm the winds and waves so that her nest would be secure .Halcyon is a Latin word that came from the Grddk term,alcyon,or “kingfisher.”
JOURNEY: a day’s mileage
This word is based,with several shifts of sound and derivation ,on the Latin word diurnum,”day.”A journey used to mean the distance covered in a “day”;and that journal of yours is what you have written in a “day.”So is a diary (from dies ,another Latin word for day).When we sojourn we spend the “day”and when we adjourn we have finished those things,”belonging to the day.”Or should we adjourn sine die,Latin for “without a day,”our meeting is adjourned indefinitely.And you could guess that a journeyman plumber is really a “day laborer.”
MILESTONE: a thousand paces
It seems that Augustus,first of the Roman emperors,set up a central stone in the Forum called a milliarium from which all distances were reckoned. The mane of this key stone was derived from the Latin word mille which meant a “thousand,”for the Roman mile was calculated as a thousand paces with each pace equalling five feet. Under the imperial regime,the roads were systematically marked off every mille passuum,or thousand paces.and a stone,or milliarium,was set up with the mane of the emperor carved on it,the date ,the place from which the distance was measured,and usually the name of the roadmaker.In forming our word milestone,we took the first half from the Latin word ,mille,but for the second half we adopted the simple native word stan,now stone.
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