| 单词 | 一个例子 |
| 释义 | 〔fiction〕"The latest fiction" to most people means the latest novels or storiesrather than the most recently invented pretense or latest lie.All three senses of the wordfiction point back to its source, Latin fictiō, "the action of shaping, a feigning, that which is feigned.” Fictiō in turn was derived from fingere, "to make by shaping, feign, make up or invent a story or excuse.” Our first instance offiction, recorded in a work composed around 1412, was used in the sense "invention of the mind, that which is imaginatively invented.”It is not a far step from this meaning to the sense "imaginative literature,” first recorded in 1599.“最新的小说”对大多数人来说是指最新的小说或故事，而不是指最新捏造出的谎言。Fiction 这一词的所有的三个意思都追溯到拉丁语中的词源 fictio ，“假装，伪造，做假的行为。” 反过来fictio 则起源于 fingere， “捏造一个故事或编一个借口”。 我们可以在一部写于1412年前后的作品中找到fiction 的第一个例子， 文中所用的意思是“头脑中的虚构，是充满想象的虚构的”。这一意思已经和1599年首次记录的“虚构的文学作品”这层意思相去不远了〔equal〕In the first example, deleteequally; in the second, deleteas. The solution to this usage problem usually involvesusingas alone when a comparison is explicit andequally alone when it is not. See Usage Note at as 1center ,parallel ,perfect ,unique 在第一个例子中，可以删掉equally ； 在第二个例子中，删掉as 。 对这种错误用法的解决方法往往在于：当被比较的事物很明确时，单独使用as ； 当被比较的事物不明确时，单独使用equally 参见 as1center,parallel,perfect,unique〔vertigo〕An instance of such a sensation.眩晕：这种感觉的一个例子〔purty〕Purty is probably the most common American example of metathesis, a linguistic process in which two adjacent sounds are reversed in order.Metathesis in English often involves the consonantr and a vowel, since the phonetic properties ofr are so vowellike. For example,the wordthird used to be thrid, and bird, brid. By the same process,Englishpretty often came to be realized as purty in regional speech. Most such words stabilized because of the influence of printing and the resultant standardized spelling,butpurty for pretty has survived in regional American dialects. Purty 可能是美国换位词最普遍的一个例子， 换位是两个相邻的音在顺序上调换位置的语法过程。英语中的换位经常包括辅音r 和一个元音， 因为r 的语音属性是非常像元音的。 举个例子来说，单词third 过去曾是 thrid 及 bird和brid。 具有同样的过程，英语单词pretty 在区域性语言中常被渐渐地认作 purty。 大部分这样的单词固定下来是因为印刷的影响以及由此而产生的标准化拼写，但是代替pretty 的 purty 却在美国区域性的方言中存在下来了 〔literally〕For more than a hundred years,critics have remarked on the incoherency of usingliterally in a way that suggests the exact opposite of its primary sense of "in a manner that accords with the literal sense of the words.”In 1926, for example,H.W. Fowler cited the example 数百年来，批评家们一直在讨论literally 的一种用法的不连续性， 这一用法使其具有与主要意义“和字面意思相吻合地”正好相反的含义。例如，在1926年，H.W.福勒援引了这样一个例子 〔crosscut〕An example of the cinematic technique of interweaving fragments of two or more scenes.交叉剪接：把两个或多个场面的片断交叉连接起来的电影技巧的一个例子〔telephone〕When one telephones someone else,one never gives a second thought to the linguistic and etymological processes illustrated by the wordtelephone. To begin with,the nountelephone is one of a class of technological and scientific words that are made up of combining forms, in this casetele- and -phone. These forms are derived from classical languages:tele- is from the Greek combining form tēle- or tēl-, a form of tēle, meaning "afar, far off,” while-phone is from Greek phōnē, "sound, voice.” Such words derived from classical languages can be put together in French or German,for example, as well as in English.Which language actually gave birth to them cannot always be determined.In this case Frenchtelephone (about 1830) seems to have priority. The word was used for an acoustic apparatus, as it originally was in English (1844).Alexander Graham Bell appropriated the word for his invention in 1876,and in 1877 we have the first instance of the verbtelephone meaning "to speak to by telephone.” The verb is an example of a linguistic process called functional shift.This occurs when we use a noun as a verb,an adjective as a noun, or a noun as an adjective.Thus, we are changing the syntactic function of the word,just as we do when wetelephone a friend. 当某人打电话给别人时，他决不会再想一想单词Telephone 所说明的语言学的和词源学的发展历程。 开始时，名词telephone 是由复合形式构成的一类技术和科学术语中的一个， 在这个例子中是tele- 和 -phone 。 这些形式来自于古典语言：tele- 来自于希腊语的复合形式 tele- 或 tel- （ tele 的形式，意为“在远处，遥远地”）， 而-phone 则来自希腊语 phone （“声音，嗓音”）。 这些来自古典语言的词可以在法语或德语中放在一起，例如，同英语一样。这些词到底诞生于哪一种语言通常无法确认。在这个例子中，法语telephone （大约于1830年）看起来出现较早。 这个单词正如它最初出现在英语中(1844年）的意思一样，在法语中它用于指声音设备。亚历山大·格雷厄姆·贝尔在1876年用这个词指代他的发明物，1877年我们有了第一个意为“用电话与…交谈”的动词telephone 的实例。 这个动词是称为功能转移的语言学进程的一个例子。这种情况在我们将名词作为动词，将形容词作为名词或将名词作为形容词使用时就发生。这样，我们正在改变单词的句法功能，正如在我们打电话给 一位朋友时所做的一样 〔pollster〕An understanding of the history of the-ster in pollster may perhaps raise more questions than it answers. In the first place apollster does not have to be a woman, despite the fact that the suffix-ster, originally-estre in Old English, was used to form feminine agent nouns.Hoppestere, for example, meant "female dancer.” But in Old English-estre was occasionally applied to men, although perhaps largely or completely in the case of translations of Latin masculine nouns denoting occupations that were held by women in Anglo-Saxon society.An example isbæcester, "baker,” glossing Latinpistor; it survives as the Modern English nameBaxter. In Middle Englishthe suffix was still largely feminine in the south of Englandbut masculine and feminine in the north,a tendency that became general in English starting with the 16th century.As an example of this tendencyseamster was remade into the feminineseamstress. In Modern English the suffix is usually derogatory.This use probably arose from the occurrence of the suffix with ambiguous verbs,such asgame, "to play at sports, to play at sex,” or with pejorative verbs,such asrime or rhyme. In some modern formations on neutral words-ster is not derogatory, as inyoungster (1589), but in most cases,as withpollster (1939), -ster has pejorative force. 对于pollster 中的 -ster 的历史的理解也许会引发比它能回答的问题更多的问题。 首先pollster 不一定非得是妇女， 尽管-ster 这一后缀， 源于古英语中的-estre ， 被用来构成阴性名词。比如hoppestere 一词意为“女舞蹈者。” 但在古英语中-estre 也偶尔可以用在男性身上， 虽然也许这种情况大多或者完全出现在表示盎格鲁-撒克逊社会中由妇女从事的职业的一些阳性拉丁文名词的翻译中。其中一个例子是boecester 意为“面包师”， 来自拉丁语的pistor； 这个词在现代英语名字Baxter 中保存了下来。 在中世纪英语中，该后缀在英格兰南部仍然主要地被用作阴性，但在英格兰北部却被同时用作阳性和阴性，而后一种趋势自16世纪以来逐渐在英语中变得普遍。反映这种趋势的一个例子是seamster ， 该词被改造成了阴性的seamstress。 在现代英语中这一后缀通常是含贬义的。