中文词源
mail 邮件
来自Proto-Germanic*malho,来自PIE*molko,皮袋，袋子。后引申词义旅行袋，信件袋，邮袋，最终用于指邮件。
mail 锁子甲来自古法语maille,铁丝网，锁子甲，来自拉丁语macula,斑点，网眼，词源同maculate,immaculate.因网眼形似一个个小斑点而引申该词义，最终用于指甲胄，即锁子甲。
mail 租金，合同来自中古英语male,租金，贡金，来自古英语mal,合同，协议，交易，来自Proto-Germanic*mathla,会面，来自PIE*mod,会面，集会，开会，词源同meet,moot.由会面引申词义讨论，协商，交易，协议，最后用于指租金，贡金。该词义现仅见于blackmail.拼写比较nail,rail.
英语词源
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mail: English has two extant words mail. The one meaning ‘post’ [13] goes back via Old French to Old High German malha, which meant ‘bag, pouch’. That indeed was what the word originally denoted in English (and modern French malle is still used for a ‘bag’). It was not until the 17th century that a specific application to a ‘bag for carrying letters’ emerged, and this was followed in the next century by the ‘letters, etc so carried’. Mail ‘chain-armour’ [14] comes via Old French maille ‘mesh’ from Latin macula, which originally meant ‘spot, stain’ (hence English immaculate [15], etymologically ‘spotless’), but was transferred to the ‘holes in a net’, from their appearance of being spots or marks.
The word maquis, made familiar in English during World War II as a term for the French resistance forces, means literally ‘scrub, undergrowth’ in French. It was borrowed from Italian macchia, a descendant of Latin macula, whose literal sense ‘spot’ was applied metaphorically to ‘bushes dotted over a hillside’. English once had a third word mail, meaning ‘payment, tax’ [12].
It was borrowed from Old Norse mál ‘speech, agreement’. It now survives only in blackmail [16].
=> immaculate, maquis - mail (n.1)
- "post, letters," c. 1200, "a traveling bag," from Old French male "wallet, bag, bundle," from Frankish *malha or some other Germanic source, from Proto-Germanic *malho- (cognates: Old High German malaha "wallet, bag," Middle Dutch male "bag"), from PIE *molko- "skin, bag." Sense extension to "letters and parcels" (18c.) is via "bag full of letter" (1650s) or "person or vehicle who carries postal matter" (1650s). In 19c. England, mail was letters going abroad, while home dispatches were post. Sense of "personal batch of letters" is from 1844, originally American English.
- mail (n.2)
- "metal ring armor," c. 1300, from Old French maille "link of mail, mesh of net," from Latin macula "mesh in a net," originally "spot, blemish," on notion that the gaps in a net or mesh looked like spots.
- mail (v.)
- "send by post," 1828, American English, from mail (n.1). Related: Mailed; mailing; mailable. Mailing list attested from 1876.
- mail (n.3)
- "rent, payment," from Old English mal (see blackmail (n.)).
权威例句
- 1. The Daily Mail has the headline "The Voice of Conscience"
- 《每日邮报》的头版标题为“良知的声音”。
- 2. Goods may be sent by surface mail or airmail.
- 货物可通过平寄或空运发送。
- 3. An e-mail is already circulating amongst news staff calling for voluntary redundancies.
- 在新闻部员工中已经在转发一封电子邮件,呼吁大家自愿裁汰.
- 4. Peter starts looking through the mail as soon as the door shuts.
- 彼得一关上门就开始逐一查看起邮件来。
- 5. People had to renew their motor vehicle registrations through the mail.
- 人们必须以书信方式重新登记机动车辆。
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