philistine

英文词源

philistine

philistine: [16] The original Philistines were inhabitants of Philistia, an area in the southwestern corner of ancient Palestine. They were famed for their aggression and harrying tactics, and so the word Philistine was often used metaphorically for an ‘enemy into whose hands one might fall’, but the notion of a Philistine as a ‘boorish person’ is a comparatively recent development, not recorded in English until the 19th century.

It appears to have originated in German universities (the German term is Philister), and the story goes that it comes from the use of the biblical quotation ‘the Philistines be upon thee, Samson’ as the text of a sermon delivered at the funeral service for a student killed in a town-and-gown riot in Jena.

Philistine

Old Testament people of coastal Palestine who made war on the Israelites, early 14c., from Old French Philistin, from Late Latin Philistinus, from Late Greek Philistinoi (plural), from Hebrew P'lishtim, "people of P'lesheth" ("Philistia"); compare Akkad. Palastu, Egyptian Palusata; the word probably is the people's name for itself.

philistine (n.)

"person deficient in liberal culture," 1827, originally in Carlyle, popularized by him and Matthew Arnold, from German Philister "enemy of God's word," literally "Philistine," inhabitants of a Biblical land, neighbors (and enemies) of Israel (see Philistine). Popularized in German student slang (supposedly first in Jena, late 17c.) as a contemptuous term for "townies," and hence, by extension, "any uncultured person." Philistine had been used in a humorous figurative sense of "the enemy" in English from c. 1600.