这种用法可能是因为此后缀与一些有歧义的动词合用而产生的，比如game 可表示“进行体育活动，进行性游戏，” 或者是因为与轻蔑动词合用而产生的，比如rime 或 rhyme。 在某些现代英语中性名词中，-ster 不是贬损的， 如在youngster (1589年）中， 但在大多数情况下，如pollster (1939年）这个词中 -ster 仍是有贬义的 〔piece〕An instance; a specimen:一个例子；一个样品：〔hyperbolism〕An instance of hyperbole.夸张的一个例子〔highfalutin〕H.L. Mencken, in his famous bookThe American Language, mentions highfalutin as an example of the many native U.S. words coined during the 19th-century period of vigorous growth. Althoughhighfalutin is characteristic of American folk speech, it is not a true regionalismbecause it has always occurred in all regions of the country,with its use and popularity spurred by its appearance in print.The origin ofhighfalutin, like that of many folk expressions, is obscure. It has been suggested that the second element,-falutin, comes from the verbflute —hence high-fluting, a comical indictment of one who thinks too highly of oneself. H.L.曼肯，在其名著美国的语言 一书中指出， highfalutin 一词是众多的创造于19世纪迅速成长时期的美国本土的词汇的一个例子。 尽管highfalutin 一词是典型的美国民间用语， 但它不是方言土语，因为它总是出现在国家的各个地区。出现在印刷品上更促进了它的使用。highfalutin 一词的起源，象许多民间表达方式一样不为人所知， 曾有人说该词的第二词素-falutin， 来源于动词flute ——由此 high-fluting， 特指太自高自大的人 〔apartheid〕Although South Africa has not furnished a great number of words that have achieved general currency in British and American English,one in particular,apartheid, has gained wide circulation. The first recorded use ofapartheid as an English term, in the Cape Times on October 24, 1947, is an ironic commentary on much of the word's use since then: "Mr. Hofmeyr said apartheid could not be reconciled with a policy of progress and prosperity for South Africa.” According to the March 15, 1961, issue of theLondon Times, the wordself-development was supposed to replace apartheid as the official term used by the South African Broadcasting Corporation for "the Government's race policies. ” And inMove Your Shadow, published in 1985, Joseph Lelyveld says that the "word is [now] shunned, even resented by the [National Party's] high priests as if it were an epithet fashioned by the country's enemies.” Butapartheid as a word and as a reality has been slow to disappear. The history ofapartheid, however, offers a possible model for change in this policy, for the word is an example of a mixture and combination of resources, in this case linguistic.Apartheid is an English word that came into South African English from Afrikaans, the language of the Dutch settlers of South Africa. They in turn had made up the word from the Dutch wordapart, "separate,” and the suffix -heid, which corresponds to our suffix -hood. Thusapartheid literally means "separateness.” The Dutch had earlier borrowed the wordapart, as did we, from the French phrase à part, meaning "to one side.” 尽管南非并没有向英国和美国英语里加入很多得以普遍使用的词汇，但尚有一例外，apartheid 这个词就得到了普遍应用。 apartheid 一词作为英语词汇的使用最早记录于1947年10月24日的 开普时报 上，从那时起对该词的使用就作了反讽式的评论： “霍夫梅伊先生说种族隔离制不能与南非进步及繁荣的政策相容。”根据1961年3月15日的一期伦敦时报 ， 南非广播公司试图以self-development 作为官方用语来代替 apartheid 表示“政府的种族政策”。 在1985年出版的移动你的影子 中，约瑟夫·莱莉瓦德说“这个词为高级牧师们所回避甚至痛恨， 似乎它是这个国家的敌人创造出来的修饰语。”但apartheid 作为词汇和作为现实存在消失得很慢。 然而apartheid 的历史为这种政策的变化提供了一个可能的模式， 因为这个词是语言学方面各种来源混合及联合的一个例子。