toad的词源

英文词源

toad

toad: [OE] Toad is a mystery word, with no known relatives in any other Indo-European language. Of its derivatives, toady [19] is short for the earlier toad eater ‘sycophant’ [17]. This originated in the dubious selling methods of itinerant quack doctors. They employed an assistant who pretended to eat a toad (toads were thought to be poisonous), so that the quack could appear to effect a miraculous cure with his medicine.

The toad-eating assistant came to be a byword for ‘servility’ or ‘dependency’, and hence for ‘servile flattery’. Toadstools [14] were named for their stool-like shape, and also because of an association between poisonous fungi and the supposedly poisonous toad.

toad (n.)

c. 1300, from late Old English tadige, tadie, of unknown origin and according to OED with no known cognates outside English. Applied to loathsome persons from 1560s. Toad-strangler "heavy rain" is from 1919, U.S. Southern dialectal.

中文词源

toad：蟾蜍

来自中古英语 tode,蟾蜍，来自古英语 tadie,蟾蜍，词源同 tadpole.

该词的英语词源请访问找单词词源英文版：toad 词源，toad 含义。

toad：蟾蜍

来自中古英语 tode,蟾蜍，来自古英语 tadie,蟾蜍，词源同 tadpole.