topic的词源

英文词源

topic: topic: [16] Greek tópos meant ‘place’. From it was derived the adjective topikós ‘of a place’, which came to mean ‘commonplace’. Aristotle used it in the title of his treatise Tà topiká, which contains commonplace arguments, and it was with direct reference to this that the word first arrived in English (via Latin topica). The sense ‘subject, theme’ arose in the 18th century from the notion of the various heads of argument contained in Tà topiká and works like it.

The derived topical [16] originally meant ‘of topics’; the specialization to ‘of topics of the day, of current interest’ is as recent as the second half of the 19th century. The word’s original notion of ‘place’ is preserved in topography [15] and topology [17]. The diminutive form of Greek tópos was tópion ‘small place’, hence ‘field’.

Latin took over its plural as topia, and used it for ‘ornamental gardening’. From it was derived the adjective topiārius, which forms the basis of English topiary [16].
=> topiary, topography
topic (n.): 1630s, "a class of considerations from which probable arguments can be drawn," singular form of "Topics" (1560s), the name of a work by Aristotle on logical and rhetorical generalities, from Latin Topica, from Greek Ta Topika, literally "matters concerning topoi," "commonplaces," neuter plural of noun use of topikos "pertaining to a common place, of a place, local," from topos "place" (see topos). The meaning "matter treated in speech or writing, subject, theme" is first recorded 1720.

中文词源

topic：题目

这个词是从古希腊哲学家亚里士多德（384—322BC）——古希腊哲学家柏拉图的学生，古马其顿国王亚历山大大帝的老师——的一篇著作的标题Ta Topika中来的，意思是“平凡小事”，后来topic一词便成了“标题”、“题目”的总称。

现代英语中说的topical songs（地方歌曲）仍含有topic早期的含义，因为这些歌曲唱的大都是与“日常小事”有关的内容。

该词的英语词源请访问找单词词源英文版：topic 词源，topic 含义。

topic：话题，题目，主题

古希腊哲学家亚里士多德是哲学家柏拉图的学生，也是马其顿国王亚历山大大帝（Alexander the Great）的老师，他曾写过一篇关于修辞学和逻辑学的论文，题目是“Ta Topika”，其字面意义为 commonplaces 或generalities （琐事，通则），16世纪时通过拉丁文topica 被译成英语，作Topics ，英语中的topic 一词正是由此而来。据此，我们可以说topic 先有了复数形式，然后才产生单数形式。topic 的今义“话题”、“题目”、“主题”等都是18世纪后从原义逐渐引申出来的。

topic：题目，话题

来自拉丁语 topica,题目，话题，来自希腊语 topikos,关于某地的，来自 topos,地方，词源同 topography.

topic（主题）：亚里斯多德的一篇文章的标题