count: There are two distinct words count in English. Count ‘enumerate’ [14] comes ultimately from Latin computāre ‘calculate’ (source of English compute). It came into English from Old French conter, which had, via the notion of ‘adding up and rendering an account’, developed the sense ‘tell a story’ (preserved in English in the derivatives account and recount).
The derivative counter [14] began life as medieval Latin computātōrium ‘place of accounts’, and entered English via Anglo- Norman counteour. Its modern sense ‘surface for transactions in a shop’ does not seem to have become firmly established until the early 19th century, although it was applied to similar objects in banks from the late 17th century. The noble title count [16] comes via Old French conte from Latin comes, which originally meant ‘companion, attendant’ (it was a compound noun, formed from the prefix com- ‘with’ and īre ‘go’, and so its underlying etymological meaning is ‘one who goes with another’).
In the Roman empire it was used for the governor of a province, and in Anglo- Norman it was used to translate English earl. It has never been used as an English title, but the feminine form countess was adopted for the wife of an earl in the 12th century (and viscount was borrowed from Anglo-Norman viscounte in the 14th century). The Latin derivative comitātus was originally a collective noun denoting a ‘group of companions’, but with the development of meaning in comes it came to mean first ‘office of a governor’ and latterly ‘area controlled by a governor’.
In England, this area was the ‘shire’, and so county [14], acquired via Anglo-Norman counte, came to be a synonym for ‘shire’. Another descendant of Latin comes is concomitant [17], from the present participle of late Latin concomitārī. => account, compute, putative, recount; concomitant, county
count (v.)
mid-14c., from Old French conter "add up," but also "tell a story," from Latin computare (see compute). Related: Counted; counting. Modern French differentiates compter "to count" and conter "to tell," but they are cognates.
count (n.)
title of nobility, c. 1300, from Anglo-French counte (Old French conte), from Latin comitem (nominative comes) "companion, attendant," the Roman term for a provincial governor, from com- "with" (see com-) + stem of ire "to go" (see ion). The term was used in Anglo-French to render Old English eorl, but the word was never truly naturalized and mainly was used with reference to foreign titles.
双语例句
1. Doctor believed that his low sperm count was the problem.
医生认为他的精子数太低是问题所在。
来自柯林斯例句
2. It's the wages that count. Not over-generous, but there you are.
重要的是工钱，不要过于慷慨，但也没办法。
来自柯林斯例句
3. Whatever its obscurities, the poem was clear on at least one count.
这首诗再怎么晦涩，至少有一点是清楚的。
来自柯林斯例句
4. Avoid trips to the country while the pollen count is high.
花粉计数高时，尽量避免去乡村旅行。
来自柯林斯例句
5. The trial resulted in acquittals on all but one count.
