| 单词 | 近墨者黑 |
| 释义 | 〔reek〕Reek is a word that can be said to have been degraded by the company that it has kept. The Old English wordrēocan, one of two ancestors of our word, meant "to emit vapor, steam, or smoke,” while the other Old English ancestor,rēcan, meant "to fumigate, expose to smoke,” or "to cause to emit smoke, burn incense.”Burning incense and fumigating are certainly a far cry from the sort of thing now denoted by the verbreek. But at least in one case Old Englishrēocan did mean "to stink,” hardly a surprise when one considers how bad some smoke smells. Middle Englishreken, the descendant of these two Old English words, never meant "to stink,” but it could refer to a stench while meaning "to rise, ascend.”It would seem that the various exhalations of heated persons and animals, of freshly shed blood, and of smoke referred to by Middle Englishreken and its Modern English descendantreek eventually overwhelmed the word, so that as far as concrete senses are concerned, we largely think of it as meaning "to stink.”Reek 这个词可以说是近墨者黑的典型。 意为“散发出蒸气或烟”的古英语单词是reocan 的两个词源之一， 而另一个古英语词源是recan ， 意为“熏，与烟接触，”或“使散发烟，焚香”。焚香和熏的义项与今天使用的动词reek 的意义已相差甚远。 但至少古英语中reocan 确有“发出恶臭”之意，想到烟有多难闻，生出这一意思也就不足为奇了。 中古英语reken 是这两个古英语词的后代， 但却从无“发出恶臭”之意，在表示“上升，登高”之意时可以指臭气。中古英语reken 一词可指发热的人和畜的各种呼气、刚流出的鲜血以及烟， 其现代英语传下的词reek 最终覆盖了此词的本来意义， 以致我们一般认为该词的具体意思是“发出难闻的气味” |
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