英语四六级词汇复习：8天攻克8000词汇(六)

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　　PART II ORIGIN
        　　1. Where Words About Human Beings Come From
        　　ACHIEVE：to come to a head
        　　This seems like a simple word,but its history is extremely complicated.The word achieve derives,if you can believe it,from the Latin phrase ad caputvenire,which literally meant”to come to a head.”Sometimes the Romans used it in the gloomy meaning”to die.”Later on Old French took over the phrase adcaput,”to a head” and built on it the verb achever,”to finish,”and this passed into English as achieve.In Chaucer’s day,and even up to the time of Queen Elizabeth,achieve could still mean”to die”or”to kill”Shakespeare used it in this sense in one of his plays,as”Bid them achieve(“kill”)me and then sell my bones.”Along with achieve the Old French developed the word meschever,in English mischief,which in the beginning meant to overwhelm with destruction,and both of these words still have in them the original sense of the Latin caput,or”head.”For when you have achieved something,you have”brought it to a head,”haven’t you?But should you get into mischief,things have been”brought to a bad head”(Latin mis-,”bad”),and those who perpetrated the mischief are apt to come to grief. Thus,when Merlin,the wise man of Arthurian legend,said:”Synne draweth bothe man and woman to myschebouse ends,”he was using the word in its early and stronger sense.
        　　ADEPT:originally an alchemist
        　　Are you adept,that is,highly skilled at some particular thing?Then you should know the secret of the philosopher’s stone that transformed base metals into gold.In the Middle Ages the alchemists who claimed to have this secret called themselves adeptus,a Latin word that means”attained,”from the verb adipiscor,from ad,”to,”and apiscor,”attain.”That is,the alchemists had”attained”their goal.Later,in the 17th century,adeptus became a title of honor that was applied only to alchemists of recognized reputation.But when alchemy finally fell into disrepute,the word became a general term of skill.Now you can be adept at cooking or tennis or such. But if you are inept,you have”not”(Latin in,”not”)attained your goal.You are inexpert and awkward and you are apt to say things that are unbecoming and inappropriate to the occasion.
        　　AMBLE:just walking around
        　　According to the dictionary when you amble,you”move,ride,or walk at an easy and careless pace.”The derivation is from the Latin ambulo,”walk.”You can also easily detect this same term ambulo in our word ambulance or,as the French used to call this vehicle at the time of the Crimean War,hospital ambulant,”walking hospital.”The English soon left off the hospital part and just called it an ambulance.And there is the perambulator,too,that we push the baby around in,and that also takes walking to do.
        　　ANTICS:originally fantastic images
        　　On the walls of the Baths of the Roman Emperor Titus some old and fantastic images were carved,representing people and animals and flowers all running together in the most grotesque fashion possible.The Italians applied their word antico,”old,”to these curious carvings,but because of the weird posturings of the figure antico came also to mean “bizarre,”and so gave us our word antic.Thus,when a person cuts up with some antics,it means that he is going through a lot of queer capers like those weir Roman figures,or like a clown in a circus.This Italian word antico derives from the Latin antiquus,and from this latter term through the French we received out word antique.Antiquus meant”venerable”and so ”excelling in worth and value,”which is what we hope for when we buy antiques.
        　　ASSASSIN: once a drug-fiend
        　　Some 800 years ago there was an East Indian sheik who was colorfully known as ” The Old Man of the Mountains.” He was the supposed head of an early version of “Murder, Inc.,” and his fanatical followers made it their business to slaughter the Christian Crusaders who were on their way to the Holy Land. The murderers got themselves into the proper frenzy for their job by chewing hashish, an Eastern variety of hemp that could produce a fine state of intoxication in any teetotalling Mohammedan. Today cifarettes called ”reefers”are made out of this hemp and are smoked by marihuana addicts. In the ancient days of India word hashshashin entered Medieval Latin as assassinus, and so into English as our word assassin, which still retains its murderous history in its meaning.
       
