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单词 就是
释义 〔flash〕"On the French coast, the light/Gleams, and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,/ Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay" (Matthew Arnold). Totwinkle is to shine with quick, intermittent flashes or gleams: “在法国海滩上,光微弱地闪动着,然后消失了;英国的山崖耸立在宁静的海湾边,微微闪光,巨大无比” (马修·阿诺尔德)。Twinkle 就是迅速地、间歇地发光或闪亮: 〔Riobamba〕A city of central Ecuador in the Andes south of Quito. Ecuador's independence was proclaimed here in 1830. Population, 75,455.里奥班巴:厄瓜多尔中部一城市,位于安第斯山脉中、基多以南。厄瓜多尔的独立就是1830年在这儿宣布的。人口75,455〔snob〕"A snob is someone who judges all things, from shoes and dinner parties to love and beauty, according to their social rating"(Tom Wolfe)“势利小人就是衡量一切事情都从他们的社会地位出发的人,从穿鞋和晚餐聚会到爱情和审美”(汤姆·沃尔夫)〔Maslow〕American psychologist and a founder of humanistic psychology who developed a hierarchical model of human motivation, in which a higher need, ultimately that for self-actualization, is expressed only after lower needs are fulfilled.马斯洛,亚伯拉罕:(1908-1970) 美国心理学家,人文主义心理学的奠基人。他提出人类行为动机的等级模型,根据该模型,只有当基本的低级需求被满足后,高级需求──最终就是对自我实现的需求,才会表现出来〔tangerine〕The nametangerine is like the skin of an orange, which when peeled off reveals something of interest.The name reflects the geographic source of the fruit, Tangier, Morocco,from which port the first tangerines were shipped to Europe in 1841.The wordtangerine, from Tangier or Tanger, was already an English word (first recorded in 1710), meaning "of or pertaining to Tangier.”This word had been formed with the suffix-ine, as in Florentine. The fruit was first called atangerine orange, later reduced simply totangerine. Confusion exists between the nametangerine and the name mandarin, and with good reason.The tangerine is a type of mandarin orange,so in fact the oranges shipped from Tangier could have been calledmandarins. However, although both names can be used interchangeably in a general sense,there does now exist a particular type of orange calledtangerine as distinguished from another type called specifically mandarin. The mandarin orange, which is native to China,is thought probably to have received its namebecause of its resemblance in color to the robes of a mandarin.单词tangerine 这个名称就好象桔子的皮, 当我们把它剥下来时就会发现有趣的东西。这个名称反映了它所指的水果的地理来源,即摩洛哥的丹吉尔;第一批柑橘就是在1841年从该港口用船运往欧洲的。源于Tangier 或 Tanger 的 tangerine 一词在这时已经是一个英语词汇(它第一次见于文献是在1710年), 意为“属于或关于丹吉尔的”。这个词是用加后缀-ine 的方法构成的,就象 Florentine 一词的构词法一样。 丹吉尔所产的这种水果一开始被称作tangerine orange , 后来被简化成tangerine。 在tangerine 和 mandarion 之间一直存在着混淆, 而这种混淆是有原因的。丹吉尔柑橘确为一种中国柑桔种类,所以事实上从丹吉尔运出的那批桔子在当时可能就被称为mandarin 。 然而,尽管这两个名称在一般的使用中是可以互换的,但世界上确实存在着与另一种被称为manderin 的类型不同的一种被称作 tangerine 的桔类。 中国柑桔原产于中国,它之所以被这样命名,可能是因为它的颜色类似清朝的高官所穿的官服的颜色〔Somme〕A river, about 241 km (150 mi) long, of northern France flowing west and northwest to the English Channel. Tanks were first used in warfare during the devastating Battle of the Somme (1916).索姆河:一条河流,流程约241公里(150英里),位于法国北部,流向西和西北方向,注入英吉利海峡。