mid-14c., "forbearance in indulgence of the appetites," from Old French abstinance (earlier astenance), from Latin abstinentia "abstinence, starvation; self-restraint, integrity," abstract noun from abstinentem (nominative abstinens), present participle of abstinere/abstenere "withhold, keep back, keep off," from assimilated form of ab "off, away from" (see ab-) + tenere "to hold" (from PIE root *ten- "to stretch"). Especially of sexual appetites but also in Middle English of food, fighting, luxury.

mid-14c., "subtle, sophisticated;" late 14c., "eager to know, inquisitive, desirous of seeing" (often in a bad sense), also "wrought with or requiring care and art;" from Old French curios "solicitous, anxious, inquisitive; odd, strange" (Modern French curieux) and directly from Latin curiosus "careful, diligent; inquiring eagerly, meddlesome," akin to cura "care" (see cure (n.)).

The objective sense of "exciting curiosity" is by 1715 in English. In booksellers' catalogues, the word was a euphemism for "erotic, pornographic" (1877); such material was called curiosa (1883), the Latin neuter plural of curiosus. Related: Curiously; curiousness. Curiouser and curiouser is from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (1865).

Curious and inquisitive may be used in a good or a bad sense, but inquisitive is more often, and prying is only, found in the latter. Curious expresses only the desire to know; inquisitive, the effort to find out by inquiry; prying, the effort to find out secrets by looking and working in improper ways. [Century Dictionary]

mid-14c., "small house or habitation," especially one rudely constructed, from Old French cabane "hut, cottage, small house," from Old Provençal cabana, from Late Latin capanna "hut" (source also of Spanish cabana, Italian capanna); a word of doubtful origin. Modern French cabine (18c.), Italian cabino are English loan-words.

The meaning "room or partition of a ship" (later especially one set aside for use of officers) is from mid-14c. Cabin fever is recorded by 1918 in the "need to get out and about" sense; earlier (1820s) it was a term for typhus.

mid-14c., declaren, "explain, interpret, make clear;" late 14c., "make known by words, state explicitly, proclaim, announce," from Old French declarer "explain, elucidate," or directly from Latin declarare "make clear, reveal, disclose, announce," from de-, here perhaps an intensive prefix (see de-) + clarare "to clarify," from clarus "clear" (see clear (adj.)).

From mid-15c. as "assert, affirm." Intransitive sense "make known one's thoughts or intentions" is by 1840. Related: Declared; declaring.

mid-14c., "sound repeated by reflection," from Latin echo, from Greek ēkhō, personified in classical mythology as a mountain nymph who pined away for love of Narcissus until nothing was left of her but her voice, from or related to ēkhē "sound," ēkhein "to resound," from PIE *wagh-io-, extended form of root *(s)wagh- "to resound" (source also of Sanskrit vagnuh "sound," Latin vagire "to cry," Old English swogan "to resound"). Related: Echoes. Echo chamber is attested from 1937.

"end of a ridged roof cut off in a vertical plane, together with the wall from the level of the eaves to the apex," mid-14c., "a gable of a building; a facade," from Old French gable "facade, front, gable," from Old Norse gafl "gable, gable-end" (in north of England, the word probably is directly from Norse), according to Watkins, probably from Proto-Germanic *gablaz "top of a pitched roof" (source also of Middle Dutch ghevel, Dutch gevel, Old High German gibil, German Giebel, Gothic gibla "gable"). This is traced to a PIE *ghebh-el- "head," which seems to have yielded words meaning both "fork" (such as Old English gafol, geafel, Old Saxon gafala, Dutch gaffel, Old High German gabala "pitchfork," German Gabel "fork;" Old Irish gabul "forked twig") and "head" (such as Old High German gibilla, Old Saxon gibillia "skull"). See cephalo-.

Possibly the primitive meaning of the words may have been 'top', 'vertex'; this may have given rise to the sense of 'gable', and this latter to the sense of 'fork', a gable being originally formed by two pieces of timber crossed at the top supporting the end of the roof-tree. [OED]

Related: Gabled; gables; gable-end.

mid-14c., "a kind of door latch," and said to be still the name for rings for raising thumb-latches in the north of England. It appears to be what it looks like: what you say when you open the door ("have good day," as in the 1414 record of them as hafgooddays).

mid-14c., "mockery, scorning, derision;" late 14c., "act of deception; deceptive appearance, apparition; delusion of the mind," from Old French illusion "a mocking, deceit, deception" (12c.), from Latin illusionem (nominative illusio) "a mocking, jesting, jeering; irony," from past-participle stem of illudere "mock at," literally "to play with," from assimilated form of in- "at, upon" (from PIE root *en "in") + ludere "to play" (see ludicrous). Sense of "deceptive appearance" first developed in Church Latin. Related: Illusioned "full of illusions" (1920).

mid-14c., "to form a mental image of," from Old French imaginer "sculpt, carve, paint; decorate, embellish" (13c.), from Latin imaginari "to form a mental picture, picture to oneself, imagine" (also, in Late Latin imaginare "to form an image of, represent"), from imago "an image, a likeness," from stem of imitari "to copy, imitate" (from PIE root *aim- "to copy"). Sense of "suppose, assume" is first recorded late 14c. Related: Imagined; imagining.

"lowest and principal timber of a ship or boat," mid-14c., probably from a Scandinavian source (compare Old Norse kjölr "keel," Danish kjøl, Swedish köl), which according to Watkins is from Proto-Germanic *gwele- (3) "to swallow" (see gullet).

OED and Middle English Compendium say this word is separate from the keel that means "a strong, clumsy boat, barge" (c. 1200), which might be instead from Middle Dutch kiel "ship" (cognate with Old English ceol "ship's prow," Old High German kiel, German Kiel "ship"). But the two words have influenced each other or partly merged, and Barnhart calls them cognates. Keel still is used locally for "flat-bottomed boat" in the U.S. and England, especially on the Tyne.

In historical writing about the Anglo-Saxons, it is attested from 17c. as the word for an early form of long-boat supposedly used by them in the crossing, based on ceolum in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Medieval Latin cyulis (Gildas). Old English also used simply scipes botm or bytme. On an even keel (1560s) is "in a level, horizontal position," hence figurative extension with reference to stability.