英语四六级考试词汇复习必备8天攻克8000词汇(六).docVIP

无忧英语 HYPERLINK 下载历年四六级考试真题、听力MP3 最新预测试卷无忧英语编辑整理 HYPERLINK 英语四级、英语六级、专业四级、专业八级考试历年真题 听力下载 模拟预测试题下载　　PART II ORIGIN　　1. Where Words About Human Beings Come From　　ACHIEVE：to come to a head　　This seems like a simple word,but its history is extremely complicated.The word achieve derives,if you can believe it,from the Latin phrase ad caputvenire,which literally meant”to come to a head.”Sometimes the Romans used it in the gloomy meaning”to die.”Later on Old French took over the phrase adcaput,”to a head” and built on it the verb achever,”to finish,”and this passed into English as achieve.In Chaucer’s day,and even up to the time of Queen Elizabeth,achieve could still mean”to die”or”to kill”Shakespeare used it in this sense in one of his plays,as”Bid them achieve(“kill”)me and then sell my bones.”Along with achieve the Old French developed the word meschever,in English mischief,which in the beginning meant to overwhelm with destruction,and both of these words still have in them the original sense of the Latin caput,or”head.”For when you have achieved something,you have”brought it to a head,”haven’t you?But should you get into mischief,things have been”brought to a bad head”(Latin mis-,”bad”),and those who perpetrated the mischief are apt to come to grief. Thus,when Merlin,the wise man of Arthurian legend,said:”Synne draweth bothe man and woman to myschebouse ends,”he was using the word in its early and stronger sense.　　ADEPT:originally an alchemist　　Are you adept,that is,highly skilled at some particular thing?Then you should know the secret of the philosopher’s stone that transformed base metals into gold.In the Middle Ages the alchemists who claimed to have this secret called themselves adeptus,a Latin word that means”attained,”from the verb adipiscor,from ad,”to,”and apiscor,”attain.”That is,the alchemists had”attained”their goal.Later,in the 17th century,adeptus became a title of honor that was applied only to alchemists of recognized reputation.But when alchemy fin