Apartheid 是从南非的荷兰殖民者的语言进入南非英语的一个英语词汇。 依次由荷兰词apart “分隔”，和后缀 -heid （其与后缀 -hood 相对应）构成。 这样，apartheid 可逐字译为“分隔，隔离。” 荷兰人较早地借用了apart 一词，就如我们从法语里借用了意为“到一边”的 a part 一样 〔adder〕The biblical injunction to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves looks somewhat alien in the Middle English guise "Loke ye be prudent as neddris and symple as dowves.”Neddris, which is perhaps the strangest-looking word in this Middle English passage, would beadders in Modern English, with a different meaning and form. Adder, an example of specialization in meaning, no longer refers to just any serpent or snake, as it once did, but now denotes only specific kinds of snakes.Adder also illustrates a process known as false splitting, or juncture loss: the word came from Old Englishnǣdre and kept its n into the Middle English period, but later during that stage of the language people started analyzing the phrasea naddre as an addre —the false splitting that has given us adder. “象蟒蛇一样聪明，象白鸽一样无邪”的圣经训谕与在中古英语中的“象蛇一样智虑，象鸽子一样简单”的表达法看起来颇为不同。Neddris 也许是中古英语的中看起来较奇怪的一个词， 在现代英语中为adders ，意义和形式相差很大。 Adder 作为意义特殊化的一个例子，不再象从前一样表示蟒蛇或蛇， 而只表示蛇的特殊种类。Adder 同时也说明了错误分离或连音遗失的过程： 这个词来源于古英语的needre 并在中古英语中保留 n ， 但是在后来的英语发展阶段，人们开始将词组a naddre 分析为 an adder --这种错误的分离给我们提供了 adder 一词 〔vegetable〕When the speaker in Andrew Marvell's "To his Coy Mistress" tells his mistressthat "Had we but world enough, and time . . . /My vegetable love should grow/Vaster than empires and more slow,” he "makes one think of pumpkins and eternity in one breath,”as one critic has playfully suggested.However,vegetable in this case is used figuratively in the sense, "having the property of life and growth, as does a plant.”This use is based on the ancient religious and philosophical notion of the tripartite soul as interpreted by the Scholastics:thevegetative soul common to plants, animals, and humans; thesensitive soul common to animals and humans; and therational soul, found only in humans. “ Vegetable love" in Marvell's poem is thus a love that grows, takes nourishment, and reproduces,although it grows slowly.Marvell's use illustrates the original sense ofvegetable, first recorded in the 15th century.In a work published in 1582 we find recorded for the first time the adjective use ofvegetable familiar to us, "having to do with plants.” In a work of the same date appears the first instance ofvegetable as a noun, meaning "a plant.” It is not until the 18th century that we find the noun and adjective used in the more restricted way associated with the injunction "Eat your vegetables.”当安德鲁·马韦尔的“致他的羞涩情人”一诗中的说话者告诉他的情人 “如果我们有足够的世界和时间…/我的植物一样的爱会生长得/比帝国更广大、更慢”时，他“使人想起了南瓜以及一息之间的永恒，”某个批评家开玩笑似地说。然而，在这个情况下vegetable 是被用于比喻意义上的， 意思是“象植物一样具有生命和生长的性质”。这一用法是基于由经院哲学家所释的三重灵魂的古代宗教和哲学观念之上的：vegetative 的灵魂为植物、动物和人类共有； sensitive 的灵魂为动物和人类共有； 而rational 的灵魂却只存在于人类中。 因此马韦尔诗中的“植物的爱”是一种生长的、吸取营养并繁殖的爱，但是它长得很慢。马韦尔的这一用法指示了vegetable 的原先的含义， 最早记录于15世纪。在一部出版于1582年的作品中，我们第一次找到了已为我们熟悉的vegetable 一词的形容词用法的记录，意思是“与植物有关的”。 在同一时期的另一部作品中，出现了vegetable 作为名词用的第一个例子，意思是“植物”。 