| 释义 |
in·fant AHD[ĭnʹfənt] D.J.[ˈɪnfənt]K.K.[ˈɪnfənt]n.（名词）- A child in the earliest period of life, especially before he or she can walk.婴儿，幼儿：处于生命早期阶段的小孩，尤指他或她还不会走路之时
- Law A person under the legal age of majority; a minor.【法律】 未成年人：未达到法定年龄的人；未成年者
adj.（形容词）- Of or being in infancy.婴儿期的：属于或处在婴儿期的
- Intended for infants or young children.供婴儿使用的：为婴儿或年龄很小的儿童设计的
- Newly begun or formed:初期的：刚刚开始的或新创建的：an infant enterprise.新兴的企业
- Middle English 中古英语
- from Old French enfant 源自 古法语 enfant
- from Latin īnfāns īnfant- 源自 拉丁语 īnfāns īnfant-
- from īnfāns [not able to speak, young] 源自 īnfāns [不会说话，年龄小]
- in- [not] * see in- 1in- [不] * 参见 in-1
- fāns [present participle of] fārī [to speak] * see bhā- 2fāns fārī的现在分词 [说] * 参见 bhā- 2
注释- Anyone who has ever responded to the cries of a howling infantmay find it difficult to believe the etymology of the wordinfant. The source of our word is the Latin wordīnfāns (stem form, or form to which inflections are added, īnfant- ), meaning "a little child; strictly, one who does not yet speak.”The noun is from the adjectiveīnfāns, meaning "not having the power of speech" and "newly born"and made up of the negative prefixin- and the present participle fāns, "speaking,” of the verbfārī, "to speak.” Latinīnfāns and its Old French descendant enfant could both be used to refer to a speaking child, and the earliest recorded use (around 1384) of their Middle English descendantinfaunte, the ancestor of our word, is in the sense "child.”This use gave rise to our legal sense ofinfant, "a minor,” thus reminding us of individuals who can be very talkative indeed.只要是听过婴儿啼哭声的人，就难以相信infant 的词源是这样来的： 这个词的词源是拉丁文infans （派生形式，即加了词尾的变体， infant- )， 意思是“一个小孩子；严格地说，是指还不会说话的幼儿”。名词是由形容词infans 演化而来的， 它的意思是“不会说话的”“新生的”，由反义前缀in 和现在分词 fans “说话的”构成的， 其动词原形为fari 意思是“说话”。 拉丁字infans 及它的古法语派生字 enfant 都可以用来指会说话的幼儿； 它们的派生词、我们这个字的鼻祖是中古英语字infaunte ，其最早的记载约在1384年左右， 那时的意思是“儿童”。这样，我们这个字的法定意义infant “未成年人”就出现了； 这使我们想起那些十分健谈的人
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