cockroach: [17] Cockroach is a product of folk etymology, the process by which a ‘foreign’ – sounding is adapted by speakers of a language so as to seem more familiar. In this case the foreign word was Spanish cucaracha. This was evidently too much for 17th-century English tongues, so the first element was transformed into cock and the second to roach (presumably after the freshwater fish of that name). Modern English roach ‘butt of a marijuana cigarette’ [20] is probably an abbreviation of cockroach, but this is not certain.
cockroach (n.)
1620s, folk etymology (as if from cock + roach) of Spanish cucaracha "chafer, beetle," from cuca "kind of caterpillar." Folk etymology also holds that the first element is from caca "excrement."
A certaine India Bug, called by the Spaniards a Cacarootch, the which creeping into Chests they eat and defile with their ill-sented dung [Capt. John Smith, "Virginia," 1624].
实用例句
1. She was forced to live in a cockroach - infested house.
她被迫住在一间蟑螂成群的房子里.
来自《简明英汉词典》
2. A species of cockroach sprays a substance , ethylacrolein, that is a kind of tear gas.
某种蟑螂喷射一种催泪性毒气――乙 基丙烯 醛.
来自辞典例句
3. You must be tough as a cockroach to survive my attack wave.
你这只臭蟑螂还挺强硬顶住了我的冲击波.
来自电影对白
4. The Cockroach, is me, changed from the spell of a sorcerer.
蟑螂 ﹐ 也就是“我” ﹐ 被魔法师施了咒语之后才变成蟑螂的.
来自互联网
5. By accident, the Apollo mission brought a cockroach into space.
