home

英文词源

home

home: [OE] Old English hām meant ‘place where one lives, house, village’. The last of these survives only in place-names (such as Birmingham, Fulham), and it is the ‘house, abode’ sense that has come through into modern English home. Its ancestor was prehistoric Germanic *khaim-, which also produced German heim, Dutch heem, Swedish hem, and Danish hjem. It is not clear where this came from, although some have connected it with Latin civis ‘citizen’.

home (n.)

Old English ham "dwelling, house, estate, village," from Proto-Germanic *haimaz (cognates: Old Frisian hem "home, village," Old Norse heimr "residence, world," heima "home," Danish hjem, Middle Dutch heem, German heim "home," Gothic haims "village"), from PIE root *tkei- "to settle, dwell, be home" (cognates: Sanskrit kseti "abides, dwells," Armenian shen "inhabited," Greek kome, Lithuanian kaimas "village;" Old Church Slavonic semija "domestic servants").

'Home' in the full range and feeling of [Modern English] home is a conception that belongs distinctively to the word home and some of its Gmc. cognates and is not covered by any single word in most of the IE languages. [Buck]

Home stretch (1841) is originally a reference from horse racing. Home base in baseball attested by 1859 (home plate by 1867; home as the goal in a sport or game is from 1778). Home economics first attested 1899. Slang phrase make (oneself) at home "become comfortable in a place one does not live" dates from 1892. To keep the home fires burning is from a song title from 1914. To be nothing to write home about "unremarkable" is from 1907. Home movie is from 1919; home computer is from 1967.

home (v.)

1765, "to go home," from home (n.). Meaning "be guided to a destination by radio signals, etc. (of missiles, aircraft, etc.) is from 1920; it had been used earlier in reference to pigeons (1862). Related: Homed; homing. Old English had hamian "to establish in a home."