generous的词源
英文词源
- generous
- generous: [16] Generous comes via Old French genereux from Latin generōsus, which originally meant ‘of noble birth’ (a sense which survived in English into the late 17th century – Richard Knolles, for instance, in his General history of the Turks 1603, wrote of ‘many knights of generous extraction’). It was a derivative of genus in the sense ‘birth, stock, race’, and harks back semantically to its ultimate source in the Indo-European base *gen- ‘produce’ (see GENERAL). Its semantic progression from ‘nobly born’ through ‘noble-minded, magnanimous’ to ‘liberal in giving’ took place largely in Latin.
=> general - generous (adj.)
- 1580s, "of noble birth," from Middle French généreux (14c.), from Latin generosus "of noble birth," figuratively "magnanimous, generous," from genus (genitive generis) "race, stock" (see genus). Secondary senses of "unselfish" (1690s) and "plentiful" (1610s) in English were present in French and in Latin. Related: Generously; generousness.
中文词源
来自词根gen, 生育，词源同generate. 原指出生高贵的，词义褒义化。
该词的英语词源请访问趣词词源英文版：generous 词源，generous 含义。
generous：慷慨的；宽宏大量的；丰盛的，大量的
来源于原始印欧语gen-(生育)在拉丁语中的派生词generosus(出身高贵的)。
词根词缀： -gener-生殖 + -ous形容词词尾
