fame

英文词源

fame

fame: [13] Etymologically, fame is ‘being talked about’. The word comes via Old French fame from Latin fāma ‘talk, reputation’. This in turn goes back ultimately to the Indo-European base *bha- ‘speak’, which also produced English confess, fable, fate, ineffable, etc. The derivatives famous and infamous are both 14thcentury acquisitions.
=> confess, fable, fairy, fate, ineffable, profess

fame (n.)

early 13c., "character attributed to someone;" late 13c., "celebrity, renown," from Old French fame "fame, reputation, renown, rumor" (12c.), from Latin fama "talk, rumor, report; reputation, public opinion; renown, good reputation," but also "ill-fame, scandal, reproach," from PIE root *bha- (2) "to speak, tell, say" (cognates: Sanskrit bhanati "speaks;" Latin fari "to say," fabula "narrative, account, tale, story;" Armenian ban, bay "word, term;" Old Church Slavonic bajati "to talk, tell;" Old English boian "to boast," ben "prayer, request;" Greek pheme "speech, voice, utterance, a speaking, talk," phone "voice, sound," phanai "to speak;" Old Irish bann "law").

The goddess Fama was the personification of rumor in Roman mythology. The Latin derivative fabulare was the colloquial word for "speak, talk" since the time of Plautus, whence Spanish hablar.

I've always been afraid I was going to tap the world on the shoulder for 20 years, and when it finally turned around I was going to forget what I had to say. [Tom Waits, "Playboy" magazine interview, March, 1988]