cider: [14] Despite its seeming roots in the appleproducing English countryside, cider is a very ancient word, which has come a long way to reach us. Hebrew shēkhār meant ‘any strong drink in general’. It crops up in several places in the Bible, and was adopted by Greek and Latin translators as, respectively, sīkéra and sīcera. The Latin form was borrowed into Old French, where it became sisdre and eventually sidre.
By now it was being applied more specifically to drink made from apples, and it had that meaning when it was borrowed into English. However, its biblical associations were still sufficiently strong for it to retain its original meaning in certain contexts: for example, in 1382 John Wyclif translated Luke 1:15 (‘he shall drink neither wine nor strong drink’) as ‘he shall not drink wine and cider’.
Its original form survived for a while, too, as sicar, which did not disappear from English until the 17th century.
cider (n.)
late 13c., from Old French cidre, cire "pear or apple cider" (12c., Modern French cidre), variant of cisdre, from Late Latin sicera, Vulgate rendition of Hebrew shekhar, a word used for any strong drink (translated in Old English as beor, taken untranslated in Septuagint Greek as sikera), related to Arabic sakar "strong drink," sakira "was drunk." Meaning gradually narrowed in English to mean exclusively "fermented drink made from apples," though this sense also was in Old French.
实用例句
1. Any faults in the original cider stood out sharply after distillation.
原先苹果酒里的任何杂质在蒸馏后都会凸现出来。
来自柯林斯例句
2. Nutmeg, parsley and cider all complement the flavour of these beans well.
肉豆蔻、西芹和苹果酒都能很好地突出这些豆子的味道。
来自柯林斯例句
3. He ordered a cider.
他点了一杯苹果酒。
来自柯林斯例句
4. They imbibed the local cider before walking home to dinner.