坦克就是首次在激烈的索姆河战役中投入使用的(1916年)〔macabre〕The wordmacabre is an excellent example of a word formed with reference to a specific context that has long since disappeared for everyone but scholars. Macabre is first recorded in the phrase Macabrees daunce in a work written around 1430 by John Lydgate. Lydgate expressed it so because he thoughtMacabree was a French author, although he was actually dealing with the Old French phraseDanse Macabre, "the Dance of Death,” a subject of art and literature.In this dance,Death leads people of all classes and walks of life to the same final end.Themacabre element is thought by some to be an alteration of Macabe , "a Maccabee.” The Maccabees were Jewish martyrswho were honored by a feast throughout the Western Church,and reverence for them was linked to reverence for the dead.One of the biblical books of Maccabees also contains a passage (II Maccabees 12:43-45) mentioning sacrifices for the dead and their future resurrection,which has been used to defend the doctrine of Purgatory.Todaymacabre has no connection with the Maccabees and little connection with the Dance of Death,but it still has to do with death.单词macabre 是一个极好的例子,创造该词的来龙去脉除了学者之外早已被世人所遗忘。 Macabre 最早见于短语 Macabrees daunce 是在1430年前后约翰·利德盖特写的一本书中。 利德盖特这样表达是因为他认为Macabree 是源于法语的词, 实际上他指的是一个古老的法语短语Danse Macabre, “死神之舞,” 一个艺术与文学的主题。在这个舞蹈中,死神把各种各样的人带到了同一个终点。有人认为macabre 是 Macabe 的变体,“马加比人”。 马加比们就是那些犹太殉道者,在天主教会中通过节日表达对他们的敬意,对他们的尊敬和对死的敬畏是联系在一起的。基督教典籍中关于马加比人的书中有一段文字(Ⅱ马加比人12:43-45)提到对死者的祭祀和他们未来的复活,这段文字被用来捍卫关于炼狱的教义。今天macabre 与马加比人毫无联系, 与死神之舞相关甚少,但它仍与死亡有关〔Anglocentric〕“[His] view of American culture from its very origins is almost truculently Anglocentric" (Jack Miles)“[他] 对美洲文化起源的见解几乎就是盛气凌人的英格兰中心论” (杰克·麦尔斯)〔pleasure〕"One of the greatest pleasures of life is conversation" (Sydney Smith). “生活中最大的乐事之一就是交谈” (悉尼·史密斯)。 〔videlicet〕That is; namely. Used to introduce examples, lists, or items.即:就是;就。用来介绍例子、目录或示项目〔Breathalyzer〕"An arrestee requests to speak with or call an attorney, or anyone else, when requested to take a breathalyzer test"(National Law Journal)"The solution is the breathalyzer"(Legal Times)“一个被拘捕者被要求做呼气测醉检验时,要求同律师或任何别的人说话”(美国法律期刊)“解决的办法就是呼气测醉器”(法律时代)〔Qom〕A city of west-central Iran south-southwest of Tehran. It has been a Shiite Moslem center since early Islamic times and a pilgrimage site since the 17th century. Population, 424,000.库姆:伊朗中西部一城市,位于德黑兰西南偏南。从早期的穆斯林时代起,它就是什叶派穆斯林的中心,从17世纪起成为朝圣胜地。人口424,000〔helpmate〕The existence of the two wordshelpmeet and helpmate meaning exactly the same thing is a comedy of errors. God's promise to Adam, in Genesis 2:18 as rendered in the King James version of the Bible (1611), was to give him "an help [helper] meet [fit or suitable] for him.”In 1673 the poet John Dryden used the phrase "help-meet for man,”with a hyphen betweenhelp and meet. This was one step on the way toward the establishment of the phrase "help meet" as an independent word.Another was the use of "help meet"without "for man"to mean a suitable helper,usually a spouse, as Eve had been to Adam.Despite such usages,however, for the most parthelpmeet was not thought of as a word in its own right until the 19th century. Nonetheless the phrase "help meet" probably played a role in the creation of the synonymous compoundhelpmate, from ( help and mate ), first recorded in 1715. Helpmeet 和 helpmate 这两个意义完全相同的词的存在缘于一起错误的喜剧。 