Panacea是希臘神話裏的一個能治病的女神。她的名字pan-是全部的意思,-acea是治的意思,所以合起來就是全都能治的女神。Panacea後來被引用做萬靈丹,在英文當中也常被拿來在批評別人的想法或做法時之用。舉例來說,某人提出一個方法來解決某個問題時,反對的人就會說那個方法並不是Panacea。
她有一個姐妹叫Hygiene是管健康與清潔的,現在英文中所用的hygiene就是清潔衛生的意思。
2014年12月11日 星期四
2014年12月10日 星期三
peruse 仔細地看
per-是徹底的,peruse是徹底地用,引申為仔細地看。
<To refresh my memory of the old days, I asked for some Dailies of the thirties from the morgue, sat down at the large round oak table at the end of the editorial room on the second floor, and began riffling through the musty pages. Soon a burly middle-aged man appeared and seated himself at the table to peruse some recent issues of the paper and take notes. —Arthur Miller, Timebends, 1987>
<To refresh my memory of the old days, I asked for some Dailies of the thirties from the morgue, sat down at the large round oak table at the end of the editorial room on the second floor, and began riffling through the musty pages. Soon a burly middle-aged man appeared and seated himself at the table to peruse some recent issues of the paper and take notes. —Arthur Miller, Timebends, 1987>
sharp as a whip 非常聰明
whip是鞭子,smart as a whip或sharp as as whip是指一個人非常聰明。
<Although John looks clueless, he's as sharp as a whip.>
<Although John looks clueless, he's as sharp as a whip.>
2014年12月6日 星期六
gist 精髓
Gist就是某事的精髓,也就是最重要的部分,英文也可以用essence。
<… Einstein showed how time intervals depend on the motion of people and clocks doing the measuring. And that's the gist of relativity. —Alan Lightman, Science, January/February 1984>
<… Einstein showed how time intervals depend on the motion of people and clocks doing the measuring. And that's the gist of relativity. —Alan Lightman, Science, January/February 1984>
quintessence
quintessence也是某件事最重要的核心,quintessence是第五元素,在中世紀人們相信元素有四個基本的,火,氣,水,土,第五個特殊的就是quintessence,看不見,摸不著。當時的人相信卻是很重要的,因此quintessence後來也有重要的意思。
prodigy 奇蹟 / prodigious 巨大
prodigy是奇觀,奇蹟的意思。pro- 或是prod-是向前的意思,-igy是"說"的意思,所以prodigy是對未來提出一個說法,因此古意是預言的意思。大概是因為預言常常說的都是一些奇觀,所以這個字後來轉化成奇觀或奇蹟的意思。-igy這個字根也出現在adage中,-igy和-age是相同的字根的不同變形。ad-是"去做某件事"的開頭,ad- + -age就是去說,大家都說的就變成格言或是諺語。
prodigious
原來是形容很奇觀,後來常用來指很多很大的意思。colossal
colossal也是巨大的意思。
gargantuan也是巨大。
gargantuan
訂閱:
文章 (Atom)
