schedule

英文词源

schedule

schedule: [14] Late Latin scedula meant ‘small piece of paper’. It was a diminutive form of Latin sceda ‘papyrus leaf, piece of paper, page’, itself a borrowing from Greek skhedē. By the time it reached English via Old French cedule it had moved on semantically to ‘small piece of paper with writing on it, used as a ticket or label’; and this subsequently developed through ‘supplementary sheet giving a summary, list of additional points, etc’ to any ‘list giving details of what has been arranged’.

Until around 1800 the word was pronounced /sed-/; but then in Britain, apparently under French influence, it changed to /shed-/, while Americans reverted to the original Greek with /sked-/.

schedule (n.)

late 14c., sedule, cedule "ticket, label, slip of paper with writing on it," from Old French cedule (Modern French cédule), from Late Latin schedula "strip of paper" (in Medieval Latin also "a note, schedule"), diminutive of Latin scheda, scida "one of the strips forming a papyrus sheet," from Greek skhida "splinter," from stem of skhizein "to cleave, split" (see shed (v.)). Also from the Latin word are Spanish cédula, German Zettel.

The notion is of slips of paper attached to a document as an appendix (a sense maintained in U.S. tax forms). The specific meaning "printed timetable" is first recorded 1863 in railway use. Modern spelling is a 15c. imitation of Latin, but pronunciation remained "sed-yul" for centuries afterward; the modern British pronunciation ("shed-yul") is from French influence, while the U.S. pronunciation ("sked-yul") is from the practice of Webster, based on the Greek original.

schedule (v.)

"make a schedule of, 1855; include in a schedule, 1862; from schedule (n.). Related: Scheduled; scheduling.