            
            

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        　　BANDIT: under summons
        　　A bandit is “banned”or outlawed. Our word comes originally from the Germanic root bann, meaning “a summons,” “proclamation.” This entered Late Latin as bannire, which meant “to proclaim,” and then was absorbed into Italian as bandito, or “outlawed”; that is,a proclamation against something. Old English already had the word as bann, ”command,” ”interdict.” So when anyone was put under a ban, he was told he couldn’t do something. Thismeaning is implied in bandit, and also is involved in the word banish. With the banns of marriage we return to the original meaning of “proclamation.”
        　　DANGER: ruled by a master
        　　A word that has strangely changed its meaning. Danger now means “to be exposed to harm or injury,” but in olden days it meant to be in someone else’s power. As a pensioner wrote in 1461 to his patron: “I am gretly yn your danger and dette for my pension.” This subservience to others is explained by the history of the word. It traces back by many changes of spelling to the Latin dominium, “power,” “lordship,” which in turn derives from dominus, “master.” In early England any whim of his master put a serf in danger.
        　　DISASTER: the stars are evil
        　　If you are faced with disaster, the “stars” are “against” you, for the word disaster is from the Latin dis-, “against,” and astrum, “star.” In their investigations of the cycle theory, scholar seem to have proved that our lives are influenced by such things as the climate, the sun spots, and the stars. Apparently the ancient astrologers (astrum, “star,” and logos, “knowledge”) had an idea by the tail. Our fortunes can sometimes be considered “illstarred.” And then again, with the word consider, we are dealing with astrology, for consider is thought to be from the Latin cum, “with,” and sidus, “star.” When the ancients considered a matter in an effort to come to a decision, they consulted “with” the “stars.”
        　　EARL: opposite of churl
        　　If a man is churlish in his manner, he is acting like a surly, illbred boor. In the English of another day a churl, or a ceorl as it was then spelled, was at the bottom of the social ladder in the very lowest rank of the freeman. When titles came to be conferred the word eorl was used to distinguish a man of noble rank from the ceorl. The spelling went to erl and finally to earl. During the Norman period an earl was the equivalent of the French count, and the word count traces to the Latin comes, or “companion,” so a count was a sometime companion to a king. Among the other title that the Normans brought across the channel was duke, which eventually goes back to the Latin dux, “leader.” Next below the duke is the marquis, borrowed from the French and once spelled marchis. This man controlled a march, which was a tract of borderland. Naturally all of these lesser title follow the prince, since he is actually and etymologically “first” in the land, the ruler. And princeps is derived from primus, “first,” and capio, “take.” So whatever it is, the prince “takes” it “first.”
        　　EMANCIPATE: remove the hand
        　　According to Roman law there were prescribed ceremonies for the purchase and liberation of slaves. When they were bought, the new master laid his hand upon them in token of possession. This act was called mancipium, “possession by the hand.” Our word emancipate has the opposite meaning, and is from the Latin emancipatus; e-, “away,” manus, “hand,” and capio, “take.” So when our slaves were emancipated, the owners “took away their hands.”
        　　ETIQUETTE: a ticket
        　　In 16th-century French etiquette meant a ticket or label. As a matter of fact we get our word ticket from this. Also buying things on tick. The first rules of etiquette were tacked up in conspicuous places in the army posts. The list gave the rules of the day. The Old French word was estiquette, from estiquer, “to stick.” The rules were “stuck” up on the walls. Perhaps we could say that etiquette is a “ticket” to polite society.
       
            
            

