late: [OE] English and Dutch (with laat) are the only modern European languages to use this word to express the idea of ‘behind time’. It comes from an Indo-European base *lad- ‘slow, weary’, which also produced Latin lassus ‘tired’ (source of English alas [13] and lassitude [16]). In prehistoric Germanic this gave *lataz ‘slow, sluggish’.
Its English descendant late originally meant ‘slow’ (and the related German lass still means ‘lazy’), but although this survived dialectally into the 19th century, in the mainstream language ‘delayed’ had virtually replaced it by the 15th century. From the same ultimate Indo-European source come English lease, let, and liege. => alas, lassitude, last, lease, let, liege
late (adj.)
Old English læt "occurring after the customary or expected time," originally "slow, sluggish," from Proto-Germanic *lata- (cognates: Old Norse latr "sluggish, lazy," Middle Dutch, Old Saxon lat, German laß "idle, weary," Gothic lats "weary, sluggish, lazy," latjan "to hinder"), from PIE *led- "slow, weary" (cognates: Latin lassus "faint, weary, languid, exhausted," Greek ledein "to be weary"), from root *le- "to let go, slacken" (see let (v.)).
The sense of "deceased" (as in the late Mrs. Smith) is from late 15c., from an adverbial sense of "recently." Of women's menstrual periods, attested colloquially from 1962. Related: Lateness. As an adverb, from Old English late.
双语例句
1. He defected from the party in the late 1970s.
他在20世纪70年代后期叛出了该党。
来自柯林斯例句
2. Stay in bed extra late or get up specially early.
起床过晚或过早。
来自柯林斯例句
3. Most late developers will catch up with their friends.
大多数身材发育迟缓者都会赶上他们的朋友。
来自柯林斯例句
4. Heavy Metal music really arose in the late 60s.
重金属音乐真正形成于60年代后期。
来自柯林斯例句
5. Through some unfortunate accident, the information reached me a day late.
