quell: [OE] Quell and kill are probably closely related – indeed, in Old and Middle English quell was used for ‘kill’ (‘birds and small beasts with his bow he quells’, William of Palerne 1350). Quell goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *kwaljan (source also of German qu?len ‘torture’), which may have had a variant *kuljan, that could have produced English kill. The milder modern sense of quell developed in the 14th century.
quell (v.)
Old English cwellan "to kill, murder, execute," from Proto-Germanic *kwaljanan (cognates: Old English cwelan "to die," cwalu "violent death;" Old Saxon quellian "to torture, kill;" Old Norse kvelja "to torment;" Middle Dutch quelen "to vex, tease, torment;" Old High German quellan "to suffer pain," German qu?len "to torment, torture"), from PIE root *gwele- (1) "to throw, reach," with extended sense of "to pierce" (cognates: Armenian kelem "I torture;" Old Church Slavonic zali "pain;" Lithuanian galas "end," gela "agony," gelti "to sting;" see ballistics). Milder sense of "suppress, extinguish" developed by c. 1300. Related: Quelled; quelling.
雙語例句
1. He is unlikely to send in the army to quell nationalist aspirations.
他不可能派兵去扼殺民族主義理想。
來自柯林斯例句
2. Extra police were called in to quell the disturbances.