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        　　FAME: what they say
        　　When you are talked about enough you are famous, or infamous, perhaps, for fame is from the Latin fama, “report,” which is related to the Greek phemi, “speak.” Thus fame is what they say about you. Reputation, however, lasts longer, for your reputation is not what they “say” but what they “think” about you. From the Latin reputo, from re-, “again,” and puto, “think”; that is, to think over again, to consider.
        　　FOIBLE: originally a fencing term
        　　One of the rules of the game of fencing is to receive your enemy’s foible with your own forte, two French borrowings. His foible is the weak part of his foil, from the middle to the tip. Your forte is the strong part from the middle to the hilt. So the foibles of a human being are his weak points and his moral frailties, while his forte is his strong point, that in which he excels.
        　　FOOL: tongue-wagger
        　　Let those who talk too much take care, for the Latin word follis, which gave us fool, means “a windbag.” And yet there is a more innocent way than this to get the reputation of being foolish. The ancient Greeks called those who didn’t hold public office idiots, whence our word idiots, and this may be what our politicians think of us today.
        　　FREE: once, beloved
        　　The word free ties into the Old English freo, a close relative lf the German word frei which meant “loving” or “beloved.” In meant “agreeable” or “beloved.” In the ancient Sanskrit language priya-, diatantly related to free,meant “agreeable” or “beloved.”. If you had been a patrician in those olden days, your “loved ones” who would have been free ,and your slaves .Or if your should have been slaves enough, you would probably have bought his liberty and made him free too, so finally our Old English word fero evoluted into the modern word free, that is ,”not slave”; and freond ,”loving one”, grew into “friend”.
        　　HERMAPHRODITE : originally a god’s name
        　　Biologically ,today ,a hermaphrodite is a living being having both male and female organs. This highly technical word, however , has a romantic history .Hermaphroditos was the son of the Greed god Hermes and of Aphrodite, goddess of love ,and was supposed to have not only the names, but the beauty of both his parents. On a certain occasion, a susceptible nymph, Saimacis by name , saw the handsome son bathing in her pool and she immediately fell head over heels in love with him. To her horror he turned her down.. But she was a resourceful girl and prayed to the gods for an indissoluble union with him .The gods answered her prayer and arranged that the body of the nymph and the body of Hermaphroditos should grow together as one. Our biological name hermaphrodite was taken from this story and was applied quite logically to bisexual individuals.
        　　HOTTENTOT: just gibberish
        　　The musical comedy stage has made the savage Hottentots familiar to us. They were a native tribe of the Cape of Good Hope. When the Dutch landed there they couldn’t understand the native dialect at all since it was full of clicks and jerks and sounded like so much stammering .The only syllables that the Dutch sailors could understand were hot and tot, and so the mariners named the people just that : hot-en-tot ,for en is “and” in Dutch.
        　　IMPEDE: putting your foot in it
        　　When you are impeded ,that is ,when there are obstacles in your way that hinder you from doing what you wish ,it means that your “foot “ is “in” something ,from the Latin im-.”in” ,and pes, pedis ,”foot”. That is ,your “foot” is entangled “in” something and your can’t get it out. You have really “put your foot in it,” or more literally ,you have something “in the way of your foot.” That’s why we call heavy baggage impedimenta,it tangles up our feet. But when someone expedites matters for you (ex, “out,” and pes, pedis, foot”) he gets your “foot” “out” of its entanglement so that you can do what you want to without hindrance.
       
            
            

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        　　INCUBUS: once an obscene spirits
        　　This word and its sister succubus have morbid and obscene origins. Incubus is from the Latin incubo,”lie upon,” and in the beginning referred to an evil spirit who would lie with the ladies when they were asleep and for no good purpose. A succubus ,Latin succumbo, “lie beneath,” was a female domon who, in turn ,was reputed to have sexual connection with men in their sleep . Both sexes, apparently, were well taken care of .In its later history the word incubus has come to mean a handi-happing burden of some sort,as ”His career was held back by the incubus of poverty.”A succubus,however,never changed and is still a strumpet.
        　　INVESTIGATE:looking for footprints
        　　When detectives investigate a murder,it is likely today that they will first look for fingerprints.And yet if the crime had been committed on a snowy night they would search for foot prints too.And here we have the sealed-in picture of investigate:Latin in,”in,”and vestigo,”follow a footprint,” from vestigium, “footprint.”This latter,of course,gives us our word vestige, as,”There is not a vestige of truth in the statement.”T hat is,not a trace or a footprint of truth.
        　　LUNATIC: moonstruck
        　　There are many people today who would feel uncomfortable if they had to sleep with the moon shining in their faces.They probably wouldn’t believe that this act would turn then into lunatics,but the shadow of that superstition still remains in the race .Down through the centuries there has been a widespread notion that madness is related to the moon,and that the violence of madness changes with the phases of the moon.In Roman mythology luna was the moon goddess,and it was her name that gave us lunatic because she was supposed to create this condition.
        　　MAIM:knocking out a front tooth
        　　An early statute says that you have maimed a man if you knock out his front tooth ,but that he is not maimed if you knock out one of his grinders,because with a front tooth he can bite and tear at the enemy,while with a grinder he can only masticate his food.Another amusing law in 1641 says that “The cutting off of an eare,or nose ,or breaking of the hinder teeth,or such like ,is no maihem.”Now ,of course, the words maim and mayhem apply to any willful mutilation.
        　　MAROON:take to the wilds .
        　　When pirates of old took a dislike to one of their fellow buccaneers,they would set him ashore,or maroon him,on some farlff island and simply sail away.In the beginning though, maroon was a moun, and maroons were the Negroes who lived in Dutch Guiana and the West Indies.The word is from the French term marron, a short form of the Spanish word cimarron,meaning wild and untamed.Later on maroon changed to mean “one left in the wilds .”
        　　MOB:from a Latin phrase
        　　The English have often accused us Americans of being lazy with our language.We won’t bother,they say,to call a man a baseball fanatic.We clip this to “a baseball fan.”But if we turn back the pages of history, we discover that the British had this same habit around the beginning of the 18th century.They,too were coining new words by snipping bits off old ones.The essayist, Joseph Addison,was quite haughty about it all. He refers to the practice as:”This Humour of speading no more than we needs must which has so miserably curtailed some of our Words”，and he cites the new vulgarism mob as an example.Before the reign of Charles II folks never said such a slang word as mob. They used the Latin phrase mobile vulgus,”the fickle crowd.”But to Addison’s horror they soon shortened this to mobile Then to the mob which we still have with us.
        　　MOUNTEBANK:on a bench
        　　The history of mountebank ties in to those barkers who talk you into sideshows at the circus, and to the old-time fakers who stepped up on a soapbox and sold Indian snake oil cures.The derivation of the word proves the point Mounteband comes from the Italian montambanco, a contraction of the phrase monta-in-banco, that reads in translation”mount-on-bench.”In Italian montambanco,a contraction of the phrase monta-in-banco ,that reads in translation “mount-on-bench.”In Italy the montambanco was a quack who customarily perched on a bench to hawk his fraudulent wares,and gathered a crowd around him with his jokes and juggling.
       
