posthumous的词源
英文词源
- posthumous
- posthumous: [17] Latin postumus functioned as a superlative form of post ‘after’, and meant ‘last of all’. It was often applied to a child ‘born after the death of its father’, as being the final offspring that man could possibly have, and so began to pick up associations with the ‘period after death’. This led in turn to the perception of a link with humus ‘ground’ (source of English humble and humus) and humāre ‘bury’, and so postumus became posthumus. English adapted it direct from Latin.
- posthumous (adj.)
- mid-15c., "born after the death of the originator" (author or father), from Late Latin posthumus, from Latin postumus "last, last-born," superlative of posterus "coming after, subsequent" (see posterior). Altered in Late Latin by association with Latin humare "to bury," suggesting death; the one born after the father's death obviously being the last. An Old English word for this was æfterboren, literally "after-born." Related: Posthumously.
中文词源
该词源自后期拉丁语(Late Latin) postumus，而postu-mus是post‘after’的最高级，字面义为last（最后的）或Last-born（最后出生的），但常用以表示“父亲死后出生的”，以后和拉丁短语post humus'after the burial’（死后）发生联想，久而久之，字母h就被插入postumus之中，postumus变成了posthumus。英语posthumous中的字母h也是因此加上去的，它首次在《牛悼英语词典》出现时，原拼作posturnous。到了17世纪，随着拼法上的变化，posthumous从原先的“父亲死后出生的”一义引申出“死后的”和“著作者死后出版的”两个词义，例如a posthumous child（遗腹子），a posthumouS award（死后获的奖），posthumous works（遗作）。posthumous现在的拼法和词义可说是俗词源的产物，错误联想的结果。
该词的英语词源请访问趣词词源英文版：posthumous 词源，posthumous 含义。
posthumous：死后发生的，死后获得的；作者死后出版的；死后出生的，遗腹的
词根词缀： post-后 + -hum-地下→埋葬 + -ous形容词词尾
来自拉丁语postumus,最后生的，老幺，来自post,在后，-um,最高级后缀，词源同maximum,minimum.后词义和拼写同时受humere（埋葬，入土，词源同humus）影响而俗化。
