lame

英文詞源

lame

lame: [OE] Prehistoric Germanic had an adjective *lamon which meant ‘weak-limbed’, and seems to have originated in a base which meant something like ‘break by hitting’ (English lam ‘hit’ [16], as in ‘lam into someone’, and its derivative lambaste [17] probably come from the same source). In the modern Germanic languages it has diversified into two strands of meaning: Dutch, Swedish, and Danish lam denote mainly ‘paralysed’, a sense also present in German lahm, while English lame has taken the path of ‘limping, crippled’.
=> lam, lambaste

lame (n.)

"silk interwoven with metallic threads," 1922, from French lame, earlier "thin metal plate (especially in armor), gold wire; blade; wave (of the sea)," from Middle French lame, from Latin lamina, lamna "thin piece or flake of metal."

lame (adj.)

Old English lama "crippled, lame; paralytic, weak," from Proto-Germanic *lamon (cognates: Old Norse lami, Dutch and Old Frisian lam, German lahm "lame"), "weak-limbed," literally "broken," from PIE root *lem- "to break; broken," with derivatives meaning "crippled" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic lomiti "to break," Lithuanian luomas "lame"). In Middle English, "crippled in the feet," but also "crippled in the hands; disabled by disease; maimed." Sense of "socially awkward" is attested from 1942. Noun meaning "crippled persons collectively" is in late Old English.

lame (v.)

"to make lame," c. 1300, from lame (adj.). Related: Lamed; laming.