bribe

英文詞源

bribe

bribe: [14] The origin of bribe is obscure, and its semantic history is particularly involved. The word first turns up in Old French, as a noun meaning ‘piece of bread, especially one given to a beggar’. From this, the progression of senses seems to have been to a more general ‘alms’; then to the ‘practice of living on alms’; then, pejoratively, to simple ‘begging’. From there it was a short step to ‘stealing’, and that was the meaning the verb had when first recorded in English.

The shift to the current application to financial corruption occurred in the 16th century, originally, it seems, in the context of judges and others in authority who exacted, or ‘stole’, money in exchange for favours such as lenient sentences.

bribe (n.)

late 14c., "thing stolen," from Old French bribe "bit, piece, hunk; morsel of bread given to beggars" (14c., compare Old French bribeor "vagrant, beggar"), from briber, brimber "to beg," a general Romanic word (Gamillscheg marks it as Rotwelsch, i.e. "thieves' jargon"), of uncertain origin; old sources suggest Celtic (compare Breton breva "to break"). Shift of meaning to "gift given to influence corruptly" is by mid-15c.

bribe (v.)

late 14c., "pilfer, steal," also "practice extortion," from Old French briber "go begging," from bribe (see bribe (n.)). Related: Bribed; bribing.