gesture

英文词源

gesture

gesture: [15] Originally, a person’s gesture was their ‘bearing’, the way they ‘carried’ themselves: ‘He was a knight of yours full true, and comely of gesture’, Sir Cleges 1410. But by the 16th century it was well on its way via ‘bodily movement’ to ‘bodily movement conveying a particular message’. The word came from medieval Latin gestūra, a derivative of Latin gerere ‘carry, conduct oneself, act’. A parallel derivative was gestus ‘action’ (ultimate source of English jest and jester), whose diminutive gesticulus produced English gesticulate [17].
=> gestation, gesticulate, jest, jester

gesture (n.)

early 15c., "manner of carrying the body," from Medieval Latin gestura "bearing, behavior, mode of action," from Latin gestus "gesture, carriage, posture" (see gest). Restricted sense of "a movement of the body or a part of it, intended to express a thought or feeling," is from 1550s; figurative sense of "action undertaken in good will to express feeling" is from 1916.

gesture (v.)

1540s, from gesture (n.). Related: Gestured; gesturing.