英文词源
- chaperon
- chaperon: [14] A chaperon was originally a ‘hood’. The word comes from Old French chaperon, a derivative of chape, whose variant cape was the source of English cape, and goes back ultimately to late Latin cappa ‘hood, cloak’. The word’s modern sense, ‘companion safeguarding propriety’, which first appears in English in the 18th century, arose from the general notion of a ‘hood’ as something that gives protection.
=> cape - chaperon (n.)
- 1720, "woman accompanying a younger, unmarried lady in public," from French chaperon "protector," especially "female companion to a young woman," earlier "head covering, hood" (c. 1400), from Old French chaperon "hood, cowl" (12c.), diminutive of chape "cape" (see cap (n.)). "... English writers often erroneously spell it chaperone, app. under the supposition that it requires a fem. termination" [OED]. The notion is of "covering" the socially vulnerable one.
"May I ask what is a chaperon?"
"A married lady; without whom no unmarried one can be seen in public. If the damsel be five and forty, she cannot appear without the matron; and if the matron be fifteen, it will do."
[Catharine Hutton, "The Welsh Mountaineer," London, 1817]
The word had been used in Middle English in the literal sense "hooded cloak." - chaperon (v.)
- "act as a chaperon," 1792, also chaperone, from chaperon (n.), or from French chaperonner, from chaperon (n.). Related: Chaperoned; chaperoning.
