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soubrette [soubrette 词源字典]: soubrette: see super
[soubrette etymology, soubrette origin, 英语词源]
soul: soul: [OE] Behind the word soul lies the ancient notion of the soul as something fleeting or mercurial. For its prehistoric Germanic ancestor, *saiwalō, was related to Greek aiólos ‘quickmoving’. Its modern Germanic cousins include German seele, Dutch ziel, Swedish själ, and Danish sjæl.
sound: sound: English has no fewer than four distinct words sound. The oldest, ‘channel, strait’ [OE], originally meant ‘swimming’. It came from a prehistoric Germanic *sundam, a derivative of the base *sum-, *swem- ‘swim’ (source of English swim). The sense ‘channel’ was adopted from a related Scandinavian word (such as Danish sund) in the 15th century. Sound ‘undamaged’ [12] is a shortened version of Old English gesund, which went back to prehistoric West Germanic *gasundaz, a word of uncertain origin.

Its modern relatives, German gesund and Dutch gezond ‘well, healthy’, retain the ancestral prefix. Sound ‘noise’ [13] comes via Anglo-Norman soun from Latin sonus ‘sound’, a relative of Sanskrit svan- ‘make a noise’. Amongst the Latin word’s many other contributions to English are consonant, dissonant [15], resonant [16], sonata [17] (via Italian), sonorous [17], and sonnet. Sound ‘plumb the depths’ [14] (as in sounding line) comes via Old French sonder from Vulgar Latin *subundāre, a compound verb formed from Latin sub- ‘under’ and unda ‘wave’ (source of English undulate).
=> swim; consonant, dissonant, resonant, sonata, sonnet, sonorous; surround, undulate
soup: soup: [17] Soup was borrowed from French soupe. This, like its English relative sop, originally denoted a ‘piece of bread soaked in liquid’. One way of making such sops was to put them in the bottom of a bowl and pour broth over them, and eventually soupe came to denote the ‘broth’ itself – the sense in which English acquired it. The word was descended from late Latin suppa, a derivative of the verb *suppāre ‘soak’, which was formed from the borrowed Germanic base *sup- (source of English sop and sup ‘drink’).
=> sop, sup, supper
sour: sour: [OE] Sour is a general Germanic word, with relatives in German sauer, Dutch zuur, and Swedish and Danish sur. Their common ancestor was prehistoric Germanic *sūraz, which was related to Lithuanian sūrus ‘salty’ and Old Church Slavonic syru ‘damp, raw’. Sorrel [14] is etymologically the ‘sour’ plant: its Old French source sorele came ultimately from Germanic *sūraz.
=> sorrel
source: source: [14] A source is etymologically something that has ‘surged’ up. The word comes from Old French sourse ‘spring’, a noun use of the feminine past participle of sourdre ‘rise, spring’. This in turn was descended from Latin surgere ‘rise’, source of English surge. The notion of the ‘place where a watercourse springs from the ground’ led on naturally to the metaphorical ‘place of origin’.
=> surge
souse: souse: [14] To souse something is etymologically to steep it in ‘salt’. The word comes via Old French sous from Old Saxon sultia or Old High German sulza ‘brine’, descendants of the prehistoric Germanic base *salt-, *sult- (from which English gets salt). The notion of pickling something in brine soon broadened out to pickling in other liquids, such as vinegar, and by the 16th century souse was being used metaphorically for ‘drench’.
=> salt
south: south: [OE] South, together with its relatives German süd, Dutch zuid, Swedish söder, and Danish syd, goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *suntha-. This may have been derived from the base of *sunnōn ‘sun’ – in which case south would mean etymologically ‘region of the sun, side on which the sun appears’. French sud ‘south’ was borrowed from English.
sovereign: sovereign: [13] A sovereign is etymologically someone who is ‘above’ others. The word comes via Old French souverein ‘ruler’, a descendant of Vulgar Latin *superānus. This was derived from the Latin preposition super ‘above’. In the 1490s the term was applied to a gold coin worth 22s 6d (£1.12½), a usage which served as a model in 1817 for its application to a gold coin worth one pound.
