the West Indies的词源

英文词源

barbecue

barbecue: [17] Barbecue originated in the language of the now extinct Taino people of the West Indies. It first emerges in the Haitian creole term barbacoa, which meant simply ‘wooden framework’ (used for other purposes than roasting meat – for example, as a bed). American Spanish adopted the word, and passed it on to English. Compare BUCCANEER.

buccaneer

buccaneer: [17] A buccaneer was originally ‘someone who dried meat on a wooden frame over a fire’. The word comes ultimately from mukem, the term for such a frame in the Tupi language of the Caribbean islands, which in the mouths of early French settlers became boucan (the Haitian term was barbacoa, from which we get barbecue). French boucanier thus came to be applied in the 17th century to a woodsman in the West Indies who prepared his food in such a way; such men were fairly lawless, and took to piratical ways, bringing their name with them in the late 17th century.

cannibal

cannibal: [16] Cannibal was originally a proper name, applied by the Spaniards to the Carib people of the West Indies (whom they regarded as eaters of human flesh). It is a variant, originally used by Christopher Columbus, of Caribes, which comes from Carib, a word of Carib origin in the Arawakan language of northern South America and the Caribbean. It is related to the Caribs’ name for themselves, Galibi, literally ‘strong men’.

dengue (n.)

1828, from West Indian Spanish dengue, from an African source, perhaps Swahili dinga "seizure, cramp," form influenced by Spanish dengue "prudery" (perhaps because sufferers walk stiffly and erect due to painful joints). The disease is African, introduced to the West Indies 1827.

east

Old English east, eastan (adj., adv.) "east, easterly, eastward;" easte (n.), from Proto-Germanic *aust- "east," literally "toward the sunrise" (cognates: Old Frisian ast "east," aster "eastward," Dutch oost Old Saxon ost, Old High German ostan, German Ost, Old Norse austr "from the east"), from PIE *aus- (1) "to shine," especially of the dawn (cognates: Sanskrit ushas "dawn;" Greek aurion "morning;" Old Irish usah, Lithuanian auszra "dawn;" Latin aurora "dawn," auster "south;" see aurora). The east is the direction in which dawn breaks. For theory of shift in the geographical sense in Latin, see Australia.

As one of the four cardinal points of the compass, from c. 1200. Meaning "the eastern part of the world" (from Europe) is from c. 1300. Cold War use of East for "communist states" first recorded 1951. French est, Spanish este are borrowings from Middle English, originally nautical. The east wind in Biblical Palestine was scorching and destructive (as in Ezek. xvii:10); in New England it is bleak, wet, unhealthful. East End of London so called by 1846; East Side of Manhattan so called from 1871; East Indies (India and Southeast Asia) so called 1590s to distinguish them from the West Indies.

filibuster (n.)

1580s, flibutor "pirate," especially, in history, "West Indian buccaneer of the 17th century" (mainly French, Dutch, and English adventurers), probably ultimately from Dutch vrijbueter (now vrijbuiter) "freebooter," a word which was used of pirates in the West Indies in Spanish (filibustero) and French (flibustier, earlier fribustier) forms. See freebooter.

According to Century Dictionary, the spread of the word is owing to a Dutch work ("De Americaensche Zee-Roovers," 1678) "written by a bucaneer named John Oexmelin, otherwise Exquemelin or Esquemeling, and translated into French and Spanish, and subsequently into English (1684)." Spanish inserted the -i- in the first syllable; French is responsible for the -s-, inserted but not originally pronounced, "a common fact in 17th century F[rench], after the analogy of words in which an original s was retained in spelling, though it had become silent in pronunciation" [Century Dictionary].

In American English, from 1851 in reference to lawless military adventurers from the U.S. who tried to overthrow Central American governments. The major expeditions were those of Narciso Lopez of New Orleans against Cuba (1850-51) and by William Walker of California against the Mexican state of Sonora (1853-54) and against Nicaragua (1855-58).