据英王詹姆士一世钦定《圣经》英译本(1611年)《创业记》2:18的记载,上帝允诺亚当给他“一个适合他的助手”。1673年,诗人约翰·德莱顿使用了“男人的助手”这个短语,并且在help 和 meet 中间加了一个连字符成为help-meet。 这是短语"help meet"成为一个独立的单词道路上所迈出的第一步。另一步就是单独使用"help meet",去掉了"for man"这个成分,意思是适合的伙伴,通常指象夏娃之于亚当那样的伴侣。尽管有以上这些用法,但是,总的说来,helpmeet 这个说法直到19世纪才凭借自身的资格成为一个单词。 但不管怎么说,同义合成词helpmate 来源于( help 加 mate )的创造过程中(这个词首次记录于1715年),短语"help meet"很可能扮演了一定的角色 〔grim〕"undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw"(J.M. Barrie)“毫无疑问,他身上最可怕的部分就是其铁爪”(J.M.巴里)〔haplology〕The loss of one of two identical or similar adjacent syllables in a word, as in Latinnūtrīx, "nurse,” from earlier .nūtrītrīx. 重复或类似音节的漏读:在同一单词中,当出现两个相同或相邻近似的音节时,对其中之一的漏读,例如在拉丁语中,单词护士 即“护士,”就是由早期的 护士 一词变化而来的 〔mechanism〕"The mechanism of oral learning is largely that of continuous repetition"(T.G.E. Powell)“口语的学习过程在很大程度上来说就是进行不断的重复”(T.G.E.鲍威尔)〔pay〕Given the unpeaceful feelings one often has in paying bills or income taxes,it is difficult to believe that the wordpay ultimately derives from the Latin word pāx, "peace.” However, it is not the peace of the one who pays that is involved in this development of meaning.Frompāx, meaning "peace" and also "a settlement of hostilities,” was derived the word pācāre, "to impose a settlement on peoples or territories.” In Late Latinpācāre was extended in sense to mean "to appease.” The Old French wordpaiier that developed from Latin pācāre came to have the specific application "to pacify or satisfy a creditor,”a sense that came into Middle English along with the wordpaien (first recorded around the beginning of the 13th century), the ancestor of our wordpay. 人常常在支付帐单或收入调节税时有不安之感情,因而很难令人相信单词pay 来源于拉丁词语 pax “和平”。 但是,并不是支付人内心的平和与这个词意义的延伸意有关连。因为意思是“和平”和“敌视的和解”的单词pax 源于 pacare “给人民或领土以安宁”。 在后拉丁语中pacare 的意义被引申为“抚慰,使缓和。” 古法语单词paiier 来源于拉丁语 pacave, 后来开始具有“缓和、平息或使债主满意”这个具体用意,这种意思随同单词paien (大约在13世纪初首次记录)进入中世纪英语, 这个词就是单词pay 的前身 〔Timothy〕Christian leader and companion of Saint Paul. Two epistles of the New Testament, ascribed to Paul, are addressed to him.提摩太:基督教领袖,圣保罗的同伴。《新约全书》中人们认为保罗所写的两封书信就是写给他的〔endocentric〕Of or relating to a group of syntactically related words, at least one of which is functionally equivalent to the function of the whole group. For example, the nountable in the noun phrase the old table is endocentric because it has the same grammatical function as the whole noun phrase. 向心的:造句上相关字语的,或与其相关的;至少其中有一字在机能上要与整体的机能一致。例如,在名词词组the old table(旧桌子) 中的名词 table 就是一个向心字语,因为其和整个名词词组具有相同的语法功能 〔soul〕"An actor is . . . often a soul which wishes to reveal itself to the world but dare not"(Alec Guinness)“一个演员就是…通常想把自己展示给世人但却不敢的人”(亚历克·吉尼斯)〔anthology〕"The Irish love their constitution for what it is: an anthology of the clerical-nationalist ideas of 1936, when it was drawn up"(Economist)“爱尔兰人热爱他们的宪法:当它在1936年被制定出来时就是宗教民族主义思想的杂集”(经济学家)〔buccaneer〕The Errol Flynn-like figure of the buccaneer pillaging the Spanish Main may seem less dashing if we realize