weather

英文詞源

weather

weather: [OE] Weather goes back ultimately to the Indo-European base *we- ‘blow’, which also produced English ventilate and wind. From it were formed two nouns, *wedhrom (source of Russian vedro ‘good weather’) and *wetróm (source of Lithuanian vétra ‘storm’). One or other of these became prehistoric Germanic *wethram, which evolved into German wetter, Dutch weer, Swedish v?der, Danish vejr, and English weather. Wither [14] may have originated as a variant of weather, in the sense ‘show the effects of being exposed to the elements’.
=> ventilate, wind

weather (v.)

"come through safely," 1650s, from weather (n.). The notion is of a ship riding out a storm. Sense of "wear away by exposure" is from 1757. Related: Weathered; weathering. Old English verb wederian meant "exhibit a change of weather."

weather (n.)

Old English weder "air, sky; breeze, storm, tempest," from Proto-Germanic *wedram "wind, weather" (cognates: Old Saxon wedar, Old Norse veer, Old Frisian, Middle Dutch, Dutch weder, Old High German wetar, German Wetter "storm, wind, weather"), from PIE *we-dhro-, "weather" (cognates: Lithuanian vetra "storm," Old Church Slavonic vedro "good weather"), from root *we- "to blow" (see wind (n.1)). Alteration of -d- to -th- begins late 15c., though such pronunciation may be older (see father (n.)).

In nautical use, as an adjective, "toward the wind" (opposed to lee). Greek had words for "good weather" (aithria, eudia) and words for "storm" and "winter," but no generic word for "weather" until kairos (literally "time") began to be used as such in Byzantine times. Latin tempestas "weather" (see tempest) also originally meant "time;" and words for "time" also came to mean weather in Irish (aimsir), Serbo-Croatian (vrijeme), Polish (czas), etc. Weather-report is from 1863. Weather-breeder "fine, serene day which precedes and seems to prepare a storm" is from 1650s.