FILIBUSTERING is a term lately imported from the Spanish, yet destined, it would seem, to occupy an important place in our vocabulary. In its etymological import it is nearly synonymous with piracy. It is commonly employed, however, to denote an idea peculiar to the modern progress, and which may be defined as the right and practice of private war, or the claim of inpiduals to engage in foreign hostilities aside from, and even in opposition to the government with which they are in political membership. ["Harper's New Monthly Magazine," January 1853]

The noun in the legislative sense is not in Bartlett (1859) and seems not to have been in use in U.S. legislative writing before 1865 (filibustering in this sense is from 1861). Probably the extension in sense is because obstructionist legislators "pirated" debate or overthrew the usual order of authority. Originally of the senator who led it; the maneuver itself so called by 1893. Not technically restricted to U.S. Senate, but that's where the strategy works best. [The 1853 use of filibustering by U.S. Rep. Albert G. Brown of Mississippi reported in the "Congressional Globe" and cited in the OED does not refer to legislative obstruction, merely to national policy toward Cuba.]

frangipani (n.)

common name of a type of flowering shrub from the West Indies, also fdrangipane, 1670s, for a perfume that had its odor, from French frangipane (16c.), said to be from Frangipani, the family name of the Italian inventor.

FRANGIPANI, an illustrious and powerful Roman House, which traces its origin to the 7th c., and attained the summit of its glory in the 11th and 12th centuries. ... The origin of the name Frangipani is attributed to the family's benevolent distribution of bread in time of famine. ["Chambers's Encyclopædia," 1868]

Frangipane as a type of pastry is from 1858.

main (n.)

Old English mægen (n.) "power, bodily strength, force, efficacy," from Proto-Germanic *maginam "power," suffixed form of PIE root *magh- (1) "be able, have power" (see may (v.)). Original sense preserved in phrase with might and main. Meaning "principal channel in a utility system" is first recorded 1727 in main drain. Used since 1540s for "continuous stretch of land or water;" in nautical jargon used loosely for "the ocean," but in Spanish Main the word is short for mainland and refers to the coast between Panama and Orinoco (as contrasted to the islands of the West Indies).

persea (n.)

sacred fruit-bearing tree of Egypt and Persia, c. 1600, from Latin persea, from Greek persea. Used from early 19c. of a genus of trees and shrubs in the West Indies.

sugar (n.)

late 13c., sugre, from Old French sucre "sugar" (12c.), from Medieval Latin succarum, from Arabic sukkar, from Persian shakar, from Sanskrit sharkara "ground or candied sugar," originally "grit, gravel" (cognate with Greek kroke "pebble"). The Arabic word also was borrowed in Italian (zucchero), Spanish (azucar, with the Arabic article), and German (Old High German zucura, German Zucker), and its forms are represented in most European languages (such as Serbian cukar, Polish cukier, Russian sakhar).

Its Old World home was India (Alexander the Great's companions marveled at the "honey without bees") and it remained exotic in Europe until the Arabs began to cultivate it in Sicily and Spain; not until after the Crusades did it begin to rival honey as the West's sweetener. The Spaniards in the West Indies began raising sugar cane in 1506; first grown in Cuba 1523; first cultivated in Brazil 1532. The reason for the -g- in the English word is obscure (OED compares flagon, from French flacon). The pronunciation shift from s- to sh- is probably from the initial long vowel sound syu- (as in sure).

As a type of chemical compound from 1826. Slang "euphemistic substitute for an imprecation" [OED] is attested from 1891. As a term of endearment, first recorded 1930. Sugar-cane is from 1560s. Sugar-maple is from 1731. Sugar loaf was originally a moulded conical mass of refined sugar (early 15c.); now obsolete, but sense extended 17c. to hills, hats, etc. of that shape.

tarbrush (n.)

1711, from tar (n.1) + brush (n.1). To have a touch of the tarbrush "have a dash of African ancestry visible in the skin tone" (1796) was "a term of contempt from the West Indies" [Century Dictionary].

Tia Maria (n.)

coffee-flavored, rum-based liqueur, originally made in the West Indies, 1948, Spanish, literally "Aunt Mary."

中文词源

the West Indies：西印度群岛

来自1550年意大利著名探险家哥伦布发现的加勒比海岛屿，因最初误以为他到达的是东方的印度，但后来发现其实是新大陆，因此，为与印度相区别，命名为West Indies.

该词的英语词源请访问找单词词源英文版：the West Indies 词源，the West Indies 含义。