that the termbuccaneer corresponds to the word barbecuer. The first recorded use of the French wordboucanier, which was borrowed into English, referred to a person on the islands of Hispaniola and Tortuga who hunted wild oxen and boars and smoked the meat in a barbecue frame known in French as aboucan. This French word came from an Arawakan or Tupinamba word meaning "a rack, sometimes used for roasting or for storing things, or a racklike platform supporting an Indian house.”The original barbecuers seem to have subsequently adapted a more remunerative way of life, piracy,which accounts for the new meaning given to the word.Buccaneer is recorded first in 1661 in its earlier sense in English; the sense we are familiar with is recorded in 1690.如果我们认识到buccaneer 一词与 barbecuer 一词词意相当,那么象艾洛尔·弗里恩这样掠夺西班牙船只的海盗也许看起来不算是勇敢了。 法语词boucanier 借用到英语中最早记录下来的意义, 是指生活在伊斯帕尼奥拉岛和托丢伽岛上的人,他们猎野牛和野猪,在boucan 这种烧烤架上烤肉。 这个法语词来自阿拉瓦克语或图皮南巴语,意为“一种架子,有时用来炙烤或贮藏食物,或指架状平台,用来支撑印第安人的房子”。专事炙烤的土著后来适应了海上掠夺这一更有利可图的生活方式。这就是boucan一词为什么被赋予了新的意义。Buccaneer 的早些时候的意义于1661年最早用英语记录下来, 而我们所熟悉的该词的含义是于1690年记录下来的〔marshal〕Hard-riding marshals of the Wild West in pursuit of criminalsreemphasize the relationship of the wordmarshal with horses. The Germanic ancestor of our wordmarshal is a compound made up of .marhaz, "horse" (related to the source of our word mare ), and .skalkaz, "servant,” meaning as a whole literally "horse servant,”hence "groom.”The Frankish descendant of this Germanic word,.marahskalk, starting from these humble beginnings, came to designate a high royal official and also a high military commander, not surprisingly so, given the importance of the horse in medieval warfare.The word passed into the period (beginning in 800) in which we speak of Old French, after the Franks and their Germanic language had been fused with the surrounding culture descended from Roman Gaul.When the Normans established a French-speaking official class in England,the Old French word came with them.The Middle English source of our word is first recorded as a surname in 1218 (and the surname Marshal, now spelled Marshall, has been held by some famous people),but it is first recorded as a common noun with the sense "high officer of the royal court" in the first English language proclamation (1258) by an English king, Henry III, after the Norman Conquest.Marshal was applied to this high royal official's deputies, who were officers of courts of law,and the word continued to designate various officials involved with courts of law and law enforcement,including the horseback-riding marshals we are familiar with in the United States.西部荒野骑着马对罪犯紧追不舍的警长形象,再次强调了marshal 这个词与马之间的联系。 我们这个单词marshal 的日耳曼语原形是一个由 marhaz “马”(与 mare 的语源相关)和 skalkaz “仆人,佣人”组成的合成词, 字面意思是“马的仆人”,也就是后来的“马夫”。这个日耳曼词的法兰克语的演变marahskalk 从最初卑微的含义演变到特指高级王室官员及高级军事将领, 不仅如此,在中世纪的战场上马也被提升到了重要地位。在法兰克人和他们所说的日耳曼语一起融入周围的罗马高卢人文化之后,这个词进入了我们讲古法语的时代(开始于800年)。当诺曼底人在英格兰建立了一个讲法语的官员阶层之后,古法语里的这个词便随之而来。该词在中世纪英语中最早于1218年作为一个姓氏被记录下来(一些著名人士的姓马歇尔,现在的拼写法为Marshall),但作为指“王室的高级官员”的普通名词,它最早出现于英国王亨利三世在诺曼征服之后做的一篇英文公告(1258年)。在此文中Marshal 用于指高级王室官员的代表, 也就是司法官员。