英语四六级词汇复习：8天攻克8000词汇(六)

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        　　CARTEL: originally a chart
        　　Here is a word that has gone through dramatic changes of meaning. It originated in the Latin term charta which meant “paper” and gave us our English word chart. A cartel was originally a written challenge to a fight. Then later it meant a libelous statement in writing. By the 17th century it was an agreement concerning the exchange of prisoners in a war. And now it has the dignified meaning of “an agreement in restraint of trade,” or one of those international combines that makes such an agreement about the fixing of prices and output.
        　　FASCISM: based on a bundle
        　　If you will look on the back of the American dime, you will see the mark of the Fascist. The term Fascism comes from the Italian Fascismo and this in turn is built on the Latin fascis which meant a bundle, usually a bundle of sticks or rods. This bundle, with the ax protruding, was the symbol of official power that was carried before all Roman magistrates. Benito Mussolini resurrected it ofr his own use.
        　　FILIBUSTER: once a freebooter
        　　The buccaneers who infested the West Indies and the SpanishAmerican Coast in the 17th century were called filibusters and freebooters. The word freebooter come from the Danish vrijbuiter, vrij, “free,” and buit, “booty,” but vrijbuiter gave us another word by another route. It passed into French as filibuster, then into Spanish as filibustero, and so into English as filibuster. The word came to mean anyone who waged an irregular sort of warfare for his own gain. And now a filibuster is conducted by a sometimes irregular sort of congressman who speaks interminably to delay legislation.
        　　GERRYMANDER: child of a salamander
        　　Coined around 1812 and infrequently used except in politics. At that time the Massachusetts legislature ingeniously contrived to rearrange the shape of Essex County so as the better to control elections. When they got through with their redistribution it was noticed that this county resembled a salamander. The governor of the state at that time was Elbridge Gerry and a smart newspaper editor used his surname and the last half of salamander to create gerrymander. Such a redistribution of boundaries today for the purposes of political advantages is still called gerrymandering.
        　　GOVERNOR: he directed a ship
        　　When we speak of the “ship of state” we are more accurate than we know, for to the Greeks their word kybernao meant to “direct a ship” and, also, even in those days it had the figurative meaning to “direct the ship of state.” Kybernao isn’t too far in sound from governor. The Romans borrowed the word as guberno, passed it on to the French; then it crossed the channel to England as governor. The president of the United States, however, is actually a presiding officer, for the word president comes from the Latin praesideo, “sit in front of” or “protect”; and the Premier of England should really be the first and topmost citizen of his country because Premier is from the Latin word primaries which means “belonging to the first rank.” The Czar is another story, for it traces back to the old Slavic word cesare which obviously owes its beginning to Caesar, the name of the Roman emperors. The title Tsar was first used in Russia in the 15th century and was adopted as his official title by Ivan the Terrible in 1547.
        　　INAUGURATE: they studied the birds first
        　　In modern days when we inaugurate a president, we induct him into office with solemn and suitable ceremonies. But in olden times such important affairs were not left to chance. The Latin Word inauguratus splits up into in-, “in”, and augur, “diviner.” The augurs and prophets of those days studied the flights and habits of birds, and from their findings told the emperors and governors what the future held in store. And the advice of the soothsayers was usually followed. The Emperor Claudius, however, became impatient during the Punic Wars. When the sacred birds refused to come out of their cage, he tossed them into the sea, declaring: “If they won’t eat, they must drink.” In modern days our presidents and governors receive no help from the diviners when they are inaugurated and are forced to take their own chances.
       
            
            

