cob的词源

英文词源

cob: cob: [15] Cob has a bizarre range of meanings – ‘nut’, ‘horse’, ‘male swan’, ‘loaf’, ‘ear of maize’ – but a distillation of them points back to an original ‘head, or something similarly rounded’ (cobnuts and cobloaves, for example, are spherical, and the male swan is the ‘chief’ or ‘leader’). It is therefore tempting to see a connection with the now obsolete cop ‘top, head’ (probably represented in cobweb), and even with Latin caput ‘head’.
=> cobble
cob (n.): a word or set of identical words with a wide range of meanings, many seeming to derive from notions of "heap, lump, rounded object," also "head" and its metaphoric extensions. With cognates in other Germanic languages; of uncertain origin and development. "The N.E.D. recognizes eight nouns cob, with numerous sub-groups. Like other monosyllables common in the dial[ect] its hist[ory] is inextricable" [Weekley]. In the 2nd print edition, the number stands at 11. Some senses are probably from Old English copp "top, head," others probably from Old Norse kubbi or Low German, all perhaps from a Proto-Germanic base *kubb- "something rounded." Among the earliest attested English senses are "headman, chief," and "male swan," both early 15c., but the surname Cobb (1066) suggests Old English used a form of the word as a nickname for "big, leading man." The "corn shoot" sense is attested by 1680s.

来自PIE*geu, 块，圆块，词源同cod, cog, cudgel. 含有多种词义，用于指各种圆块状物体。

该词的英语词源请访问趣词词源英文版：cob 词源，cob 含义。