One way to hold this word: a tall woman on , armed, riding with a whole army of women like her. She is not from any one country you can point to on a map — she comes out of old Greek stories — but the picture is so strong that people kept reaching for it long after the stories stopped being believed. Everything else on this page can be read as that picture being lent out: lent to a real woman who towers over everyone else, lent to a river that a explorer named after her, and from the river lent again to a forest, to a green parrot, and finally to a shop that wanted a name meaning the biggest of its kind.
Wiktionary traces the English word through Latin to Ancient Greek Ἀμαζών, and notes it may go back to an Old Persian form meaning warrior, which fits the women of the stories being known as fighters. The same entry records the familiar a- (not) + mazos (breast) story as a folk etymology of Greek origin, that is, a later explanation rather than a real source.
資料把這個字一路追到希臘文 Ἀμαζών，並提到它可能來自古波斯語裡表示「戰士」的字，正好對上傳說中她們是打仗的人。至於「a-（沒有）＋ mazos（乳房）」那個很有名的說法，資料明說是 folk etymology，也就是後人補上的解釋，不是真正的來源。
Wiktionary entry *Amazon*, etymology 1 (packet evidence, source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:502249655)
Three branches
傳說裡的女戰士，和像她們的人
這一組就是核心畫面本身，一個留在故事裡，一個走進了現實生活。
noun · C1
A woman who is tall and strong, especially one who looks powerful or athletic. The word compares her to the women warriors of the old Greek stories, so it sounds large and dramatic rather than plain.
高大健壯的女子
被借去當地名的那條河，和河邊的一切
一般的說法是，探險者在河邊遇到連女人也一起上陣的對手，於是用傳說中的女戰士來叫這條河；名字一旦貼上去，河邊的森林和動物就跟著一起用。這是流傳很廣的說法，不是已經確定的事實。
noun · A2
The great river in South America. It runs through Peru and across Brazil, about 4,000 miles in all, and empties into the Atlantic Ocean; it is the second longest river in the world.
亞馬遜河
用這個名字開的網路商店
這一支不是意思長出來的，是有人刻意挑的：資料記載 Bezos 在 1994 年要一個 A 開頭、聽起來有異國感、而且是「同類裡最大」的名字，於是拿了那條大河。
noun · A2
A huge shopping website, and the company behind it. You choose things — books, music, films, toys, electrical goods and household goods — order and pay over the internet, and they are sent to your address. It runs a separate site in many countries.
亞馬遜（網購公司）