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        　　LOBBY: began as an arbor
        　　The word lobby that describes the operations of the political pressure groups in Washington shows us that some words have moved from German to Latin to English. We are wont to believe that Latin is always original in its contributions. In Old High German lauba meant a shelter of foliage. This term entered the Latin of the Middle Ages as lobia and in the 16th century was adopted by English as lobby, “a cover ed walk,” which meaning was modified to a “passage” or “anteroom.” In 1640 it was first applied to the anteroom of the House of Commons, and here the lobby began and the lobbyist went to work.
        　　MACHIAVELLIAN: from a stateman’s name
        　　In the days of the wicked Lucrezia Borgia, there lived a famous statesman and diplomat by the name of Niccola Machiavelli. Even the characteristics of his face and manner suggested his practices. He was thin-lipped, with an aquiline nose; his was vulgar in his humor, feverishly active in his ways, and acidly sarcastic. Machiavelli had a mind that was startling in its brilliance and keen in its analytical powers, and he was thought of as “the idea man” for the politicians of early 16th-century Florence. In time he lost favor with the ruling Medici family. For this reason he was forced to stop his active practice of politics, and started to write down his theories about them instead. Through his book Il principe he has become known as the founder of political science. Unfair critics have maligned him, claiming that he believed a ruler to be justified in using any means, no matter how unscrupulous., to maintain his power. For this reason a machiavellian policy now means a policy of craft, cunning, and bad faith.
        　　MUGWUMP: great man
        　　In 1884 there was a split in the Republican party, and a large number of members refused to support James G. Blaine for president. They were accused by the regulars of assuming a superior attitude and such epithets as “Pharisees” and mugwumps were hurled at them. Apparently mugwump, or mugquomp as it was spelled in one of the Massachusetts dialects, was an Algonquian Indian word meaning “great man” or even “chief.” Today the word is applied to anyone who takes a position independent of “the party line.” Albert J. Engel is reported to have said in the House of Representatives in April, 1936, that a mugwump has “his mug on one side of the political fence and his wump on the other,” although this joke is thought to be older than Engel.
        　　PLATFORM: it’s flat
        　　In French plat means “flat,” so a platform is really a “flat-form.” Since the 1800’s the word platform, in the political argot of the United States, has signified the basis of a party’s appeal to the public. The party leaders carry on endless arguments about the “planks” that are to be put in the platform, and these “planks” take us right back to the broad pieces of sawed lumber that make up the familiar speaker’s platform.
        　　POLL: first a human head
        　　Poll is a term that has a meaning quite different from the one it began with. In Middle English the word was spelled polle and meant “head,” or more particularly, the “top of the head,” for that was the part of a person that could be seen above the crowd when a count of “heads” was being taken. In this way the word came to mean the registering of votes. A poll tax, of course, is a “head” tax.
        　　PROTOCOL: first concerned glue
        　　We are familiar with the sharp protocol of diplomacy that determines what official shall call on whom first, and where the ambassador’s wife shall sit at a formal dinner party. The word protocol itself travels back finally to the Greek term protokollon. Which was the first leaf glued to the front of a manuscript with an index of the contents written on it. The elements of the word are protos, “first,” and kolla, “glue.” Our word protocol from which an official treaty or document was eventually drawn. Then the meaning was extended to the rules of etiquette of the diplomatic corps and others.
        　　RADICAL: to the root of things
        　　This word now is not much more than a general term of abuse, although it started off innocently enough. It comes directly from the Latin radicalis from radix, “root.” This same word radix gave us the name of our homely vegetable the radish which is nothing more than an edible “root.” Therefore a radical, essentially, is merely a person who likes to go to the “root” of a matter. In its original sense, radical meant “fundamental” or “primary.” But around the end of the 18th century, a group of English politicos came to be known as radical reformers because they wanted to go right to the root of things and revamp the existing political set-up. No one called them “reds,” however, because their special badge happened to be a white hat. They were soon a hated crew, for folks don’t like change, and the word radical eventually became a name of low reproach.
       
            
            

