- parent
[parent 词源字典] - parent: [15] Latin parere meant ‘bring forth, give birth’. Its present participle was used to form a noun, parēns, which denoted literally ‘one who gives life to another’, hence a ‘mother’ or ‘father’. Its stem form parent- passed into English via Old French parent. Other English descendants of Latin parere (which is related to prepare) include parturition ‘giving birth, labour’ [17], puerperal (a compound containing Latin puer ‘child’), and viviparous ‘giving birth to live young’ [17].
=> parturition, prepare, puerperal, viper, viviparous[parent etymology, parent origin, 英语词源] - pariah
- pariah: [17] Now a general term for an ‘outcast’, pariah came into English from the caste system of southern India. It originally denoted a member of the largest of the lower castes, which was named in Tamil paraiyan. This meant literally ‘drummer’ (it was a derivative of parai ‘large festival drum’), a reference to the hereditary role of the paraiyar (plural) as drummers in festival parades.
- parish
- parish: [13] The etymological notion underlying parish is of ‘living nearby’. It comes via Old French paroisse and late Latin parochia (source of English parochial [14]) from late Greek paroikíā. This was a derivative of pároikos ‘living near’, a compound formed from pará ‘beside’ and oikos ‘house’ (source of English economy).
Scholars have not been able to agree on precisely how the idea of ‘living nearby’ became transmuted into that of the ‘parish’: some consider the central concept to be of a ‘community of neighbours’, while others view the ‘near-dweller’ here not as a permanent neighbour but as a temporary ‘sojourner’ or ‘stranger’, an epithet applied to early Christians.
=> economy, parochial - parity
- parity: see pair
- park
- park: [13] The origins of park are Germanic. It goes back to a prehistoric Germanic base, meaning ‘enclosed place’, which has also given English paddock. This reached English by direct descent, but park took a route via medieval Latin. Here it was parricus, which passed into English via Old French parc. The verbal use of park, for ‘place a vehicle’, began to emerge in the early 19th century, and was based on the notion of putting military vehicles, artillery, etc in an ‘enclosure’. Parquet [19] comes from a diminutive of French parc, in the sense ‘small enclosed place’.
=> paddock, parquet - parliament
- parliament: [13] The French verb parler ‘talk’ has made a small but significant contribution to English. Amongst its legacies are parlance [16], parley [16], parlour [13] (etymologically a ‘room set aside for conversation’), and parliament itself. This came from the Old French derivative parlement, which originally meant ‘talk, consultation, conference’, but soon passed to ‘formal consultative body’, and hence to ‘legislative body’. French parler was a descendant of medieval Latin parabolāre ‘talk’, which was derived from the Latin noun parabola (source of English parable, parabola, and parole).
=> ballistic, parable, parlour - parlous
- parlous: see peril
- parochial
- parochial: see parish
- parody
- parody: see prosody
- parquet
- parquet: see park
- parrot
- parrot: [16] The original English name for the ‘parrot’ was popinjay [13] (whose ultimate source, Arabic babaghā, probably arose as an imitation of the parrot’s call). But in the early 16th century this began to be replaced by parrot, which seems to have originated (like its close relative parakeet) in French as a diminutive form of the name Pierre ‘Peter’.
- parse
- parse: see part
- parsley
- parsley: [14] The ultimate source of parsley is Greek petrōselínon, a compound formed from pétrā ‘rock’ (source of English petrify, petrol, etc) and sélīnon ‘parsley’ (source of English celery). From it was descended Latin petroselīnum, which in post-classical times became petrosilium. This passed into English in two distinct phases: first, direct from Latin in the Old English period as petersilie, and secondly, in the 13th century via Old French peresil as percil. By the 14th century these had started to merge together into percely, later parsley.
=> celery, petrol - parsnip
- parsnip: [14] The Romans called the ‘parsnip’ (and the ‘carrot’) pastināca. This was a derivative of pastinum, a term for a sort of small two-pronged fork, inspired no doubt by the forked appearance of some examples of the vegetable. In Old French the word had become pasnaie, but when English took it over, it altered the final syllable to -nep, under the influence of Middle English nep ‘turnip’ (source of the second syllable of turnip).
- parson
- parson: [13] Parson and person started off as the same word (both come from Latin persōna) but split into two. It is not altogether clear why parson came to be used for a ‘priest’. It may simply have been a specialized application of an extended post-classical sense of Latin persōna, ‘person of rank, important person, personage’ – hence ‘person of high position within the church’. But it has also been speculated that it originated in the notion of the priest as the ‘person’ who legally embodied the parish (who could for example sue or be sued on behalf of the parish).
=> person - part
- part: [13] Latin pars, a possible relative of parāre ‘make ready’ (source of English prepare), had a wide range of meanings – ‘piece’, ‘side’, ‘share’, etc – many of them shared by its English descendant part. The word was originally acquired in the late Old English period, but does not seem to have survived, and as we now have it was reborrowed via Old French part in the 13th century.
Other English descendants of pars include parcel, parse [16] (based on the notion of ‘parts’ of speech), partake [16] (a backformation from partaker [14], itself created from part and taker), partial [15], participate, participle, particle, particular, partisan, partition, partner, and party.
=> parcel, parse, partial, particle, partisan, partner, party - participle
- participle: [14] The etymological notion underlying participle is of a word that shares or ‘partakes’ of the dual nature of an adjective and a noun. It comes via Old French participle from Latin participium, a derivative of particeps ‘partaker’ (the usage was a direct translation of Greek metokhé ‘sharer, partaker’, which was likewise used as a grammatical term for ‘participle’). Particeps (based on a variant of Latin capere ‘take’, source of English capture) also spawned the verb participāre ‘take part’, from which English gets participate [16].
=> part, participate - particle
- particle: see parcel
- particular
- particular: [14] Latin particula (source of English parcel and particle) was a diminutive form of pars ‘part’, and denoted ‘small part’. From it was derived the adjective particulāris, which denoted ‘concerned with small parts, or details’ (as opposed to ‘concerned with wider aspects of a matter’). English acquired it via Old French particuler.
=> part, particle - partisan
- partisan: [16] Etymologically, a partisan is someone who takes a ‘part’ – in the sense ‘side’ or ‘cause’. The word comes via French partisan from partisano, a dialect form of mainstream Italian partigiano, which was based on parte ‘part’.
=> part