=> super
sow: sow: English has two words sow, both of which go back to the Old English period. The verb, ‘put seeds in the ground’, comes from a prehistoric Germanic *sǣjan, which also produced German säen, Dutch zaaien, Swedish så, and Danish saa. It was formed from the base *sǣ- (source of English seed), which goes back ultimately to Indo-European *sē- (source of English season, semen, etc). Sow ‘female pig’ is descended from an Indo-European base *su- (possibly imitative of the noise made by a pig), which also produced Greek hus ‘pig’ (whose feminine form húaina is the source of English hyena [16]), Latin sūs ‘pig’, German sau ‘sow’, and English swine.
=> season, seed, semen; hyena, swine
soy: soy: [17] Chinese shi-yu is the ultimate source of soy (shi means ‘salted beans’ and yu means ‘oil’). Japanese adopted the term as shō-yu, whose colloquial form soy was borrowed by English at the end of the 17th century. Dutch acquired shō-yu as soja, from which English gets soya [17].
spa: spa: [17] The town of Spa, in eastern Belgium, has medicinal mineral springs. They were discovered in the 14th century, and by the early 17th century were well enough known in Britain for the town’s name to be used as a generic term for ‘medicinal springs’. The present-day application to a ‘town containing such springs’ emerged towards the end of the 18th century.
space: space: [13] Space comes via Old French espace from Latin spatium ‘distance, space, period’, a word of unknown origin. Its modern English application to the ‘expanse in which the Universe is contained’ did not emerge until the 19th century. The Latin derived adjective spatiōsus has given English spacious [14], but spatial [19] was coined in English directly from Latin spatium.
spade: spade: English has two words spade, but they are ultimately related. Spade for digging [OE] comes from a Low German source, which also produced Dutch spade. This went back to, or shared a common source with, Greek spáthē ‘broad blade’, which was borrowed into Latin as spatha ‘broad flat instrument’ (source of the English botanical term spathe [18]).

This in turn passed into Italian as spada ‘broad sword’, whose plural spade gave English the playingcard symbol spade [16]. The corresponding French term is épée ‘sword’, adopted by English as a fencing term in the 19th century; and its Old French precursor espee is the ultimate source of English spay [15]. The diminutive form of Latin spatha was spathula, from which English gets spatula [16].
=> spathe, spatula, spay, spoon
spaghetti: spaghetti: [19] Spaghetti comes from the plural of Italian spaghetto, a diminutive form of spago ‘string’ (a word of uncertain origin). The earliest record of its use in English is by Eliza Acton in her Modern Cookery 1849, but it was still sufficiently unfamiliar then for her to mis-spell it sparghetti.
span: span: [OE] Span is of Germanic origin, with relatives in German and Dutch spanne, Swedish spann, and Danish spand. It originated in the notion of the distance between the tip of the thumb and the tip of the little finger. The verb span was derived in the 14th century from the noun. Its German relative spannen ‘stretch, tighten’ produced the derived noun spanner, which was borrowed by English in the 17th century.
=> spanner
spaniel: spaniel: [14] The spaniel is etymologically the ‘Spanish’ dog. The word comes via Old French espaigneul ‘Spanish’ and Vulgar Latin *spāniōlus from Latin Hispāniōlus, a derivative of Hispānia ‘Spain’. The breed of dog was of Spanish origin.
=> spain
sparse: sparse: see spread
spasm: spasm: [14] A spasm is etymologically a sudden ‘stretching’ of a muscle (although in fact physiologically spasms are contractions of muscle tissue). The word comes via Old French spasme and Latin spasmus from Greek spasmós, a derivative of the verb span ‘pull’. This in turn was descended from the Indo-European base *spə- ‘stretch’. The metaphorical notion of ‘intermittence’ (based on the intervals between spasms) emerged in the derived adjective spasmodic [17] in the 19th century.
=> stadium
spat: spat: English has three words spat (not counting the past form of spit). The oldest, ‘young of an oyster or similar shellfish’ [17], comes from Anglo-Norman spat, but the origins of that are unknown. Spat ‘shoe covering’ [19] is short for the earlier spatterdash [17]. This was a compound formed from spatter [16] (a word based ultimately on the sound of spattering) and dash (used here in the now archaic sense ‘splash violently’). Spat ‘tiff’ [19] originated in the USA, but its ancestry is not known.