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        　　SENATE: a group of old men
        　　Our sometime comment about the “nine old men” of the Supreme Court indicates that our young nation doesn’t look upon old age with as much respect as the Romans did. For their word senatus, “senate,” derived from the Latin senex, “an old man,” and their senate, thus, was a revered council of elders. We Americans are more apt to look upon old age as senile, which also is a derivative of senex.
        　　TAMMANY: an Indian saint
        　　Tammany Hall was founded in New York City as a private social club in 1789. It was said to have been sharpened into a political weapon by Aaron Burr, and with its new power practically swung the political election to Thomas Jefferson. People were indignant and complained about a private club playing politics. So Tammany split up. One half took out a charter as a social and benevolent outfit, bought a meeting-place called “The Hall,” and rented the space to the other and political half. They borrowed the name for their association from a Delaware Indian chief of the 17th to 18th centuries called Tammany or Taminy. Chief Tammany was described as a friend of George Washington, and may have been the Indian with whom William Penn had his famous negotiations for the land which became Penn’s woods, or Pennsylvania. Later on the Delaware chief was facetiously canonized as the patron saint of the republic, and so for more than 160 years New York City has often been ruled by the loyal Sons of Saint Tammany.
        　　7. War Words and Their Histories
        　　ADMIRAL:a Saracen chief
        　　Originally an admiral was an amir, or a Saracen chief. The amir-al-bahr was commander of the sea.Amir,"commander," al,"the ,"bahr,"sea."This was his official title in the early days of Spain and Sicily.The first tow parts of the Arabic word were taken into French as amiral which was later reinterpreted as admiral due to the equivalence of Old French a-and Latin ad-.This word passed into English and was associated with the navy as early as the 13th century.Later,a flagship was called the Admiral which led to the word's application in modern English to a sea commander.
        　　ALARM: to arms'
        　　If we are alarmed at any time, we should spring to arms for that is what the Italian cry all'arme meant.In later years the Italians combined the two word s into allarme and the meaning was extended from the military command itself to the emotion was fright that had been felt on hearing it shouted.Now,very often, alarm has only to do with the warning of the morning alarm clock.The word had even reached this low point at the time of Samuel Pepys who noted in his Diary on July 15,1665, after a hard day at the Exchequer:"And so to bed,to be up betimes by the helpe of a larum watch,which by chance I borrowed of my watchmaker today which my owne is mending."
        　　AMNESTY:loss of memory
        　　When a lawyer begs amnesty for his client, he is actually asking the judge to have and attack of amnesia.The first person in history to grant amnesty was reported to have been a Greek general who said that he would forgive his enemies and " not remember"(Greek a-,"not,"mnasthai,"to remember")their misdeeds.And from this we inherited our two English words, amnesia,"loss of memory ,"and amnesty ,"a pardon for offenses."
        　　ANNOY:once a military term
        　　In the 16th century the English had a Jury of Annoyances to deal with such public nuisances as the "slaughter of bestes within the cyte."The word annoy was much stronger then.An attacking enemy would "annoy a town."This term ternm traces back by changes of spelling to the Latin phrase in odio which meant "in hatred."The French took the Latin word over in the derived form enuier,"displease,"and from this term we inherited in English the tow words annoy and ennui,the fist meaning "to displease"and the second,"the act of being bored by unpleasantness,"or just boredom in general.Another useful English word comes from the same Latin parentage.The word could have been annoy-some but we reduced this to the less awkward word noisome,meaning"disgusting," "offensive,"which is the extremity of annoyance.
       
            
            

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        　　BASIN:a soldier's helmet
        　　You dont't have to tell a soldier that his helmet is often his only wsbasin or soup bowl. This word basin started in Roman days with the Late Latin term bachinus,"an eating lowl."In the Middle Ages, the knights of Charlemagne, king of the Franks wore cone-shaped metal caps or helmets.This word for this helmet was bacin, actually ,"a bowl for the head." Bacin slipped into English,then became basin. These words of ours proiferate, and before long we had bassinet or"little basin," that beriboned crib in which we put babies.
        　　BESIEGE:sitting by a towm
        　　This word traces through the Old French sieger,"to sit,"ultimately from the Latin sedeo,plus the English prefix be-, "by."When the enemy besieges a town,it sits by"it until somebody sives up.Or it used to ,at least,in the days before atomic fission.The Lation roots sed,sid ,and sess,form sedeo, came to us directly,without the changes incurred by passing through the French language.Therefore we have the session of Congress during which our legislators "sit";and those sedate paople who "sit"gravely in their chairs. Then there is the sediment that "sits" on the bottom and the sedentary jobs of the clerks.Or a nice, fat subsidy that lets you "sit" for the test of your life.
        　　BOOTY:your share
        　　The modern word booty comes from the Middke Low German word bute which meant a distribution or a sharing .When bute entered our language it began to mean booty as we understand it,something takenillegally and then sharedin the fashion of the pirates and freebooters of those days.Its spelling was influenced by the English word boot which meant profit or advantage. This we now use in such an expression as:"He sold him his camera and then gave him a couple of films to bot";that is , something besides, or in addition to,the article bough.But the word boot that applies to the covring that yu wear on your foot is merely a corruption of the Hindustani word lut,meaning "something plundered."
        　　8. Terms of Science and the Professions
        　　ACADEMY: named for a Greek farmer?
        　　This is a pleasant story about a Greek farmer. It seems that a Spartan maiden, named Helen, was kidnapped by the legendary hero Theseus. Her twin brothers, Castor and Pollux, who are now in our heavens as two bright stars, searched for their sister without success until they met the farmer, Akademos, who seems to have given them some hint as to the whereabouts of the kidnapper and his victim. As a reward for his alertness the grove of Akademos was eternally watched over by the gods. It was in this grove that the great philosopher Plato held his classes. The grove was called Academeia, and for many years after his death his pupils and followers met in this same spot for their discussions. Plato never did verify the story of the farmer, but he gave us the word academy that now means a place of learning.
        　　ALGEBRA: bone-setting
        　　The ancients had to borrow a medical term to christen this branch of mathematics. They took the Arabic words al jebr, with the meanings al, “the,” and jebr, “reuniting what is broken.” Sometimes these words were used to mean “bone-setting.” Out of this they built a really impressive phrase for the new science, ilm al-jebr wa’l-mup-abalah, which meant “reduction and comparison by equations.” The Italians mercifully took the second and third words of this phrase and combined them to form algebra. Even as late as the 17th century the word algebra kept its original Arabic meaning and still referred to surgical treatment. For instance we read in the historian Halle: “This Araby worde Algebra sygnifyeth as well fractures of bones as sometime the restauration of the same.” But to the school-child today, it’s just a mathematical headache.
        　　ANESTHESIA: no feeling
        　　Sir Humphry Davy first accomplished artificial anesthesia in 1800 and in that period medical men would have had enough Greek to know that Plato used the word anaisthesia to mean “insensibility” from an-, “not,” and aesthesis, “feeling.”
       
