author

英文词源

author

author: [14] Latin auctor originally meant ‘creator, originator’; it came from auct-, the past participial stem of augēre, which as well as ‘increase’ (as in English augment) meant ‘originate’. But it also developed the specific sense ‘creator of a text, writer’, and brought both these meanings with it into English via Old French autor. Forms with -th- began to appear in the mid 16th century (from French), and originally the-th- was just a spelling variant of -t-, but eventually it affected the pronunciation.

While the ‘writing’ sense has largely taken over author, authority [13] (ultimately from Latin auctōritās) and its derivatives authoritative and authorize have developed along the lines of the creator’s power to command or make decisions.
=> auction, augment

author (n.)

c. 1300, autor "father," from Old French auctor, acteor "author, originator, creator, instigator (12c., Modern French auteur), from Latin auctorem (nominative auctor) "enlarger, founder, master, leader," literally "one who causes to grow," agent noun from auctus, past participle of augere "to increase" (see augment). Meaning "one who sets forth written statements" is from late 14c. The -t- changed to -th- 16c. on mistaken assumption of Greek origin.

...[W]riting means revealing onesself to excess .... This is why one can never be alone enough when one writes, why even night is not night enough. ... I have often thought that the best mode of life for me would be to sit in the innermost room of a spacious locked cellar with my writing things and a lamp. Food would be brought and always put down far away from my room, outside the cellar's outermost door. The walk to my food, in my dressing gown, through the vaulted cellars, would be my only exercise. I would then return to my table, eat slowly and with deliberation, then start writing again at once. And how I would write! From what depths I would drag it up! [Franz Kafka]

author (v.)

1590s, from author (n.). Revived 1940s, chiefly U.S. Related: Authored; authoring.