in grammar, "the arrangement of repeated, parallel, or contrasted words or phrases in pairs with inversion of word order," 1850, Latinized from Greek khiasmos "a placing crosswise, diagonal arrangement" (see chi).
Adam, first of men,
To first of women, Eve.
["Paradise Lost"]
"put a ring on" (late 14c.); "make a circle around" (c. 1500); from ring (n.1) and probably in part from Old English ymbhringan "surround, encircle," from the root of ring (n.1). Related: Ringed; ringing. Compare Frisian ringje, Middle Dutch and Dutch ringen, Old High German ringan, German ringen, Old Norse hringa, hringja.
The intransitive sense of "gather in a ring" is attested by mid-15c. The sense of "provide or attach a ring or rings, affix a ring to" is from late 14c.; that of "adorn with rings" is from 1550s. The meaning "move in a circle around" is from 1825. The meaning "cut out a ring of bark from (a tree) to obstruct the flow of sap" is by 1800. It also meant "put a ring in the nose of (swine, cattle) to keep them from rooting or violence" (1510s), and this was used figuratively in 17c.-18c.
I apprehend also, that the wife, when she found she was to be rung, very wisely made a virtue of necessity, and added jewels to the ring .... ["Adam Fitz-Adam," "The World," Edinburgh, 1776]
early 14c., "first in time, earliest," from Old French original "first" (13c.) and directly from Latin originalis, from originem (nominative origo) "beginning, source, birth," from oriri "to rise" (see origin). The first reference is to sin, synne original, "innate depravity of man's nature," supposed to be inherited from Adam in consequence of the Fall (the modern word order original sin is from 15c.). Also from late 14c., "pertaining to or characteristic of the first stage of anything. Meaning "produced directly by an author, artist, etc." is from 1630s; that of "fresh, novel, new, striking" is by 1782. Related: Originally.
1838, in geology, in reference to rocks containing fossils of the earliest life on Earth, from proto- "early, first" + Greek zoe "life" (from PIE root *gwei- "to live") + -ic. Coined by British geologist Adam Sedgwick, who wrote in 1852, "I used the word Protozoic to prevent any wrangling about the words Cambrian and Silurian" [Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London].
In zoology by 1861, "of or pertaining to the Protozoa," from Protozoa + -ic. Alternative adjectives in the biological sense include Protozoan, Protozoal.
late 14c., "man-like or heroic woman, woman of extraordinary stature, strength and courage," from Latin virago "female warrior, heroine, amazon," from vir "man" (from PIE root *wi-ro- "man"). Ælfric (c. 1000), following Vulgate, used it in Genesis ii.23 as the name Adam gave to Eve (KJV = woman):
Beo hire nama Uirago, þæt is, fæmne, forðan ðe heo is of hire were genumen.
Related: Viraginous.