            
            

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        　　CHEMISTRY: a search for gold
        　　The early alchemists spent most lf their time trying to find a way to turn baser metals into gold; and atomic fission is showing Us that they weren’t as stupid as we thought . When the Arabs invaded Europe , they brought with them the idea for their type of research and also introduced the name of it , al-kimia , which eventually became alchemy . The word chemist was coined by shortening alchemist , and the term chemistry followed .
        　　DEAN: he led ten
        　　The dean of your university is a descendant of the Roman decanus who was a commander of a division of ten . Late on this became a church term and was the title of the ecclesiastic who was at the head of ten monks in a monastery . By the time the colleges borrowed the title decanus , it was spelled dean , and now he can be the head of as many as he wants . Decanus is derived from decem , the Latin word for ‘ten’ .
        　　DISSECT: cut it apart
        　　When a biologist dissects a frog he dis-, ‘apart,’ and seco , ‘cut,’ or ‘cuts’ it ‘apart .’ In geometry we bisect a circle ,or ‘cut’ it in ‘two .’ A road that intersects another ‘cuts’ ‘in between .’ And a section is something ‘cut off .’
        　　ELECTRICITY: the beaming sun
        　　The Greeks knew that when you rubbed amber, it would become magnetic and begin to draw feathers and strings and other light objects to it. Little more than this was known about electricity until comparatively recent times. The ancients used to make love amulets out of amber, and guaranteed that the wearing of one would attract a lover . Since friction can make amber give off sparks , the Greeks named it electron , from elektor, ‘the beaming sun.’ This word into Latin as electrum, was turned into the adjective electritcus, whence our electric and electricity.
        　　ELIXIR: of magic powers
        　　With us an elixir is usually a panacea or life-giving potion, as: ‘The book is full of a veritable elixir of spiritual vitality.’ In the earliest days, Eastern alchemists continually tried to turn base metals into gold.There was an imaginary substance that they thought would do the trick, and they called it al-iksir, literally ‘the dry power.’ This entered Medieval Latin as elixir,still a word of magic, for in medieval times the boys were looking for an elixir vitae or ‘elixir of life’ that would bring eternal youth . Ponce de Leon sought the elixir in Florida , and Faust searched for this imaginary cordial in his laboratory . Even today elixir retains a magic meaning .
        　　ENTOMOLOGY: cut up
        　　This is the branch of zoology that treats of insects. The word is based on the Greek entomos which means ‘cut up.’ If we examine an ant or a similar insect, we will see that their bodies are indented and appear to be ‘cut up’ in to sections. The word ‘insect’ from the Latin insectum, ‘cut up,’ is simply a Roman rendering of the Greek idea.
        　　INOCULATE: a gardening term
        　　When the doctor inoculates you, he ‘plants’ in your body a small seedling of the virus or germ that causes the disease in order to make your immune to attack. But at first the word inoculate was a purely horticultural term and meant to insert an eye or bud in a plant for propagation. It came form the Latin in, ‘into,’ and oculus, ‘eye.’ Its present use dates form the time of the first inoculate against smallpox.
        　　LAW: something laid down
        　　When we lay down the law to someone, we are almost saying the same thing twice over. In the early days of our language law was spelled lagu in the pural and lagu is so closelyrelated to the word ‘lay’ we can safely say the law was something ‘laid down.’ A statute, on the other hand ,is quite the opposite. The grandparent of this word is the Latin statutes which simply means something ‘set up.’ We ‘set up’ laws on the books.
       
