jump

英文詞源

jump

jump: [16] Until the early modern English period, the words for ‘jump’ were leap and spring. Then, apparently out of nowhere, the verb jump appeared. Its provenance has never been satisfactorily explained, and etymologists fall back on the notion that it may originally have been intended to suggest the sound of jumping feet hitting the ground (the similar-sounding bump and thump are used to support this theory).

And certainly one of the earliest known instances of the word’s use connotes as much ‘making heavy contact’ as ‘rising’: ‘The said anchor held us from jumping and beating upon the said rock’, Sir Richard Guylforde, Pilgrimage to the Holy Land 1511. Jumper ‘sweater’ [19], incidentally, appears to have no etymological connection with jump. It was probably derived from an earlier dialectal jump or jup, which denoted a short coat for men or a sort of woman’s underbodice.

This in turn was borrowed from French juppe, a variant of jupe ‘skirt’, whose ultimate source was Arabic jubbah, the name of a sort of loose outer garment.

jump (v.)

1520s, perhaps imitative (compare bump); another theory derives it from words in Gallo-Roman dialects of southwestern France (compare jumba "to rock, to balance, swing," yumpa "to rock"), picked up during English occupation in Hundred Years War. Superseded native leap, bound, and spring in most senses. Meaning "to attack" is from 1789; that of "to do the sex act with" is from 1630s. Related: Jumped; jumping. To jump to a conclusion is from 1704. Jumping-rope is from 1805. Jump in a lake "go away and stop being a pest" attested from 1912.

jump (n.)

1550s, "act of jumping," from jump (v.). Meaning "jazz music with a strong beat" first recorded 1937, in Count Basie's "One O'Clock Jump." Jump suit "one-piece coverall modeled on those worn by paratroopers and skydivers" is from 1948.