该词涉及法律和法律实施的不同官员的含义延续了下来,其中就包括我们所熟悉的美国西部骑在马背上的警长〔Potteries〕A district of west-central England in the Trent River valley. It has been a center of the manufacture of china and earthenware since the 16th century. Josiah Wedgwood and Josiah Spode were among the noted potters who worked in the area.波特里斯:英格兰中西部地区,位于特伦特河河谷。此地自16世纪以来就一直是瓷器及陶器制造中心。乔塞亚·韦兹伍德及乔塞亚·斯波德就是在此地工作过的两位著名的陶工〔Scriabin〕Russian composer of orchestral and piano works who incorporated visual arts into some of his compositions, such asPrometheus (1910), a tonal poem whose performance includes the projection of colored lights. 斯克里亚宾,亚历山大·尼科拉耶维奇:(1872-1915) 俄国管弦乐和钢琴乐作曲家,他把视觉艺术融入到他的一些作品当中,例如《普罗米修斯》 (1910年),就是一个和谐的诗歌,在它的表演包括了彩灯的设计 〔extemporaneous〕an offhand remark. What isunrehearsed is said or done without rehearsal or practice though not necessarily without forethought: 随意的评论。 所谓unrehearsed ,就是未经复述或练习就说或做的, 虽然没有不构思的必要: 〔Siemens〕German engineer who made notable improvements to telegraphic and electrical apparatus. His brotherKarl Wilhelm, later Sir Charles William Siemens (1823-1883), invented a regenerative steam engine and designed a steamship for laying long-distance cables. 西门子,厄恩斯特·维尔纳·冯:(1816-1892) 德国工程师,他在电报与电子设备方面做出过显著的改进工作,其弟卡尔·威廉 ,也就是后来的 查尔斯·威廉·西门子 爵士(1823-1883年),发明了一种回热蒸汽发动机,并设计了一种铺设长距离缆绳的汽船 〔equal〕It has been argued thatequal is an absolute term— two quantities either are or are not equal—and hence cannot be qualified as to degree.Therefore one cannot logically speak ofa more equal allocation of resources among the departments. However, this usage was accepted by 71 percent of the Usage Panel in an earlier survey.What is more, objection to the usage betrays a widespread but questionable assumptionthat it is in mathematics and logic that we find the model of accuracy most appropriate to the everyday use of language,a supposition that also underlies traditional grammatical discussions of words such asunique, parallel, and center. According to this account,the "precise" or "literal" meaning ofequal is realized in the use of the equal sign in an arithmetic expression such as 5 + 2 = 7; and the ordinary-language uses of the term,though they may be permissible,represent "loose" or "imprecise" extensions of that sense.But in fact the mathematical concept of equality is a poor model for using the wordequal to describe relations between things in the world. As applied to such things,statements of equality are always relative to an implicit standard of tolerance.When someone saysThe two boards are of equal length, we assume that the equality is reckoned to some order of approximation determined by the context;if we did not,we would be required always to usenearly equal when speaking of the dimensions of physical objects. What is more,we often want to predicate equality of things that do not admit of quantitative measurement,as when we sayThe college draft was introduced in an effort to make the teams in the National Football League as equal as possible, orThe candidates for the job should all be given equal consideration. In all such cases,equality