a) g ay ‘a homosexual’ from a gay ‘full of joy or mirth’ in gay house (= brothel);
b) to propose ‘to ask sb to marry you’ < to propose marriage;
c) token from O.E. tacen ‘sign, symbol, evidence’. Syn. sign. Original sense of ‘evidence’ is retained in by the same token, love token, token of respect;
d) to catch = ‘to understand’: Sorry, I didn’t quite catch what you said. > Cf.She didn’t get the joke.They failed to grasp the importance of his words;
e) harvest ‘the time of year when the crops are gathered in on a farm’ from German herbst ‘autumn’; autumn ‘the time of the year’ from Latin autumnu through French;
f) taxi from taximeter cab;
g) chair from Old French chaiere, from Latin cathedra, from Greek kathedra, from kata- down + hedra seat; stool from Old English stōl; related to Old Norse stōll, Gothic stōls, Old High German stuol chair, Greek stulos pillar.
3.* Define the type of semantic change:
1) pipe (from “a musical wind instrument”) a) metaphor
2) a jersey b) metonymy
3) villain c) specialization of meaning
4) half-seas-over (“drunk”) d) generalization of meaning
5) eye of a needle e) hyperbole
6) I’m hanged if I’ll do that. f) litotes
7) tide (“time”) g) degradation of meaning
8) tongues of flame h) elevation of meaning
9) knight (from “manservant”) i) irony
10) mentally unstable (“mad”) j) euphemism
11) no ugly (“plain”)
12) in a delicate condition (“pregnant”)
13) floods of blood
14) a deer (from “any beast”)
15) a nice matter (“terrible”)