            
            

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        　　NEIGHBOR:your friend on the next farm
        　　Literally,the farmer who lives near you,from the Old English neshgebur which meant “near-by farmer.”Neah appears in modern German as nahe and in English as nigh ,both of which mean”near”Gebur is related to Bauer ,”farmer ”or “peasant,”in modern German and entered our languang from Dutch as boor ,no longer a farmer or peasant but a city person’s idea of someone with the awkward and clumsy manners of a peasant .This same Dutch word boer gave us the Boer War in which the English fought the Dutch farmers in South Africa.
        　　NICKNAME: an added name
        　　In days long past, a nickname was an ekename, and eke meant “added”, a name ”added” to your given name. At that time an ekename was a surname , and even in surname we have the same meaning in the French sur , which means “over” or ”above” , a name “over” and “above” your first name . the Middle English word ekename finally absorbed the “n” from ‘an” and became a ekename , and later , with us , a nickname . Once again a name “added” to those you already have.
        　　OPPORTUNE: the ship is at the harbor
        　　Each year on August 17th the romans had a feast in honor of Portunus, the general god who protected the ports and harbors. His name is derived from portus, the Latin words for “harbor ”. Our word opportune traces to the Latin words ob-,”before”, and portus , “port ,” or “before the port .” When a ship is at the harbor mouth it is an opportune moment , or a happy , fitting, and suitable time for many things.
        　　PALLIANTE: cover with a garment
        　　The traditional garb of the Greek philosophers was a rectangular woolen cloak draped over the left shoulder and around the body , called by the Romans a pallium . By some strange coincidence , and just as a passing piece of gossip , this was also the popular garment of the hetaerae , those charming and cultural entertainers and courtesans of the day . From the term pallium , “cloak,” the Latins derived the word palliates which meant “covered with a cloak” , and in this circuitous way we get our word palliate with some of the original meaning left . When we palliateour sins , for instance , we attempt to cover them as with a cloak so that they will not be so easily seen and will seem less offensive . When we palliate pain , we reduce its severity and make it less obvious . Again, in a sense , we are “cloaking” it .
        　　PARAGON: a testing stone
        　　In order to test the purity of gold it is often rubbed against a fine-grained , dark stone like jasper in order to see what kind of a mark it leaves . This testing stone is called a “touchstone”. Ourword paragon comes through Old French from the Italian word paragone which originally meant a touchstone, and hence paragon came finally to be a standard of true worth, so that we can now say , “he is a paragon of virtue.”
        　　PECULIAR: related to cattle
        　　The story of the word peculiar has a “peculiar” history. In the beginning of Rome, when there were as yet no minted coins, cattle, called pecus in Latin, took the place of money . From pecus the word peculium was finally formed and it meant “private property”. This grew into the word peculiaris which applied to possessions that were “one’s own”. The term entered Old French as peculiar and English as peculiar , with the meaning of property belonging exclusively to someone and not owned by others, or it often could refer to characteristics that were quite distinct from those of other individuals. As the poet Robert Browning said : “Yes, this in him was the peculiar grace.” Now, more and more, peculiar has taken on the meaning of characteristics that are odd and queer.
        　　PEDIGREE: foot of a crane
        　　Perhaps you take just pride in your family tree. Like a blooded horse, you are proud of you pedigree. But you may not know that, when you boast of your pedigree, you are really speaking of a crane’s foot, for pedigree seems to have been our way of pronouncing the French phrase pied de grue which means “the foot of a crane.” In those very old documents that recorded a family tree, the three-line graph of lineal descent looked for all the world like the imprints of a crane’s foot and suggested the picturesque name. The Latin ancestors of the word pedigree are pes, “foot,” de, “of,” and grus, “crane.”
       