is naturally a gradient notionand so is amenable to modification in degree.This much is evident from the existence of the wordunequal. The prefixun- attaches only to gradient adjectives: we sayunmanly but not unmale; and the worduneven can be applied to a surface (whose evenness may be a matter of degree) but not to a number (whose evenness is an either-or affair). ·The adverbequally is generally regarded as redundant when used in combination with as, and the following examples employingequally as were termed unacceptable by 63 percent of the Usage Panel in an earlier survey: 单词equal 一向被认为是一个很绝对的词语—— 两个数量要么相同要么不同——这样就不能有程度上的差别。所以,如果有人说在各部门间对资源更公平的分配 ,那么就不合逻辑了。 但是这种用法在早先的用法调查中被百分之七十一用法使用小组的人接受。而且,对这种用法的反对体现出了一种很流行但却值得怀疑的假设,那就是我们从数学和逻辑中得出适用于日常语言准确性的实例,而这种假设也可从我们对一些词,如unique,parallel 和 center 传统的语法讨论中体现出来。 根据这个解释,equal “准确”或“书面”的意思则是由在算术表达式,如5+2=7中所运用的相同的符号而表达清楚的; 而该词在日常语言中的用法,虽然被允许,但却代表了其含意“松散”或“不严谨”的引申。但是实际上用数学概念上的相等来运用equal 这个词描述世上各种事物之间的关系是一个很差劲的例子。 当该词应用于生活中的事物时,相等的观念往往与暗含的容忍相关联。当有人说两块木板同样长 时, 我们会认为由于上下文的关系,相等可以被看作大约近似;如果我们不这样想,那么当我们谈到物体的尺寸时,就要经常使用nearly equal 。 另外,我们常常会预测和数量无关的事物的相同性,比如我们会说,引入大学的要求是为了使全国足球联合会中的各队尽可能平等 , 或者应给予该项工作的应征者同等的考虑 。 在所有这些例子中,相等是个可变化的概念,所以可在程度有所不同。Unequal 这个词的存在就是很好的证明。 un- 这个前缀只附加于有程序变化的形容词, 我们说unmanly 但不说 unmale ; 而uneven 这个词只能用于某物的表面(其平坦可有程度上的差别), 而不能用于数目(数目只能说相等或不相等)。Equally 这一副词在与 as 连用时通常被认为是多余的, 在早先的用法调查中,以下这些使用equally as 的句子遭到百分之六十三使用小组的人反对: 〔Tampere〕A city of southwest Finland north-northwest of Helsinki. An important trade center since the 11th century, it is noted for its textile industry. Population, 168,150.坦佩雷:芬兰西南部一城市,位于赫尔辛基西北偏北方。从11世纪起它就是重要的贸易中心,现在以纺织业而闻名。人口168,150〔Dover〕A municipal borough of southeast England on the Strait of Dover opposite Calais, France. Site of a Roman lighthouse, it has been a strategic port since medieval times. The chalk cliffs rising above the city have caves and tunnels originally used by smugglers. Population, 33,700.多佛尔:与法国加莱市隔岸相对的英格兰东南部自治市,临多佛尔海峡。罗马灯塔遗址,自中世纪以来就是战略要地,该市白垩崖多岩洞和涵洞原为走私者所用。人口33,700〔ax〕Ax, a common nonstandard variant of ask, is often identified as an especially salient feature of African American Vernacular English. While it is true that the form is frequent in the speech of African Americans, it used to be common in the speech of white Americans as well, especially in New England. This should not be surprising since ax is a very old word in English, having been used in England for over 1,000 years. In Old English we find both āscian and ācsian, and in Middle English both asken and axen. Moreover, the forms with cs or x had no stigma associated with them. Chaucer used asken and axen interchangeably, as in the lines "I wol aske, if it hir will be/To be my wyf" and "Men axed hym, what sholde bifalle,” both from The Canterbury Tales. The forms in x arose from the forms in sk by a linguistic process called metathesis, in which two sounds are reversed. The x thus represents (ks), the flipped version of (sk). Metathesis is a common linguistic process around the world and does not arise from a defect in speaking. Nevertheless, ax has become stigmatized as substandard—a fate that has befallen other words, like ain't, that were once perfectly acceptable in literate circles. ask 的一般非标准变体 ax 常被认为是美国黑人英语极为显著的特色。