history

• n. 历史，历史学；历史记录；来历

来自拉丁语historia,叙述，告知，讲述过去发生的事，来自希腊语histor,智者，见证者，评论者，来自PIE*wid-tor,看，知道，了解，词源同visit,vision.其原义更偏重于讲故事，含有个人的主观色彩，后来从14世纪开始才逐渐确立为对过去发生事件的真实记录，而于1842年才确立为一门学科，即我们现在所理解的历史学。比较其与同源词story的区别。

history

history: [15] Etymologically, history denotes simply ‘knowledge’; its much more specific modern meaning is decidedly a secondary development. Its story begins with Greek hístōr ‘learned man’, a descendant of Indo-European *wid- ‘know, see’, which also produced English wit and Latin vidēre ‘see’. From hístōr was derived historíā ‘knowledge obtained by enquiry’, hence ‘written account of one’s enquiries, narrative, history’.

English acquired it via Latin historia, and at first used it for ‘fictional narrative’ as well as ‘account of actual events in the past’ (a sense now restricted to story, essentially the same word but acquired via Anglo-Norman).
=> story, vision, wit

history (n.)

late 14c., "relation of incidents" (true or false), from Old French estoire, estorie "chronicle, history, story" (12c., Modern French histoire), from Latin historia "narrative of past events, account, tale, story," from Greek historia "a learning or knowing by inquiry; an account of one's inquiries, history, record, narrative," from historein "inquire," from histor "wise man, judge," from PIE *wid-tor-, from root *weid- "to know," literally "to see" (see vision).

Related to Greek idein "to see," and to eidenai "to know." In Middle English, not differentiated from story; sense of "record of past events" probably first attested late 15c. As a branch of knowledge, from 1842. Sense of "systematic account (without reference to time) of a set of natural phenomena" (1560s) is now obsolete except in natural history.

One difference between history and imaginative literature ... is that history neither anticipates nor satisfies our curiosity, whereas literature does. [Guy Davenport, "Wheel Ruts," 1996]

来自柯林斯例句

2. The boundaries between history and storytelling are always being blurred and muddled.

历史和轶闻的分界向来是模糊而混乱的。

来自柯林斯例句

3. With apologies to my old history teacher, who needs history lessons?

这话对不住我亲爱的历史老师，不过有谁需要历史课呢？

来自柯林斯例句

4. The book is both a history and a passionate polemic for tolerance.

这本书既是一段历史，也是一篇主张宽容的激情论辩。

来自柯林斯例句

5. The whole idea was to give history a happy gloss.

整个想法就是要粉饰历史。

来自柯林斯例句