hippopotamus的词源

英文词源

hippopotamus: hippopotamus: [16] Etymologically, a hippopotamus is a ‘river horse’. The word comes, via Latin, from late Greek hippopótamos, a lexicalization of an earlier phrase híppos ho potámios, literally ‘horse of the river’. Other English descendants of híppos (a relative of Latin equus ‘horse’) include hippodrome [16], from a Greek compound that meant originally ‘horse-race’ (-drome occurs also in aerodrome and dromedary), and the name Philip, literally ‘lover of horses’. The abbreviation hippo, incidentally, dates from the mid-19th century.
=> equine, hippodrome
hippopotamus (n.): 1560s, from Late Latin hippopotamus, from Greek hippopotamus "riverhorse" (earlier ho hippos ho potamios "the horse of the river"), from hippos "horse" (see equine) + potamos "river, rushing water" (see potamo-). Replaced Middle English ypotame (c. 1300), which is from the same source but via Old French. Glossed in Old English as sæhengest.
Ypotamos comen flyngynge. ... Grete bestes and griselich ["Kyng Alisaunder," c. 1300]

hippo-,马，-potamus,河，词源同potamology,Mesopotamia.即河中的马。

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

希腊词根hippo-表示马，potam-表示河，这样hippopotamus字面意就是“river-horse”了。《圣经》(约伯记)中记载的 behemoth [bɪ'hiːmɒθ] n.巨兽；河马，adj.巨大的；高大的，据学者考证应该就是河马。实际生物学上河马与猪的关系比与马近多了。