英文词源
- starve
- starve: [OE] Starve means etymologically ‘be stiff’ – it goes back to a prehistoric Germanic base *star-, *ster- ‘be stiff’, which also produced English starch, stare, etc. The ‘stiffness’ of a corpse led to its use for ‘die’ – a meaning which it retains in the related German sterben and Dutch sterven. In English, however, from the 12th century onwards, starve gradually narrowed down in meaning to ‘dying from cold’ (which survived into the modern era in northern dialects) and ‘dying from hunger’.
=> starch, stare, stork - starve (v.)
- Old English steorfan "to die" (past tense stearf, past participle storfen), literally "become stiff," from Proto-Germanic *sterban "be stiff" (cognates: Old Frisian sterva, Old Saxon sterban, Dutch sterven, Old High German sterban "to die," Old Norse stjarfi "tetanus"), from PIE root *ster- (1) "stiff, rigid" (see stereo-).
The conjugation became weak in English by 16c. The sense narrowed to "die of cold" (14c.); transitive meaning "to kill with hunger" is first recorded 1520s (earlier to starve of hunger, early 12c.). Intransitive sense of "to die of hunger" dates from 1570s. German cognate sterben retains the original sense of the word, but the English has come so far from its origins that starve to death (1910) is now common.
中文词源
来自古英语 steorfan,死去，死掉，字面意思为身体变僵硬，来自 Proto-Germanic*sterban,变僵 硬，来自 PIE*ster,僵的，硬的，固定的，词源同 startle,sterile.后词义弱化为慢慢饿死，再弱 化为使挨饿，饥饿。
该词的英语词源请访问趣词词源英文版：starve 词源，starve 含义。
