peacock的词源
英文词源
- peacock
- peacock: [14] The original English name of the ‘peacock’ in the Anglo-Saxon period was pēa. This was borrowed from Latin pāvō, a word which appears to have been related to Greek taós ‘peacock’, and which also gave French paon, Italian pavone, and Spanish pavo ‘peacock’. The Old English word is presumed to have survived into Middle English, as *pe, although no record of it survives, and in the 14th century it was formed into the compounds peacock and peahen to distinguish the sexes. The non-sex-specific peafowl is a 19th-century coinage.
- peacock (n.)
- c. 1300, poucock, from Middle English po "peacock" + coc (see cock (n.)).
Po is from Old English pawa "peafowl" (cock or hen), from Latin pavo (genitive pavonis), which, with Greek taos said to be ultimately from Tamil tokei (but perhaps is imitative; Latin represented the peacock's sound as paupulo).
The Latin word also is the source of Old High German pfawo, German Pfau, Dutch pauw, Old Church Slavonic pavu. Used as the type of a vainglorious person from late 14c. Its flesh superstitiously was believed to be incorruptible (even St. Augustine credits this). "When he sees his feet, he screams wildly, thinking that they are not in keeping with the rest of his body." [Epiphanus]
中文词源
在盎格鲁撒克逊时期,"孔雀"拼写为pea,中古英语时期拼写为pe,到14世纪才拼写为现在的复合词peacock。
该词的英语词源请访问趣词词源英文版：peacock 词源，peacock 含义。
来自中古英语pea,孔雀，来自古英语pawa,孔雀，来自拉丁语pavo,孔雀，可以是来自拟声词，模仿孔雀的叫声。后为区分公母，加上cock.