            
            

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        　　PERNICIOUS: death-dealing
        　　A pernicious practice is a harmful one that will work evil, but even though the word still implies a threat, it has weakened in power through the centuries. The Latin perniciosus gave it to us, and this splits into per-, “through and through,” and nex, necis, “death.”
        　　PERSON: first was a mask
        　　Actors in Roman and Greek dramas often had to take more than one part in a single performance,and for each chanracter that they portrayed they would wear a different mask.the name of such a mask in latin was
        　　persona,and since,in a fashion,we are all actors,the word persona came to mean the part that anyone plays in the world.and finally it designated an individuality,or,as of today,a person.by a similar figure of speech,if we impersonate another,we put on his mask.
        　　POSTMAN:reminder of romance
        　　when the postman rings our doorbell on his daily rounds,he gives little hint of the romance of his beginnings.the first postman were royal couriers who rode post,and a post was one of a chain of stations that furnished a relay of fresh men and horses to carry the king`s messages to some distant point.later on these postriders carried the mails.the word post itself came up from the latin posita,"placed,"for the original posts were "placed"at intervals,along a communication route.
        　　PRECARIOUS:obtained by prayer
        　　when we are in a precarious positiomn,oursituation is uncertain and often dangerous.the whole thing started out with the idea of prayer,for precarious is based on the latin word prex,precis, "prayer."it looks as though the romans thought when you got anything by prayer or entreaty,it was a pretty uncertain piece of business,for their same word precarious meant "risky".in the begings of the English language precarious meant supplication,and in 1656 the English lexicographer Blount defined precarious as something "granted to one by prayer and entreaty,to use as long as it pleases the party and no longer."Now the word more nearly means "dependent on chance or hazard."
        　　PRECOCIOUS: half-baked?
        　　Latin prae-,"before,"and coquere,"to cook,"were combined to form praecoquere,"to cook beforehand"or"ripen beforehand."in the latter sense the word applied to fruits that ripened early.From this was derived the English word precocious ,originally applied to plants and trees with the meaning "flowwering or fruiting early or before the usual time ,""early or prematurely ripe or edveloped."We speak of a precocious child as one who is unusually forward and mature .He is "cooked ahead"or if he happpens to be a brat you don't like ,you might prefer to say he is "half-baked."
        　　PRESTIGE:meant magic
        　　When we say that a man has gained great prestige we intend it as a compliment ,but the French word prestige that we have borrowed is allied to prestidigitation and originally meant juggling tricks ,or illusion. So the prestige that has been won by some of our political leaders may sometimes have something to do with sleight of hand. As one 17th-century writer put it:"I am not deceived by the prestiges of the impostor."
        　　PUNTY:born later
        　　The word puny has meant many things down through the years, as:"inferior in rank," a puny officer;"more recent in time," a puny date;" a junior,"he left his money to the older children, none to the punies;"a novice or tyro,"I see you are but a puny in your studies.And now puny just means small and feeble.The word is directly trom the 12th-century French puisne,from puis, "later,"and ne,"born,"and its meaning "of small growth" or "weak" simply refers to the fact that babies and younger children "born later" have less strength than the older ones.if you bive the French pronunciation to puisne the sound is almost identical with puny.
       
            
            