            
            

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        　　NAUSEA: derived from a ship
        　　In the dim and distant days folks weren’t any better sailors than we are . They , too, got that type of nausea that we call seasickness and that the French speak of as mal de mer , or ‘sickness of the sea .’The Greeks were the ones who invented the world nausia , and they took it straight from their word naus , ’ship ,’ the vehicle that produced the condition . The Roman satirist , Juvenal ,points out with some bitterness in his Legend of Bad Women , that wives are always seasick , but that a mistress remains healthy and good-tempered during the whole voyage .
        　　This word nausea, that in those days meant seasickness, has taken on a broader meaning in English.
        　　PANACEA: named from a goddness
        　　A panacea is a cure for all ills, and comes by its meaning in all honesty. If you look at the front of a modern physician’s car, you will usually see a metal piece representing a serpent twined medicine . The serpent was taken to represent medicine because he is the symbol of the renewing of youth and eternal life from the fact that he gets a new skin every year. The mythical Asclepius had a daughter with the happy name of Panakecia, “the all-healing,” and from her name was derive our word panacea.
        　　PEDAGOGUE: he led the children
        　　An instructor of young people is a schoolmaster ,and the history of the word demands that he should be , for this term comes from the identical Greek word pedagogue, which divides into pais , paidos, “child ,” and ago, “lead.” Originally , and quite literally ,the slave who “led” the “child” to school and home again by the hand.. Little attention was paid to the education of girls in ancient Greek days , but the sons were taught by the pedagogues who were slaves in the families of the rich. A demagogue ,by the way ,leads the “people”(demos) in other directions.
        　　PUPIL: just a doll
        　　When we see a group of young pupils sitting in a classroom, they look a bit like little dolls , and that’s why the word pupil came from the Latin term pupilla ,” a little doll.” And then we have the other English word pupil , the pupil of your eye . When we look another person in the eye, we often see a minute image of ourself reflected there , and this miniature picture also reminded the Romans of a pupilla or “little doll.” And so pupilla contributed the word pupil to us with a second meaning , the pupil of your eye . And it is interesting to know that the Jews were drawn to this same figure of speech. The Hebrew word for the pupil of the eye were eshon ayin, or “little man of the eye.”
        　　QUARANTINE: forty days
        　　The length of time that a ship is now held in quarantine varies with the nature of the contagious disease that is suspected of being aboard ,but years ago the quarantine was for a flat forty days .The word quarantine comes eventually from the Latin quadraginta, “forty,” and this magic number forty has several uses in our language . Quarentena, for instance , was the Medieval Latin name giben to the desert where Christ fasted for forty days ,and in the early Rome Catholic Church a quarantine was a penance or fast lasting for the same period of time. Now it is an indulgence corresponding to such a penance. In common law, we have the “window’s quarantine” which permits the bereaved woman to live in her deceased husband’s house for a period of forty days after his death . It would seem that there is a bit of religious significance in this mystic number “forty”.
        　　QUINSY: choked a dog
        　　The Greeks called a sore throat kynanche, from kyon, “dog,” and ancho,”choke.” This word illustrates,in its career, the dramatic shifts in spelling that can occur. In Medieval Latin kynanche became quinancia , which entered Middle English as quinesye, later quinsy, the quinsy sore throat that we have today.
       
            
            

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        　　SCHOLAR: leisure to study
        　　To be a true scholar one must have leisure for reading , research, meditation , and intelligent discussions. So it isn’t strange to find that our word scholar is from the Greek word schole which means “leisure.” Later , when philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato taught groups of young men, the early classes were termed schole. This passed into Latin as schola, “school,” and so gave us school, scholar, and all the related words. But the word school as used in the phrase “ a school of fish “ is from an entirely different source. It comes down to us from the Dutch word school which is related to the Old English term scolu which meant “a band of people.”
        　　SCOTLAND YARD: palace of the kings
        　　This place ,made famous by detective story writers, was so called because it stands on the site of a palace where the Scottish kings once lived when they visited England . The last of the Scottish Royal Family to stay there was Margaret ,Queen of James VI.
        　　ZODIAC:meant animal
        　　The zodiac is that imaginary belt of animals that supposed by the ancients to encircle the heavens.The twelve parts were named for taurus,"the bull,"pisces,"the fish,"and such .Each division is important to astrology for reading the character of those born under these signs.If we follow this word zodiac back far enough ,we will find its ancestor in the Greek word zoion,"animal."
        　　9. Romantic Stories of Words about Women
        　　ALIMONY: eating money
        　　We have in English the word aliment that menas foof. This traces to the Latin alo, “norish.” So the way the most of our divorce laws are written now, if a wife sues for release from her bonds, she expects alimony, which, etymologically, is really“eating money.”
        　　ALLURING: from falconry
        　　When falconry was at its height in Englang and on the continent, allure was a device used by hunters to call back their hawks. It consisted of a bunch of feathers with a long cord attached. It was from this contraption that the hawk wasd fed during his training period, hence the attraction. So when a girl purposely allures a man, she is using the deceptive methods of a hunter. We have inherited the word from Old French allure; a, “to,”and lure, “bait.”
        　　AMAZONS: they had only one breast
        　　The Amazons were a race of female warriors who were alleged by the Greek historian Herodotus to live in Scythia. These manlike women fought many battles with the Greeks and the famous hero Achilles was presumed to have slain their queen penthesilea when the Amazons were trying to heop the besieged Trojans. These mythical women were said to have cut off their right breasts so that they could draw their bows more easily. The Greeks invented this fable to connect the word Amazon with a “without,”and mazos,”breast.”These Scythian women were responsible for the name of our south American river, the amazon. This river was called by its discoverer Rio Santa Maria de la Mar Dulce. But when the Spanish explorer Orellana made the first descent of the river from the Andes to the sea, he was engaged in battle by a savage tribe in which he believed that women fought beside the men and it is the accepted story that he then techristened the mighty river Amazonas. So when we call a modern woman an amazon, we mean that she is masculine, powerful, and inclined to give battle.
        　　AUBURN: blong to red
        　　Lots of mistakes have occurred in the making of our language.For example, the Latin word alburnus meant fair-haired,literally”like shite,”for alba meant”white.”Albunus passed over into Old French and Middle English as auburne, and then ,of all things, got confused with the native word vroune which meant brown. So the alburnus or fair –haired girls of ancient rome –and the Roman club-men loved their blondes –became The auburn-or reddish-brown-haired girls of today.
       
