philately

发音

How to pronounce philately in British English: 英 [fɪˈlætəli] word uk audio image

How to pronounce philately in American English: 美 [fɪˈlætli] word us audio image

单词词源

philately: philately: [19] When a Monsieur Herpin, a French stamp-collector, was looking for an impressive and learned-sounding term for his hobby, he was hampered by the fact that the Greeks and Romans did not have postage stamps, and therefore there was no classical term for them. So he decided to go back a stage beyond stamps, to the days of franking with a post-mark. In France, such letters were stamped franc de port ‘carriage-free’, and the nearest he could get to this in Greek was atelés ‘free of charge’, a compound formed from a- ‘not’ and télos ‘payment’.Using the Greek prefix phil- ‘loving, love of’ (as in philosophy and a wide range of other English words) he created philatélie, which made its first appearance in English in 1865.

philately (n.): "stamp-collecting," 1865, from French philatélie, coined by French stamp collector Georges Herpin (in "Le Collectionneur de Timbres-poste," Nov. 15, 1864), from Greek phil- "loving" (see philo-) + ateleia "exemption from tax," the closest word Herpin could find in ancient Greek to the concept of "postage stamp" (from a- "without" + telos "tax;" see toll (n.)). A reminder of the original function of postage stamps, now often forgotten: the cost of letter-carrying formerly was paid by the recipient; stamps indicated it had been pre-paid by the sender, thus the letters were "carriage-free." It is a pity that for one of the most popular scientific pursuits one of the least popularly intelligible names should have been found. [Fowler] Stampomania (1865) also was tried. Stamp-collecting is from 1862. Related: Philatelic; philatelism; philatelist.

2. Philately is the term for stamp collecting , yet the greek roots of the word literally mean " lovers of tax freedom . "

3. Wealthy chinese collectors are also investing in western stamps , and stanley gibbons is considering opening an office in hong kong the hub of asian philately to take advantage of growing affluence in the region .