| 释义 |
ad-, prefix
1. repr. L. ad prep. ‘to,’ cogn. w. Teut. at, frequent in comp. with sense of motion or direction to, reduction or change into, addition, adherence, increase, or simple intensification, as ad-ventus, ad-versus, ad-ditus, ad-albātus, ad-ministrāre, ad-augēre. Before the consonants c, f, g, l, n, p, q, r, s, t, ad- was in later L. assimilated, as ac-, af-, ag-, al-, an, ap-, ac-, ar-, as-, at-; and before sc, sp, st it was reduced to a- (a-scendere, a-strictus, a-spirāre). It remained before vowels, and the consonants d, h, j, m, v. It was probably assimilated before b, in ab-breviāre, for ad-breviāre, cf. al-leviāre, attenuāre, accurtāre. In OFr. ad- was reduced to a- in all cases where its character as a prefix was recognized, even before vowels, as adōrāre, aörer, adornāre, aörner, adæstimāre, aesmier. But in the 14th c. the written forms began to be artificially refashioned after L., this being in words like alouer allouer, anoncer annoncer, atendre attendre, only an artificial spelling, but resulting, in such as aörer adorer, ajoint adjoint, in a real change of sound. In 15th c. this fashion spread to England, where the words had originally been adopted in their OFr. forms, and was here carried out far more rigorously, attacking also words that remained unchanged in Fr., or in which the pedantic form was again rejected, as a-dresser ad-dress, a-vertissement ad-vertisement, a-vouerie ad-vowry. All words subsequently formed in Fr. and adopted in Eng., or formed in Eng. on L. words, or according to L. analogies, follow L. spelling. A very recent use of ad-, unknown to L., is to employ it in contrast to ab- in pairs like ad-oral, ab-oral, situated at the mouth, and away from the mouth.
2. While the refashioning of words in OFr. a- was going on in 16th c., mechanical imitation or pedantic assumption extended ad- and its variants to many words in which a- had quite a different origin, as L. ab, OFr. en (an), es, re, OE. a (ar), on, æt, etc.; as in a(d)vance Fr. avancer L. ab-anteāre, a(d)debted OFr. endetté, a(c)cloy OFr. encloyer L. inclāvāre, admerveyl OFr. esmerveiller, a(f)fray OFr. esfreyer, a(f)force OFr. esforcer L. *exfortiare, a(c)curse ME. a-curse, a(l)lay OE. a-lecȝan, a(c)know(ledge OE. on-cnawan, a(d)blast OE. onblæstan, a(d)dight OE. a-dihtan, ȝe-dihtan, a(d)miral Arab. amīr-al-. New compounds of native words with prefix a- were also falsely written ad-, as a(d)deem, a(d)doom. In most of these words the perversion went no farther than the spelling, but in some, as a(d)vance, a(d)miral, it has distorted the spoken word. |