| 词汇 | break the ice |
| 词源 | break the ice. Ice skaters might test the ice in a rink, but would never break it, and so have nothing to do with this ex- pression meaning to be the first to try something, or to break a silence or uneasiness when people meet, etc. The allusion is probably either to ice being sold for the first time in America, in the 1830s, when to break the ice came to mean to introduce something, or to a ship breaking ice in its path so that it could proceed on its journey. There is no proof for either guess. |
| 随便看 |
|
英语词源词典收录了13259条英语词源词条，基本涵盖了全部常用英语词汇的起源、历史，是研究英语词汇或通过词源学英语的必备工具。