curtain: [13] Latin cortīna meant ‘round vessel, cauldron’, but in the 4th-century Vulgate we find it being used to translate Greek aulaía ‘curtain’. The reason for this considerable semantic leap seems to have been a link perceived to exist between Greek aulaía, a derivative of aulē ‘court’, and Latin cohort- ‘court’ (source of English court), although in fact there is no etymological connection between cohort- and cortīna. The word passed into Old French as cortine, and from there was acquired by English.
curtain (n.)
c. 1300, from Old French cortine "curtain, tapestry, drape, blanket," from Late Latin cortina "curtain," but in classical Latin "round vessel, cauldron," from Latin cortem (older cohortem) "enclosure, courtyard" (see cohort). The confusion apparently begins in using cortina as a loan-translation for Greek aulaia ("curtain") in the Vulgate (to render Hebrew yeriah in Exodus xxvi:1, etc.) because the Greek word was connected to aule "court," perhaps because the "door" of a Greek house that led out to the courtyard was a hung cloth. The figurative sense in curtain call is from 1884. Curtains "the end" is 1912, originally from stage plays. An Old English word for "curtain" was fleonet "fly-net."
实用例句
1. I found myself behind a curtain, necking with my best friend'swife.
我意识到自己在帘子后面吻着至友的妻子。
来自柯林斯例句
2. A curtain acted as a divider between this class and another.
帘子作为分隔物将这间教室和另一间分开。
来自柯林斯例句
3. The shops also offer a keenly priced curtain-making service.
这些商店也提供价格优惠的窗帘制作服务。
来自柯林斯例句
4. He saw something dark disappear behind the curtain of leaves.
