frugal的词源

英文词源

frugal: frugal: [16] Paradoxically, frugal comes from a source that meant ‘fruitful’. English borrowed it from Latin frūgālis, which was derived from the adjective frūgī ‘useful’. This in turn was the dative case of the noun frūx ‘fruit, value’, which came from the same base as frūctus, the source of English fruit. The links in the semantic chain seem to have been that something that was ‘useful, valuable, or productive’ was also ‘profitable’, and that in order to be ‘profitable’ it must be ‘economical’ – hence frugal’s connotations of ‘careful expenditure’.
=> fruit
frugal (adj.): "economical in use," 1590s, from Middle French frugal, from Latin frugalis, from undeclined adjective frugi "useful, proper, worthy, honest; temperate, economical," originally dative of frux (plural fruges) "fruit, produce," figuratively "value, result, success," related to fructus (see fruit), from PIE *bhrug- "agricultural produce," also "to enjoy." Sense evolved in Latin from "useful" to "profitable" to "economical." Related: Frugally.

来自fructus, 果实，词源同fruit. 原义为丰产的，丰富的，衍生词义节约的，节俭的，即节俭才能富裕之义。比较thrive, 繁盛，thrift，节俭。

该词的英语词源请访问趣词词源英文版：frugal 词源，frugal 含义。