eight

英文詞源

eight

eight: [OE] Virtually all the ancient basic Indo- European ‘number’-words are very stable, remaining recognizably the same as they spread and developed over the millennia, and the ancestor of English eight is no exception. It was *oktō, which produced Sanskrit astáu, Latin octō (source of French huit, Italian otto, and Spanish ocho), Greek októ, and Irish ocht. Its prehistoric Germanic descendant was *akhtō, source of German and Dutch acht, Swedish ?tta, and English eight.
=> october

eight (n.)

late 14c., eighte, earlier ehte (c. 1200), from Old English eahta, ?hta, from Proto-Germanic *akhto (cognates: Old Saxon ahto, Old Frisian ahta, Old Norse atta, Swedish ?tta, Dutch acht, Old High German Ahto, German acht, Gothic ahtau), from PIE *okto(u) "eight" (cognates: Sanskrit astau, Avestan ashta, Greek okto, Latin octo, Old Irish ocht-n, Breton eiz, Old Church Slavonic osmi, Lithuanian a?tuoni). From the Latin word come Italian otto, Spanish ocho, Old French oit, Modern French huit.

For spelling, see fight (v.). Meaning "eight-man crew of a rowing boat" is from 1847. The Spanish piece of eight (1690s) was so called because it was worth eight reals (see piece (n.)). Figure (of) eight as the shape of a race course, etc., attested from c. 1600. To be behind the eight ball "in trouble" (1932) is a metaphor from shooting pool. Eight hours as the ideal length of a fair working day is recorded by 1845.