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        　　ROBOT:a slave
        　　A long familiar word, but brought into wide notice by the play R.U.R.(Rossum's Universal Robots)written by Karel Capek in 1929. In his play these man-made mechanical robots overpower human beings.The term robot is from the Czech word robotnik," slave," which goes back to the term robota, "work."
        　　ROBUST:like an oak
        　　That robust man with the magnificent build is literally "strong as an oak," for our descriptive word comes from the Latin robustus ,"oaken." If you wish to make a statement that is strong and powerful, you coroborate it, or "make it like an oak," from the Latin cor-, an intensive, and robur ,"a very hard oak."
        　　SCAVENGER:FORMERLY A TAX-COLLECTOR
        　　When England was young, scavenger was spelled scavager and meant a "tax-collector " or "inspector." Later on an "n" found its way into the word, and by this time the scavenger had become a supervisor of street cleaning, which comes close to our modern meaning. The word derives from Anglo-French scawager, ultimately from Old French escauver,”inspect.”In the reign of Henry VIII, Leonard Skevington, a lieutenant of the Tower, invented a dreadful instrument of torture that squeezed the body until blood flowed from the ears and nose.This was named”the scavenger’s daughter,”a revolting little tale that shows how the tax-collector has been loved through the ages.Of course, a scavenger now is an animal that feeds on a dead o r decaying carcass.
        　　SCINTILIATE: gives out sparks
        　　Some fifty years ago a lady named Ellen T.Fowler dashed off a relatively deathless line.” My wit,” she wrote,”is all of the P.m.variety and never scintillates in the moring.”As a matter of fact, the only thing that ever scintillates is wit,for the English language seems to have found no other use for the aord.In its special connection,however,scintillate is a highly descriptive word,as it means”to gtive off sparks”;it is based on the Latin scintilla which meant “spark”.And that sparkling tinsel on the Christmas tree comes from the identical Latin source, but in passing into French scintilla became etincelle.We English dropped the initial“e” and turned tincelle into tinsel.
        　　SIMPLICITY: has nothing to hide
        　　Simplicity is single in purpose and has nothing to conceal. It comes from a hypothetical Latin prefix sem-,”one,” and plico,”fold”.That is ,opened up,unfolded,laid out flat. The word duplicity, however, is from the Latin duo, “two”, and plico,”fold”.In this case the paper is “folded overtwice”and can hide something in to. Those who practice duplicity are double-dealing, the opposite of simple, or single dealing. They are trying to fool you. With the word diplomat, we turn to the Greek word diploma, “a paper folded twice, “which diplomats took along as their credentials, and which college students now receive as their reward.
        　　STEWARD: watched the pigs
        　　A steward in one of our exclusive clubs might not be pleased to know that his name used to signify” keeper of the pigs”. The word steward recalls the days when a man’s chief treasure really was his pigsty. To guard the valuable herd from robbers and wild beasts, a special watchman was appointed who was called a steward from stig,“sty” and weard,”warden”or”guardian.”Later on, wealth expanded from herds of swine to herds of cattle and to lands and the job of the steward was now to watch over all of these.In feudal times,the steward rose to great power,becoming a sort of agent for the lord of the manor.He leased lands and collected rents.In some cases he became a magistrate,sttling disputes and such.Thus,in Great Britain,until 1849.the Lord Steward of the Household even had judicial powers and was a minister of the British Cabinet.
        　　THUG: an ancient gangster
        　　From the Hindustani word thag,“cheat,” which in turn derives from the Sanskrit sthaga,”cheat,”from sthag,”conceal.”These East Indian thugs operated until about 100 years ago. Like modern gangsters they had their “finger men” who spotted the victim. When these thugs were in formed by their spies that a man of property was about to take a journey, they followed him until he arrived at some lonely spot and then, like our modern muggers, they strangled and robbed him. It was all presumed to be done in honor of their goddess Kali, but this ancient murder syndicate profited handsomely by this service to their faith. And their brutality gave us our word thug.
       
            
            