            
            

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        　　AVOIRDUPOIS: sold by weight
        　　In our weight-conscious country, the United States, avoirdupois is a polite way of speaking of wxcess fat ,but its Old French ancestor aveir de peis meant”goods sold by weight,”such as wool.Lter on ,in English-speaking countries, avoidupois became the standard system of weights for goods other than gems, metals, and drugs.Adiose is another polite and pet word of the overweight, but its derivation is more blunt. The Latin adeps, adipis, is the source, and this just means “grease:or “fat”and nothing nicer.
        　　BEVY: merely a drinking copany
        　　The Latin word bibere, meant”to drink.” This became beivre in Old French. One of its derivatives came into our language as beverage,”that which is drunk.” By the same path bevee seems to have entered Old English with the meaning”a group of drinkers,”and then changed to signify a small group of birds, animals, or people,the people usually being women . In the late Middle Ages a bevy was a company of “roes, larks, quails,or ladies. The Latin term bibere perhaps also contributed the baby’s bib to our langyage, for ,after all, a bib does have to “imbibe”the moisture that the baby spills.
        　　BLUESTOCKING: affectedly literary
        　　this is a word that was more familiar to Washington Irving than it is to us ,but there are parts of the countru where an affectedly studious and literary woman is still called a bluestocking. It all began with Elizabeth Montagu, a famous leader of London society in the 1700’s, who introduced”literary evenings” in her home as a substitute for the frivolous card-playing parties of the day . She is said to have adopted blue stockingsdeliberately as a badge of her ideas. The ladies who had a taste for such gatherings were dubbed Bluestockings by a certain Admiral Buscawen and his epithet still lives.
        　　BOUDOIR: at one time, a pouting-room
        　　With us , of course ,an elegantly furnished room to which a lady can retire to alone or to receive her intimate friends. But in the middle Ages a young lady was sent to her boudoir to get over the sulks. Our word comes from the French verb bouder,”to pout.”So a lady ‘s boudoir is really her pouting-room.
        　　BRIDAL: the toast that was drunk
        　　At modern wedding receptions of the well-to-do the bride is usually toasted in champagne. This is not at all in tune with the history of word. Tht drink should really be a tankard of that homely brew, ale for the word bridal is formed of two old English words, bruyd, “bride” and ealu,”ale,” and our bridal ceremony takes its name from the traditional “bride’s ale ” that was always drunk at the time. Brydealu changed to bridale, then bridal. The bridegroom, is another story. He should be called a bridegoom,literally a “brideman.”But somebody down the line got confused and substituted groom for goom, so now a bride has married a man who takes care of horses.
        　　BUXOM: once meant obedient
        　　When we call a girl buxom we mean that she is fat .But when a bitish bride of early times promised to be “buxom and bonnyh”to her husband,she didn’t mean that she was going to put on a few extra pounds.The word buxom, or buhsum, as it was then spelled, seems to have come from bugan meaning “bend,”and therefore pliant, pleasant, and kindlyl.It was customary,in that era,to talk of being buxom,that is,”obedient,”to the judges, or even buxom to the pope.Then, later ,the meaning
        　　turned to “blithe and gay”;still later to “full of health and vigor.”But now the original “bend “has gone into the curves of her figure, and a buxom girl is just pleasingly plump.
        　　CAPRICE: liKe a goat
        　　One hundred years ago the British author, Thomas De Quincey wrote somewhat superciliously:”Eerywhere I observe in the feminine mind something of a beautiful caprice, a floral esuberande of that charming willfulness which characterizes our dear human sisters, Ifear, through all the world.” This lefthanded compliment makes women seem attractively feminine, and yet ,when a girl is capricious, her actions are reminiscent of the lowly billy goat. The word caprice comes through the Itaian capriccio from the Latin caper, “goat.”So when a girl is capricious and cuts up capers,she is imitating the frixsky, playful antics of the male cousin of a sheep.
       
