51吃瓜

More about slake

Slake means “to lessen or allay something by satisfying it.” While we can slake our curiosity, desire, hunger, or anger, we most commonly say we slake our thirst. Slake comes from Middle English slaken 鈥渢o mitigate, allay, moderate, lessen one鈥檚 efforts,鈥� from Old English slacian 鈥渢o slacken.鈥� Old English slacian is a verb based off the adjective sleac, 蝉濒忙肠, variously meaning 鈥渓oose, lazy, careless, sluggish, lax (of conduct),鈥� which by Middle English (as slac, slak) narrowed to the sense of 鈥渓oose, not tight,鈥� the principal sense of its modern form, slack, today. Old English sleac (via Germanic slak-) derives from the Proto-Indo-European root (蝉)濒脓驳-, which, in its Latin variants, ultimately yielded such English words as languid,听 languish, lax, lease, release, and relax. Once again, etymology offers an important life lesson: it鈥檚 best not to languish, so slake your thirst鈥攚ith a beverage of your choice鈥攁nd relax, but don鈥檛 be too lax about it and slack off.

More about august

The English adjective august ultimately derives from the Latin adjective augustus, an uncommon, quasi-religious adjective originally meaning 鈥渧enerable, solemn,鈥� first used by the Roman poet and playwright Ennius (239-169 b.c.). Augustus also means 鈥渕ajestic (in appearance), dignified,鈥� as used in authors who lived before the emperor Augustus or were contemporary with him.

The etymology of augustus is unclear: it may be related to the verb 补耻驳脓谤别 鈥渢o increase, enlarge, grow,鈥� or it may be related to the noun augur, a noun of unknown etymology meaning 鈥渁 Roman official who observes the flight of birds and interprets the omens.鈥� Finally, it may be related to auspex, a synonym of augur but with an excellent etymology: avis 鈥渂ird鈥� and –spex 鈥渨atcher,鈥� from the verb specere 鈥渢o observe.鈥� It is also unclear why Octavian (the English short form of Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus), the sole head of the Roman state after the Battle of Actium (31 b.c.), selected the old, obscure title Augustus for himself. Octavian had also styled himself 搁艒尘耻濒耻蝉, the legendary founder and first king of Rome, and Octavian, perhaps wishing to avoid associations with the monarchy, settled upon Augustus.

On January 16, 27 b.c., the Senate bestowed upon Octavian the titles Augustus and Princeps (颁颈惫墨迟腻迟颈蝉) 鈥淔irst Citizen (of the State), First Man (of the State),鈥� and Augustus became the emperor鈥檚 official title. After Augustus鈥檚 time, the title Augustus was applied to succeeding emperors; the feminine title Augusta was given to the emperor鈥檚 wife (and occasionally to other close female relatives, such as a mother, grandmother, sister, or daughter).

August entered English in the late 16th century.

More about dumbledore

Dumbledore is a British dialect word, a compound of dumble, which is onomatopoeic, occurring variously as bumble-, dumble-, humble-, and the noun dor (also dorr) 鈥渁n insect that makes a buzzing noise as it flies.鈥� For her Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling selected Dumbledore as the surname of the headmaster of Hogwarts because dumbledore is a dialect word for 鈥渂umblebee,鈥� Albus Dumbledore loved music, and she imagined him walking around “humming to himself.鈥� Dumbledore听is recorded in English by the late 1700s.