feature

英文詞源

feature

feature: [14] Feature comes ultimately from Latin factūra, a derivative of the verb facere ‘do, make’ which meant literally ‘making, formation’. Elements of this original sense remained when the word reached English via Old French faiture – when John Dymmok wrote in 1600 of ‘horses of a fine feature’, for example, he was referring to their shape or general conformation – but already a semantic narrowing down to the ‘way in which the face is shaped’ had taken place.

This meaning was then distributed, as it were, to the individual components of the face, and hence (in the 17th century) to any distinctive or characteristic part.
=> difficult, fact, factory, fashion, feasible, feat

feature (n.)

early 14c., "make, form, fashion" (obsolete), from Anglo-French feture, from Old French faiture "deed, action; fashion, shape, form; countenance," from Latin factura "a formation, a working," from past participle stem of facere "make, do, perform" (see factitious).

Sense of "facial characteristic" is mid-14c.; that of "any distinctive part" first recorded 1690s. Entertainment sense is from 1801; in journalism by 1855. Meaning "a feature film" is from 1913. Latin factura also is the source of Spanish hechura, Portuguese feitura, Italian fattura.

feature (v.)

1755, "to resemble, have features resembling," from feature (n.). The sense of "make special display or attraction of" is 1888; entertainment sense from 1897. Related: Featured; featuring.