            
            

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        　　CHARM: formerly a danger word
        　　If a girl were called charming 14th-century England, you could be pretty sure that she was headed for the torture chamber or to a horrifying trial by ordeal. The charm that is now courted by every woman would be sure, at that timem to bring complete social ostracism.we inherited this word from the French charme which found its source in the Latin Carmen, “song,” usually a wicked chant or incantation of magic power lide that of the notorious Lorelei. And there was also the charm that was worn to ward off evil, the progenitor of the innocent charm bracelet that has been worn by women since the 1860’s.Even as late as the 16th century we uncover the quotation:”The serpent stoppeth his eares with hir taile, to the end that she may not heare the charmes and sorceries of the inchanter.”But by shakespeare’s time the word carried a good deal less weight and now it is a high compliment to tell a girl that she has charm.
        　　COQUETTE: once applied to men
        　　Men used to habe a share in this word, but the girls finally took over. Coquette comes from the French coq,”cock,” and first referred to someone who behaved like a barnyard cock with his strutting gait and amorous habits. Later the word went completely feminine and we discover the coquette defined in 17th century dictionary as “a frisking and fliperous minx” The nearest male counterpart for this word is “cocky.”
        　　COURTESAN: formerly a perfect lady
        　　In the beginning this lady ,as her name implies, was merely a perfectly proper member of the court circle, but since her morals were often no better than they should be ,she turned into a court mistress. The term courtesan is rarely used of a prostitute .There is a nice distinction here that was aptly pointed out by a 17th-century writer named sharpham. “Your whore”,he says,”is for euery rascall,but your curtizan is for your courtier.And it is entertaining to know in this connection that court plaster was sonamed because the xourtesans and other ladies of the court cut bits of plaster into fancy shapes and wore these black patches on the face or shoulders.
        　　DAMASK: soft as a rose
        　　This fine patterned fabric was named for the city of Damascus. and the damask cheeks of the English ladies to which the romantic poets paid such high tribute were so called because they resembled the fine pink rose,known as damask rose, which was also named for thsyrian city of Damascus.
        　　ENCHANT:began as sorcery
        　　An enchantress can be a bewitching and fascinating woman,or, in history, she could be a sorceress who practiced magic and the Eeil arts.In the earliest days of England enchant had only the sinister meaning of witchcraft, but by the 14th-century it had taken on the sense of “win over,” as illustrated by the phrase “enchant to charity.”This meaning was inherited from its ancestral grandparent,the Latin incantare,built upon in ,”over,”and cantare, “to sing”;that is, to “sing”someone “over”to your side.
        　　FAINT:once meant pretend
        　　When a fencer feints, he makes a false motion with intent to deceibe. This is just what the Victorian lady did when she would faint for these wesk sisters could always solve any dilemma by swooning away . The French words faint and feint both meant “pretended” or “feigned,” and they came from feindri, which meant “be cowardly,” “avoid one’s duty,” “pretend.” So when a girl faints, she may be feintging.
        　　GLAMOUR:made by word magic
        　　It’s strange to find that the glamour girl of today was named after the full Latin grammar that we thumbed our way through in school .Yor see, all through the ages there has been a mystery attached to words. The ancient Egyptian priests, for the sake of power , kept the art of reading and writing as a secret of the templem, and the people looked upon these skills with superstitious awe. Even in 16th-century Englang the ability to read and write was regarded with a fishy eye, and this special knowledge was associated with black magic.In that day latin was the language of the cultured few. Books were written in this dead speech, and the intellectuals conversed in Latin .A famous German professor was actually unfrocked because he dared to deliver a lecture in English.But the illiterate masses accredited occult and devilish powers to those who were fluent in Latinand in Latin grammar. As the years went by, the letter “r”in the mysterious word grammar changed to “I,” as “r” often does in the mutations of language. Other modifications ctept in ,and a new word glamour was born that first carried with it the same cabalistic overtones that had attached to Latin grammar, for the word glamour originally meant “magic,””a spell or charm.”Now the meaning has been modified, and the Hollywood starlet who has glamour casts a spell over men instead of over Latin grammar.
       