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        　　TROUBLE: full of commotion
        　　When a person is in trouble, his mind is ill at ease. The Latin parent of the word trouble indicates just that, for turbo meant, “ disturb”. It came to us first with the spelling turble, then truble, finally trouble. This same Latin word turbo has given us turbulent,” full of commotion”; disturb,” throw into complete disorder”; and turbid, that is, a turbid stream which is “all muddied up.”
        　　VIRILITY: for men only
        　　All of the words deriving from the Latin word vir,”man,” are flattering. Virtus, in Latin meant strength, courage, excellence, all of which describe our word virility . And to be virtuous, of course, is to have the traits of a man. And should you be able
        　　2. Sources of the Words of Attitudes and Emotions
        　　AMUCK: murderous frenzy
        　　The famous 18th-century British navigator,Captain Jamer Cook,who was certainly a traveled gentleman,claimed that when a man amuck it was all because of his jealousy of a woman,Whether this be true or not ,our exotix word is borrowed from the Malay.In the Malay language the term amoq,sometimes spelled amok,is the term for a mental disease similar morbid depression into a state of murderous frenzy in which he will attack anyone in his path.This description contains the sense in which we use our word amuck.
        　　ASTONISH:thunderstruck
        　　With changes in spelling from the French estoner,which is derived from the Latin ex,"out,"and tonare,"to thunder."When one is astonished,he is literally"thunderstruck."And a similar picture is behind our word "thunder,"which derives from the same source as thor,the god of Norse mythology called "the Thunderer,"who was supposed to hurl lighting bolts at the earth.In olden days when one was astonished,he was atunned as by a blow and in a trance."I astonysshe with a stroke upon thehead ,"writes a long-ago author.Nowadays astonished doesn not mean much more than surprised.
        　　BEDLAM:is really "Bethlehem"
        　　This is a British corruption of the word Bethlehem.The priory of St.Mary of Bethlehem was founded in 1242.But any londoner of this day would have called it,in his disalect,"St.Mary'of Bedlam."In 1402 the priory was turned into a hospital for the insane,and from the reign of Henry VIII it has been a royal foundation for lunatics.So when the Londoners spoke of the Holy City of Bethlehem they were careful to pronounce it the way we now do to distinguish it from the asylum,bedlam.But when our hourse is a perfect bedlam,it still sounds,with its noise and confusion,like the inside of old lunatic asylum.
        　　BIGWIG:fine feathers
        　　Even tody we occasionally speak of who ranks himself overimportantly as a bigwig.In the England of the 18th centrury a man of distinction was spotted by his large,powdered wig.An august judge bacame more august by this symbol of authority.There were nouns then,now unfamimilar to us,that were once a part of the language,like wiglomeration that meant the pomp
        　　and fuss of legal proceedingd.In our times a bigwig is more apt to be a stuffed shirt.
        　　BUGBEAR:a bogy
        　　TO us a bugbear is a thing of appreciable dread.But in Wales it represented a phantom that was used to scare the naughty children,and the bug part is said to have come from the,to us, unpronounceable Welsh word bwg,"specter,"This word passed into English as bugge,then bug,and gave us bugbear,a goblin-animal of some kind.Our bogyman ,really a "goblin-man," is also to be Welsh .And bugaboo is probably just the same goblin with a frightening boo on the end.
       
            
            

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        　　DISMAL:merely bad days
        　　The Egyptians believed in unluckly days,and apparently these so-called "Egyption days"came into Rome and then on into the Europe of the Middle Ages.In France two such days were marked on the calendar each month and were called the dis malfrom the Latin dies mali,"the evil days."Dis mal was transferred into Middle English as the adjective dismale which descriped these unluckly days when it was wise to be very careful,since misfortune lurked at every tune .Now dismal just means gloomy and depressing.
        　　MAWKISH
        　　meant simply “ without appetite,” “inclined to be sickly.” Now it’s something that makes you feel sick,like the actions of an over-sentimental and mawkish lover.
        　　MELANCHOLY: black bile
        　　The Greeks defined melancholia as “the black bile that produces temperament,” and they believed that it was the presence of too much black bile in the system-melas, “ black,” and chole, “bile-” that caused the blues. This notion went down through the centuries. The Elizabethans thought that sullen and gloomy people were suffering from this disease which was very fashionable at that time among the ultra-refined. The favorite dose for depressed and fainting females was melancholy-water.
        　　MISOGAMIST: the hater
        　　Many an old bachelor is a misogamist,a misogynist, and a misanthrope. The inspiration for the word misogamist is the Greek miso-, “hating,” and gamos, “marriage.” A misogynist is a hater of women, again miso-, “hate,” and gyne, “woman.” While the word misanthrope comes from the Greek word for hate plus anthropos which means “mankind,”so this chap hates everybody. Again in Greek, philo means “love,” and so a philanthropist for his part loves all people.
        　　NAUGHTY :good-for-nothing
        　　In the days of Miles Standish they spoke of “the naughty canoes,”and this gives an idea of the original meaning of the word :worthless; of bad quality; or just good-for-naught. This was merely a stronger way of saying naught which is derived from the Old English nawiht; that is, “no whit ” or “nothing”. Later on naughty came to signify evil or corrupt, as a naughty pack; that is, “a woman of bad character.” Not until fairly modern times did naughty come to describe a child’s mischief as it does now.
        　　NICE : formerly meant ignorant
        　　In the Middle Ages nice meant foolish or ignorant , for it comes from the Latin word nescio which is made up of ne, “not”, and scio, “to know.” Then , because ignorant people are often silent, its meaning changed to “shy” or “coy”. Sometimes shy folks get the reputation of being a little uppish because of their offish ways, so the meaning of the word shifted until it meant “hard to please.” “precise,” “ exacting.” We use it today in that sense when we say : “ That is a nice (exacting) problem.” Finally it became general in its meaning and is now applied to many things ,such as people of good taste and disposition.
        　　ORDEAL: first with boiling water
        　　When a girl says that her day of shopping was quite an ordeal, she is using the word in a somewhat softer sense than it originally had. In the England of another day this term, spelled ordal in Old English and meaning “judgment ,” was most often used in the phrase “trial by ordeal,” a phrase that recalls a legal practice of our ancestral British courts. If a degendant in this original ordeal could carry a red-hot iron without being burned, he was innocent. If he flinched at plunging his hand in boiling water, he was guilty. It was as simple as that,though the tests varied from time to time. And now an ordeal can be a severe test of character, or just a trying experience.
       