尽管美国黑人在交谈中的确使用ax这种形式,但美国白人也在口语中普遍使用它,尤其是新英格兰的白人。不必对此表示惊奇,因为 ax 是个很古老的英语词汇,在英语中至少使用了1000年以上。古英语中有 āscian 和 ācsian, ,中古英语中有 asken 和 axen 。而且,带 cs 或 x 的形式同不好的含义无关。乔叟在下文中交替使用 asken 和 axen :"I wol aske, if it hir will be/To be my wyf(我问道,这是真是幻/将成为我的妻子)”和"Men axed hym, what sholde bifalle(人们问他,会降临什么)”,这两句话都出自 《坎特伯利故事集》 。带 sk 的形式经由 换位 的语言过程产生带 x 的形式,换位就是将两个音位置颠倒。因此 x 表示(ks)的发音,即(sk)的翻转发音。换位是世界通用的语言过程并且不会造成交谈中的欠缺。但 ax 已被记作非标准用法──同样降临在曾一度被知识界完全接受的其它单词(如 ain't )的命运 〔layman〕His is just the layman's view of medicine.See Usage Note at man 这就是门外汉对医学的看法 参见 man〔mattress〕The history of the wordmattress is a small lesson in the way amenities have come to Europe from the Middle East. During the earlier part of the Middle Ages,Arabic culture was more advanced than that of Europe.One of the amenities of life enjoyed by the Arabs was sleeping on cushions thrown on the floor.Derived from the Arabic wordṭaraḥa, "to throw,” the word maṭraḥ meant "place where something is thrown" and "mat, cushion.”This kind of sleeping surface was adopted by the Europeans during the Crusades,and the Arabic word was taken into Italian (materasso ) and then into Old French ( materas ), from which comes the Middle English wordmateras , first recorded in a work written around 1300. The Arabic word also became Medieval Latinmatracium, another source of our word.mattress 这个词的由来是康乐设施从中东传到英国的一个小小见证。 中世纪早期,阿拉伯人的文化要比欧洲文化进步。阿拉伯人生活中享受的一个康乐设施就是睡在铺在地上的垫子上。由阿拉伯语中的词taraha “扔”派生出来的词 matrah , 意思是“铺着东西的地方”和“垫子,沙发”。这种睡觉方式被十字军东征时期的欧洲人采用,这个阿拉伯词因此进入意大利语(materasso )和古法语( materas )。 从这两个词又引出最早出现于1300年左右的一部著作中的中古英语词汇materas 。 这个阿拉伯词同时也被收入中世纪拉丁语,即matracium , 这也是我们这个单词的另一个来源〔Gonne〕Irish patriot and actress. A leader of the Irish independence movement, she was a founder (1906) of Sinn Fein. William Butler Yeats's playCathleen ni Houlihan (1892) is based on Gonne's life. 冈娜,莫德:(1865-1953) 爱尔兰爱国者和女演员,争取爱尔兰独立运动的领导人,是新芬党的创始人之一(1906年)。威廉·巴特勒·叶芝的戏剧《凯尔特的曙光》 (1892年)就是基于戈纳的生活而创作的 〔Jew〕It is widely recognized that the attributive use of the nounJew, in phrases such as Jew lawyer or Jew ethics, is both offensive and vulgar. In such contextsJewish is the only acceptable possibility. But some people have become so wary of this constructionthat they have overgeneralized the anathema to any use of the noun,a practice that carries risks of its own.In a sentence such asThere are now several Jews on the council, which is unexceptionable, the substitution of a circumlocution likeJewish people or persons of Jewish background may unwittingly suggest an unwarranted and hence suspect delicacy.通常认为名词Jew 用作定语的用法是无礼的和粗俗的,例如 犹太人律师 或 犹太种族 。 在这样的上下文中,Jewish 是唯一可能被接受的。 但一些人对这种构词方式已变得极为小心,以至他们将针对这个名词任何用法上的厌恶过于一般化,这是一种给这个词带来危险的作法。