            
            

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        　　10. Your Favorite Sports and Their Word Histories
        　　BACKGAMMON: back game
        　　The beautifully inlaid 5,000-yeat-old backgammon board of Queen Shub-ad was found in her tomb during the excavation of the ancient capital of Babylonia, Ur of the Chaldees. Backgammon and its blood cousin, checkers, were known throughout the East thousands of years ago. From a date far back before the time of Christ comes a representation of a lion and an antelope at play over a draughts board. As a point of information, the lion is in the act of grabbing the stakes. Roughly speaking, the game of backgammon as we know it is usually dated form the 10th century, since the board was more or less standardized at that time. The word gamen in early English meant “game.” Hence backgammon really means “back game” because the pieces are often “sent back” to reenter the board.
        　　BADMINTON: named for an estate
        　　The Duke of Beaufort had a tidy bit of property ten miles in circumference in Gloucestershire, England. This estate of his, called Badminton, was apparently the scene of several innovations in English living in the late 19th century. A claret and soda drink was named badminton after it, but that has long since been forgotten. Everyone, however, knows of the game badminton, which was first played in England in 1873. The game itself was imported from India by the British.
        　　BLINDFOLD: meant a blow
        　　In the children’s game of blindman’s buff, one of the players is blindfolded, and this sounds as though a handerchief were folded around the victim’s eyes, but the word blindfold means nothing of the kind. The Middle English word blindfellen meant “strike blind,” and fellen meant “strike” but blindfelled the form of the past tense, was eventually altered to blindfold. And, by the way, the buff in blindman’s buff means a “blow” that was struck during the game.
        　　BOWLING: kings forbade it
        　　This game has a romantic history although the derivation of the word bowling is simple. It is originally from the Latin bulla, “bubble.” Bulla finally became “bowl” which, at first, meant either the ball itself or the active cast or delivery of the ball. Modern keglers may be interested to know that the complete equipment for playing their game was discovered by Sir Flinders Petrie, the British archaeologist, in an Egyptian tomb dating back to 5,200 B.C. And these same keglers may be surprised to learn that bowling was forbidden in England by Edward | | |, Richard||，and other monarchs because it was thought to be too harmless a sport and one that provided no training for war such as archery did. Henry V| | | also forbade bowling, but he had a fine alley laid out at Whitehall so that he might amuse himself between executions. But in spite of all this, the Dutch brought a variety of this game over and taught it to us on Bowling Green, those acres that lie in New York’s financial district.
        　　]BRIDGE: first a man’s game
        　　The earlier name for this was biritch. The game was enthusiastically taken up by the British in the lush 1880’s. Women were at first excluded and it was as much of a man’s game as poker, but the turn of the century changed that, and women’s clubs became more common than men’s. The story that card were invented to amuse a feeble-minded king seem not to be quite accurate. It is true, however, that the first record of playing cards in Europe appears in the household accounts of Charles VI in 1392 or 1393. But, since his mental illness didn’t appear until 1393, it would seem doubtful that the game of cards could suddenly be invented for his sake. Little is known of their actual beginning, although some writers say that a Chinese by the name of Seun-ho, who lived around 1120 A.D., devised the game for the amusement of his concubines. In Egypt, cards were connected with religious ideas. At the least, we know that by 1483 Europe took to playing cards with such a passion that the first sermon was preached against them by Saint Bernardion of Siena at Bologna, Italy. His congregation was so stirred that they rushed home and made a bonfire of every pack that they had. Germany was an early center of card manufacturing. These cards had images of bell, hearts, leaves, and acorns, representing the nobility, clergy, landowners, and laborers. The Spanish went in for swords, batons, cups, and money. Our own symbols came directly from the French, but the names are a mixture. The club is a translation of the Spanish basto, “baton,” but the figure is the French trefoil, that is, “three-leaved,” really a clover. Spade is from the Spanish espada, or “sward,” which comes ultimately from the Greek spathe which meant “wooden sword.” The French word carreau really means a pane of glass or a tile, but when they use it in cards it identifies what we call a diamond. The heart is simply a conventional drawing of the human heart. In card games the word discard is often used. An earlier spelling of this term was decard, from de, “away,” and card, “card,” which first meant to reject a card from your hand. Now discard is used in other ways than card playing.