fir: [14] As with many Indo-European tree-names, fir is a widespread term, but it does not mean the same thing wherever it occurs. Its prehistoric Indo-European ancestor was *perkos, which in Latin became quercus, the name for the ‘oak’. Nor was the application confined to southern Europe, for Swiss German has a related ferch ‘oak wood’. But by and large, the Germanic languages took the term over and applied it to the ‘pine’: German föhre, Swedish fura, and Danish fyr all mean ‘pine’.
So also did Old English furh (known only in the compound furhwudu ‘pinewood’), but this appears to have died out. It was replaced semantically by pine, but formally by Middle English firre, a borrowing from the Old Norse form fyri- (also known only in compounds). This was used as a name not for the ‘pine’, but for the ‘fir’ (which in Old English times had been called sæppe or gyr).
fir (n.)
late 14c., from Old Norse fyri- "fir" or Old Danish fyr, both from Proto-Germanic *furkhon (cognates: Old High German foraha, German Föhre "fir"), from PIE root *perkwu-, originally meaning "oak," also "oak forest," but never "wood" (cognates: Sanskrit paraktah "the holy fig tree," Hindi pargai "the evergreen oak," Latin quercus "oak," Lombardic fereha "a kind of oak"). Old English had a cognate form in furhwudu "pine wood" (only in glosses, for Latin pinus), but the modern English word is more likely from Scandinavian and in Middle English fyrre glosses Latin abies "fir," which is of obscure origin.
According to Indo-Europeanists Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, "The semantics of the term clearly points to a connection between 'oak' and mountainous regions, which is the basis for the ancient European term applied to forested mountains" (such as Gothic fairgunni "mountainous region," Old English firgen "mountain forest," Middle High German Virgunt "mountain forest; Sudetes"). In the period 3300 B.C.E. to 400 B.C.E., conifers and birches gradually displaced oaks in northern European forests. "Hence it is no surprise that in the early history of the Germanic languages the ancient term for mountain oak and oak forest shifts to denote conifers and coniferous forests." [Thomas V. Gamkrelidze, Vjaceslav V. Ivanov, "Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans," Berlin, 1994]
双语例句
1. The box is made out of China fir wood.
这盒子是用杉木做成的.
来自《简明英汉词典》
2. Using assembly language can be prepared by the procedure FIR filter function.
用汇编语言编写的可实现FIR滤波器功能的程序.
来自互联网
3. Mapped the FIR digital filter design of amplitude frequency characteristic curve.
绘出设计的FIR数字滤波幅频特性曲线.
来自互联网
4. Using window function design FIR filter, given in response to its sample.
利用窗函数法设计FIR滤波器, 给出其抽样响应.
来自互联网
5. Copy PS _ A 610 . FIR to the root folder of SD card using your cardreader.