            
            

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        　　OSTRACIZE: reminiscent of Greek democracy
        　　When society ostracizes a person today it is recalling one of the quainter aspects of Greek democracy. From time to time the Athenians would make up their minds that the influnence of a certain public man was dangerous and unwholesome. On such an occasion the citizens would assemble in the market place and vote as to whether fellow should be banished. They simply wrote the name of the undesirable man down on a tile or potsherd called an ostrakon. There was no special accusation before the vote, no redress after the votes were taken. If 6000 ostrakons were cast, the victim just kept out of the state for 5 or 10 year. That was all. From this custom and from the Greek term osirakon came our word ostracize with its present and somewhat less brutal significance.
        　　ROU: once a criminal
        　　From the French word rouer that meant "to break on the wheel or "torture on the rack," this word came to us from the Duke of Orleans who was Regent of France around the turn of the 18th century while Louis XV was still a minor, and after whom our city of New Orleans was named. The Duke liked ribaldry and revelry, and so surrounded himself with dissolute and most disreputable people. And quite as in these days when a man will affectionately call another, "you old bastard, you," the Duke addressed these dissipated companions as his dear roués, there wasn’t one of them who shouldn’t have been jailed or stretched on the rack.
        　　SAVAGE: forest dweller
        　　We move from the Latin silva, “forest,” and silvaticus, also salvaticus, ”(man) of the forest,” through the Old French sauvage to our word savage. The dwellers in towns looked upon the “men of the woods” as wild men and so the word savage gradually took on its present-day meanings of brutality and cruelty.
        　　SILLY: originally meant happy
        　　When silly was spelled s?lig it meant “blessed” or “happy.” Then “innocent,” “plain,” “rustic,” “simple.” By the 17th century silly conveyed the notion that the person so-called was weak, harmless, and deserving pity, as “this silly, aged king.” And about this date we arrived at modern meaning “foolish.”
        　　SKEPTIC: examine carefully
        　　The Greek philosopher, Pyrrho, started a new school of thought some three or four centuries before Christ and he and his followers are regarded as the first skeptics. The epithet skeptic was innocent enough at the beginning. It was taken from the Greek word skeptomai which merely meant to “look at something carefully” and “examine” and “consider” it. Pyrrho felt that our physical senses were admittedly unreliable, and that we could, therefore, never know the true nature of things. With this in mind he taught his pupils to look out upon the world with an unruffled indifference, and to more or less permanently suspend judgment. With the passing of time the name skeptic was applied to anyone who questioned things too much, notably to anyone who had doubts about the Christian religion.
        　　STIGMA: literally a brand
        　　While a stigma with us is an unpleasant mark of disgrace it used to be a lot more painful than that. When the officials stigmatized a petty criminal in 17th –century England, they actually branded him with a red-hot iron. The Newgate Calendar tells of a hangman who was so ignorant that he could only burn the letter “T” for thief on the palm of the culprit, this being the only letter of the alphabet he knew. The word stigma in Greek meant a brand made by a pointed instrument.
        　　SUPERCILIOUS: lifted eyebrows
        　　Those who wish to be “snooty” and lift their noses in the air are acting out a slang word. Those, however, who prefer to be supercilious and express their disdain by merely raising their eyebrows are portraying a word that is neither touched nor tainted by slang. Our word supercilious is a direct descendant of the Latin supercilium, “haughtiness,” which splits into super, “above,” and cilium, “eyelid.” Raise your eyebrows and there you are, the picture of disdain.