fashion

英文词源

fashion

fashion: [13] The underlying notion of fashion is of ‘making’, ‘forming’, or ‘shaping’. The main modern sense of the word developed via ‘particular shape or style’, ‘way, manner’, and ‘prevailing or current manner’. English acquired it via Anglo-Norman fasun from Latin factiō, a derivative of facere ‘make, do’ (which has contributed an enormous range of vocabulary to English, from fact to difficult, and is distantly related to English do itself).

Latin factiō was only rarely used in the literal sense ‘making’. In classical times it was generally applied to a ‘group of people acting together’ (hence English faction [16]), and the metaphorical extension to ‘way, manner’ and ‘custom’ taken up by English fashion is a post-classical development.
=> difficult, fact, faction, factory

fashion (n.)

c. 1300, fasoun, "physical make-up or composition; form, shape; appearance," from Old French façon, fachon, fazon "face, appearance; construction, pattern, design; thing done; beauty; manner, characteristic feature" (12c.), from Latin factionem (nominative factio) "a making or doing, a preparing," also "group of people acting together," from facere "to make" (see factitious).

Especially "style, manner" of make, dress, or embellishment (late 14c.); hence "prevailing custom; mode of dress and adornment prevailing in a place and time" (late 15c.). Meaning "good style, conformity to fashionable society's tastes" is from 1630s.

To call a fashion wearable is the kiss of death. No new fashion worth its salt is wearable. [Eugenia Sheppard, "New York Herald Tribune," Jan. 13, 1960]

In Middle English also spelled faschyoun, facune, faction, etc. Fashion plate (1851) originally was "full-page picture in a popular magazine showing the prevailing or latest style of dress," in reference to the typographic plate from which it was printed. Transferred sense of "well-dressed person" had emerged by 1920s. After a fashion "to a certain extent" is from 1530s. Shakespeare (c. 1600) has both in fashion and out of fashion.

fashion (v.)

"to form, give shape to," early 15c.; see fashion (n.). Related: Fashioned; fashioning.