empty

英文词源

empty

empty: [OE] The original meaning of Old English ǣmtig appears to have been ‘unoccupied, at leisure’, and it was only secondarily that it developed the physical connotations of ‘not full’ which have come down to us in empty. (It also meant ‘unmarried’.) It was a derivative of the noun ǣmetta ‘rest, leisure’. This is a word of uncertain history, but it has been plausibly analysed as the negative prefix ǣ- plus a derivative of the root which produced modern English mete (as in ‘mete out’), meaning something like ‘not assigned’.
=> mete

empty (adj.)

c. 1200, from Old English æmettig "at leisure, not occupied; unmarried," also "containing nothing, unoccupied," from æmetta "leisure," from æ "not" + -metta, from motan "to have" (see might (n.)). The -p- is a euphonic insertion.

Sense evolution from "at leisure" to "containing nothing, unoccupied" is paralleled in several languages, such as Modern Greek adeios "empty," originally "freedom from fear," from deios "fear." "The adj. adeios must have been applied first to persons who enjoyed freedom from duties, leisure, and so were unoccupied, whence it was extended to objects that were unoccupied" [Buck]. Related: Emptier. Figurative sense of empty-nester attested by 1960.

empty (n.)

"an empty thing" that was or is expected to be full, 1865, from empty (adj.). At first of barges, freight cars, mail pouches.

empty (v.)

1520s, from empty (adj.); replacing Middle English empten, from Old English geæmtigian. Related: Emptied; emptying.