直到18世纪，我们才发现该名词和形容词被用于与“吃你的蔬菜”这一命令相关的更受限制的方式中〔everwhere〕Inversion—the reversal of the two halves of a compound word—is a common process in Southern dialects.It affects a number of indefinite pronouns (whichever, whatever, whoever ) ending in -ever, yieldingeverwhich, everwhat, and everwho. The commonly occurringeverwhere can be an example of inversion when it means "wherever" but illustrates elision of an unstressed syllable in its meaning "everywhere.”Other examples of Southern inversion cited by Craig M. Carver inAmerican Regional Dialects are peckerwood, hoppergrass, doll-baby, tie-tongued, doghanged (meaning "hangdog"), and right-out ("outright"). 倒置——一个复合词的两部分的颠倒──是美国南部方言的一种常用方法，它影响到若干以-ever 结尾的不确定性代名词（ whichever，whatever，whoever ）， 产生出everwhich，everwhat 和 everwho 。 通常出现的everwhere ，当它意为"wherever（即无论何处）”时是倒置的一个例子， 但当它意为"everywhere（各处，到处）”时是省略非重读音节的一例证。克雷格M卡弗尔在美国区域方言 中引用的其它美国南部倒置的例子有 peckerwood ， hoppergrass，doll-baby，tie-tongued，doghanged（意思是“下贱的人”）和 right-out （“坦率的”） 〔analogy〕A form of logical inference or an instance of it, based on the assumption that if two things are known to be alike in some respects, then they must be alike in other respects.类比：一种逻辑推理形式或一个例子，基于这样的假设，如果已知两个事物在某些方面是相似的，那么它们在其它方面也一定是相似的〔ellipsis〕An example of such omission.这种省略的一个例子〔suffer〕In general usagesuffer is preferably used with from, rather than with, in constructions such as He suffered from hypertension. According to 94 percent of the Usage Panel,suffered with would be unacceptable in the preceding example. In medical usagesuffer with is sometimes employed with reference to the actual pain or discomfort caused by a condition, whilesuffer from is used more broadly in reference to a condition, such as anemia, that is detrimental but not necessarily painful.就一般用法而言，在诸如他患有高血压症 这样的结构中， suffer 最好是与 from 连用，而不是 with 。 百分之九十四的用法委员会认为，在上一个例子中用suffer with 将不被接受。 在医学上，suffer with 有时用来指示某种状况引起的具体疼痛或不适， 而suffer from 则多用来表示一种状况，如贫血症， 这种状况是有害的但不一定是痛苦的或引起疼痛的〔further〕a further example; a further delay.另一个例子；另外的推迟〔charlatan〕A charlatan and chatter are inseparable,even perhaps in the etymology ofcharlatan. According to one explanation,charlatan goes back through French to Italian ciarlatano, "mountebank, fraud,” from the wordciarlare, "to chatter.” Another explanation would derivecharlatan from the Italian word cerretano, "an inhabitant of Cerreto, a quack,” the village of Cerreto being noted for its charlatans.It seems, however, that bothciarlare and cerretano have been involved in the formation of the Italian word. The first example of the English word and of its earliest recorded sense,"huckster, especially of medicines, who gives his pitch to a crowd; mountebank,” is found in 1618.The sense familiar to us,"a person pretending to skill or knowledge,”is first recorded in 1809.“冒充内行者”与“喋喋不休”是分不开的，甚至也许在charlatan 的词源上。 根据一种解释，charlatan 可以由法语追溯到意大利语的 ciarlatano， “江湖郎中，骗子”， 其来自ciarlare “喋喋不休”。 另一种解释是从意大利词cerretano 派生出 charlatan， “塞利托的居民，庸医，” 以其庸医闻名的塞利托村。但似乎ciarlare 与 cerretano 两个词都与这个意大利词的形成有关。 这个英语词第一个例子以及它最早记载的意义，“大吹大擂推销商品的人，尤指向人群推销药品的人；江湖医生，”见于1618年。对于我们熟悉的含义，“冒充在技能和知识上内行的人，”最早记载于1809年 |
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