model

英文词源

model

model: [16] Latin modus meant originally ‘measure’ (it came from the same Indo- European base, *met-, *med-, as produced English measure and metre). It subsequently spread out semantically to ‘size’, ‘limit’, ‘way, method’, and ‘rhythm, harmony’. From it was derived the diminutive form modulus, source of English modulate [16], module [16], and mould ‘form’.

It was altered in Vulgar Latin to *modellus, and passed into English via Italian modello and early modern French modelle. Its original application in English was to an ‘architect’s plans’, but the familiar modern sense ‘three-dimensional representation’ is recorded as early as the start of the 17th century. The notion of an ‘artist’s model’ emerged in the late 17th century, but a ‘model who shows off clothes’ is an early 20th-century development.

Other English descendants of modus include modern, modicum [15], modify [14], and of course mode [16] itself (of which mood ‘set of verb forms’ is an alteration).
=> measure, mete, metre, mode, modern, modulate, mood, mould

model (n.)

1570s, "likeness made to scale; architect's set of designs," from Middle French modelle (16c., Modern French modèle), from Italian modello "a model, mold," from Vulgar Latin *modellus, from Latin modulus "a small measure, standard," diminutive of modus "manner, measure" (see mode (n.1)).

Sense of "thing or person to be imitated" is 1630s. Meaning "motor vehicle of a particular design" is from 1900 (such as Model T, 1908; Ford's other early models included C, F, and B). Sense of "artist's model" is first recorded 1690s; that of "fashion model" is from 1904. German, Swedish modell, Dutch, Danish model are from French or Italian.

model (v.)

1660s, "fashion in clay or wax," from model (n.). Earlier was modelize (c. 1600). From 1915 in the sense "to act as a fashion model, to display (clothes)." Related: Modeled; modeling; modelled; modelling.

model (adj.)

1844, from model (n.).