text

英文词源

text

text: [14] Latin texere meant ‘weave’ (this was actually a secondary sense, its original meaning being ‘build’, and it went back ultimately to the Indo-European base *tek- ‘make’, source also of English technical). Its past participle textus was used as a noun meaning ‘woven material’, and hence metaphorically ‘literary composition’. English acquired it via Old French texte. Other English words from the same source include context [15], pretext [16], subtle, textile [17], texture [15], tissue, and toilet.
=> architect, context, pretext, subtle, technical, texture, tissue, toilet

text (n.)

late 14c., "wording of anything written," from Old French texte, Old North French tixte "text, book; Gospels" (12c.), from Medieval Latin textus "the Scriptures, text, treatise," in Late Latin "written account, content, characters used in a document," from Latin textus "style or texture of a work," literally "thing woven," from past participle stem of texere "to weave, to join, fit together, braid, interweave, construct, fabricate, build," from PIE root *teks- "to weave, to fabricate, to make; make wicker or wattle framework" (see texture (n.)).

An ancient metaphor: thought is a thread, and the raconteur is a spinner of yarns -- but the true storyteller, the poet, is a weaver. The scribes made this old and audible abstraction into a new and visible fact. After long practice, their work took on such an even, flexible texture that they called the written page a textus, which means cloth. [Robert Bringhurst, "The Elements of Typographic Style"]

text (v.)

"to send a text message by mobile system," 2005; see text (n.). Related: Texted; texting. Formerly it meant "to write in text letters" (1590s), text letters being a kind of large writing used by clerks in the text or body of a manuscript (distinguished from the smaller hand used in the notes).