例这句话在现在的内阁里有一些犹太人 就是无懈可击的, 一种迂回的替换说法象犹太人 或 有犹太背景的人 可以无意之中表明这只是一个未证实的事, 因此只是一种微妙的猜测〔sanguine〕Perhaps one has wondered what the connection betweensanguinary, "bloodthirsty,” and sanguine, "cheerfully optimistic,” could be. The connection can be found in medieval physiology with its notion of the four humors (blood, bile, phlegm, and black bile).These four body fluids were thought to determine a person's temperament,or distinguishing mental and physical characteristics.Thus, if blood was the predominant humor, one had a ruddy face and a disposition marked by courage, hope, and a readiness to fall in love.Such a temperament was calledsanguine, the Middle English ancestor of our wordsanguine. The sources of the Middle English word were Old Frenchsanguin and Latin sanguineus, the source of the French word. Both the Old French and Latin words meant "bloody,” "blood-colored,”Old Frenchsanguin having the sense "sanguine in temperament" as well. Latinsanguineus in turn was derived from sanguīs, "blood,” just as English sanguinary is. The English adjectivesanguine, first recorded in Middle English before 1350, went on to refer simply to the cheerfulness and optimism that accompanied a sanguine temperament,no longer having any direct reference to medieval physiology.也许有人对sanguinary (“嗜血的”)和 sanguine (“愉快乐观的”)两词之间的联系感到不解。 这种联系可以追溯到中世纪生理学中四种体液的概念(多血质型、胆汁型、黏液型和抑郁型)。这四种体液被认为可决定人的性格,或者能区分出精神和肉体上的特征。因此,如果血液是最主要的体液,一个人就应有红润的脸庞和以勇敢、充满希望、易于陷入情网为特征的性情。这种性情被称为sanguine , 也就是我们sanguine 一词的中世纪英语的原形。 中世纪英语中该词源于古法语sanguin 一词和拉丁文 sanguineus (法语词的来源)。 在古法语和拉丁文中,该词意思都是“流血的”、“血色的”,古法语sanguin 还含有“生性乐天派的”之意。 拉丁文的sanguineus 也是由 sanguis (“血的”)而来,正如英语中的 sanguinary 一词。 英语形容词sanguine 最初记载于1350年以前的中古英语中, 演化为仅指伴随乐天派性情而具有的愉快和乐观之义,与中世纪生理学没有直接联系〔political〕"Calling a meeting is a political act in itself"(Daniel Goleman)“召开会议本身就是一种政治性行为”(丹尼尔·戈曼)〔irregardless〕The labelNon-Standard does only approximate justice to the status of irregardless. More precisely,it is a form that many people mistakenly believe to be a correct usage in formal stylebut that in fact has no legitimate antecedents in either standard or nonstandard varieties. (The word was likely coined from a blend ofirrespective and regardless. ) Perhaps this is why critics have sometimes insisted that there is "no such word" asirregardless, a charge they would not think of leveling at a bona fide nonstandard word such asain't, which has an ancient genealogy.给irregardless 贴上 Non-Standard 的标签只是对其地位做了近似恰当的评价。 更精确地说,许多人错误地相信它是正式语体中的规范用法,但实际上无论在标准或非标准变体中都没有这个词真正的前身。(该词可能是把irrespective 和 regardless 合在一起生造出来的。) 也许这就是为什么批评者们有时坚持认为“没有irregardless 这么个词”的原因, 他们不会把这项指责安在一个象ain't 这样一个正牌的非标准用词上, 因为这个词的家史渊源流长〔suppress〕"There is the world of ideas and the world of practice;the French are often for suppressing the one and the English the other;but neither is to be suppressed" (Matthew Arnold).Tostifle is to keep back something, such as an impulse or an emotion, as if by smothering it: “存在着一个思想的世界和一个行动的世界;法国人通常赞成压制前一个世界,而英国人则赞成压制后一个;但是两者都不会被压制住的” (马修·阿诺德)。Stifle 就是好像闷熄般抑制住某物,如冲动或情感: 〔Ikaria〕An island of southeast Greece in the Aegean Sea west of Samos. According to Greek legend, Icarus plummeted into the sea near the island.伊卡里亚岛:位于希腊东南部、爱琴海中萨摩岛以西的一个岛屿。据希腊传说,伊卡罗斯就是在该岛附近坠入大海的
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