swap

英文词源

swap

swap: [14] Swap originally meant ‘hit’ (‘With a swing of his sword [he] swapped him in the face’, Destruction of Troy 1400). It came from a prehistoric Germanic base denoting ‘hit’ (presumably imitative of the sound of hitting), which also produced German schwappen ‘splash, whack’. The modern English sense ‘exchange’ emerged in the 16th century from the notion of ‘striking the hands together to seal a bargain’.

swap (v.)

c. 1200, "to strike, strike the hands together," of uncertain origin, possibly imitative of the sound of hitting or slapping. The sense of "to exchange, barter, trade" is first recorded 1590s, possibly from the notion of slapping hands together as a sign of agreement in bargaining (as in strike a bargain). Related: Swapped; swapping. The noun in this sense is attested from 1620s; earlier "a striking, an act of striking" (mid-13c.). Swap-meet attested from 1968, American English.