goal

英文詞源

goal

goal: [16] The earliest examples of what can confidently be identified as the word goal come from the first half of the 16th century, when it was used for both the ‘finishing line of a race’ and the ‘posts through which the ball is sent in football’. Before that we are in the realm of speculation. A 14th-century text from Kent has the word gol ‘boundary’, which could quite plausibly be the ancestor of the 16th-century goal, and gol suggest an Old English *gāl.

No such word has come down to us, but the Old English verb g?lan ‘hinder’, which looks as though it could have been related to a noun *gāl, indicates that if it existed it might have meant ‘obstacle, barrier’ (which would lead on quite logically through ‘boundary’ and ‘finishing line’ to ‘something to be aimed at’).

goal (n.)

1530s, "end point of a race," of uncertain origin. It appears once before this (as gol), in a poem from early 14c. and with an apparent sense of "boundary, limit." Perhaps from Old English *gal "obstacle, barrier," a word implied by g?lan "to hinder" and also found in compounds (singal, widgal). That would make it a variant or figurative use of Middle English gale "a way, course." Also compare Old Norse geil "a narrow glen, a passage." Or from Old French gaule "long pole, stake," which is from Germanic. Sports sense of "place where the ball, etc. is put to score" is attested from 1540s. Figurative sense of "object of an effort" is from 1540s.