viper

英文词源

viper

viper: [16] A viper is etymologically a creature that ‘gives birth to live young’. The word comes via Old French vipere from Latin vīpera ‘snake’. This was a contraction of an earlier *vīvipera, a compound noun formed from vīvus ‘alive’ (source of English vivacious, vivid, etc) and parere ‘give birth’ (source of English parent, parturition, etc) – in former times it was thought that snakes gave birth to live young.

Latin vīpera is also the ancestor of English wyvern ‘dragonlike creature’ [17] and possibly of weever [17], the name of a type of fish with poisonous spines; and the elements from which it was formed also of course underlie the English adjective viviparous.
=> parent, vivid, viviparous

viper (n.)

early 15c., from Middle French vipere, earlier in English as vipera (c. 1200), directly from Latin vipera "viper, snake, serpent," contraction of *vivipera, from vivus "alive, living" (see vital) + parere "bring forth, bear" (see pare). In common with many snake species in cooler climates, in most cases the viper's eggs are kept inside the mother until hatching.

Applied to persons of spiteful character since at least 1590s. The only venomous snake found in Great Britain, but not especially dangerous. The word replaced native adder. "The flesh of the viper was formerly regarded as possessing great nutritive or restorative properties, and was frequently used medicinally" [OED]; hence viper-wine, wine medicated with some kind of extract from vipers, used 17c. by "gray-bearded gallants" in a bid "to feele new lust, and youthfull flames agin." [Massinger]