husband

英文詞源

husband

husband: [OE] The Anglo-Saxons used wer ‘man’ (as in werewolf) for ‘husband’, and not until the late 13th century was the word husband drafted in for ‘male spouse’. This had originally meant ‘master of a household’, and was borrowed from Old Norse húsbóndi, a compound formed from hús ‘house’ and bóndi. Bóndi in turn was a contraction of an earlier bóandi, búandi ‘dweller’, a noun use of the present participle of bóa, búa ‘dwell’, This was derived from the Germanic base *bū- ‘dwell’, which also produced English be, boor, booth, bound ‘intending to go’, bower, build, burly, byelaw, byre, and the -bour of neighbour.

The ancient link between ‘dwelling in a place’ and ‘farming the land’ comes out in husbandman [14] and husbandry [14], reflecting a now obsolete sense of husband, ‘farmer’. The abbreviated form hubby dates from the 17th century.
=> be, boor, booth, bower, build, byre, house

husband (n.)

Old English husbonda "male head of a household," probably from Old Norse husbondi "master of the house," from hus "house" (see house (n.)) + bondi "householder, dweller, freeholder, peasant," from buandi, present participle of bua "to dwell" (see bower). Beginning late 13c., replaced Old English wer as "married man," companion of wif, a sad loss for English poetry. Slang shortening hubby first attested 1680s.

husband (v.)

"manage thriftily," early 15c., from husband (n.) in an obsolete sense of "steward" (mid-15c.). Related: Husbanded; husbanding.