8天攻克英语六级8000词汇(六)
2009-10-15来源:和谐英语
ROBOT:a slave
A long familiar word, but brought into wide notice by the play R.U.R.(Rossum's Universal Robots)written by Karel Capek in 1929. In his play these man-made mechanical robots overpower human beings.The term robot is from the Czech word robotnik," slave," which goes back to the term robota, "work."
ROBUST:like an oak
That robust man with the magnificent build is literally "strong as an oak," for our descriptive word comes from the Latin robustus ,"oaken." If you wish to make a statement that is strong and powerful, you coroborate it, or "make it like an oak," from the Latin cor-, an intensive, and robur ,"a very hard oak."
SCAVENGER:FORMERLY A TAX-COLLECTOR
When England was young, scavenger was spelled scavager and meant a "tax-collector " or "inspector." Later on an "n" found its way into the word, and by this time the scavenger had become a supervisor of street cleaning, which comes close to our modern meaning. The word derives from Anglo-French scawager, ultimately from Old French escauver,”inspect.”In the reign of Henry VIII, Leonard Skevington, a lieutenant of the Tower, invented a dreadful instrument of torture that squeezed the body until blood flowed from the ears and nose.This was named”the scavenger’s daughter,”a revolting little tale that shows how the tax-collector has been loved through the ages.Of course, a scavenger now is an animal that feeds on a dead o r decaying carcass.
SCINTILIATE: gives out sparks
Some fifty years ago a lady named Ellen T.Fowler dashed off a relatively deathless line.” My wit,” she wrote,”is all of the P.m.variety and never scintillates in the moring.”As a matter of fact, the only thing that ever scintillates is wit,for the English language seems to have found no other use for the aord.In its special connection,however,scintillate is a highly descriptive word,as it means”to gtive off sparks”;it is based on the Latin scintilla which meant “spark”.And that sparkling tinsel on the Christmas tree comes from the identical Latin source, but in passing into French scintilla became etincelle.We English dropped the initial“e” and turned tincelle into tinsel.
SIMPLICITY: has nothing to hide
Simplicity is single in purpose and has nothing to conceal. It comes from a hypothetical Latin prefix sem-,”one,” and plico,”fold”.That is ,opened up,unfolded,laid out flat. The word duplicity, however, is from the Latin duo, “two”, and plico,”fold”.In this case the paper is “folded overtwice”and can hide something in to. Those who practice duplicity are double-dealing, the opposite of simple, or single dealing. They are trying to fool you. With the word diplomat, we turn to the Greek word diploma, “a paper folded twice, “which diplomats took along as their credentials, and which college students now receive as their reward.
STEWARD: watched the pigs
A steward in one of our exclusive clubs might not be pleased to know that his name used to signify” keeper of the pigs”. The word steward recalls the days when a man’s chief treasure really was his pigsty. To guard the valuable herd from robbers and wild beasts, a special watchman was appointed who was called a steward from stig,“sty” and weard,”warden”or”guardian.”Later on, wealth expanded from herds of swine to herds of cattle and to lands and the job of the steward was now to watch over all of these.In feudal times,the steward rose to great power,becoming a sort of agent for the lord of the manor.He leased lands and collected rents.In some cases he became a magistrate,sttling disputes and such.Thus,in Great Britain,until 1849.the Lord Steward of the Household even had judicial powers and was a minister of the British Cabinet.
THUG: an ancient gangster
From the Hindustani word thag,“cheat,” which in turn derives from the Sanskrit sthaga,”cheat,”from sthag,”conceal.”These East Indian thugs operated until about 100 years ago. Like modern gangsters they had their “finger men” who spotted the victim. When these thugs were in formed by their spies that a man of property was about to take a journey, they followed him until he arrived at some lonely spot and then, like our modern muggers, they strangled and robbed him. It was all presumed to be done in honor of their goddess Kali, but this ancient murder syndicate profited handsomely by this service to their faith. And their brutality gave us our word thug.
TROUBLE: full of commotion
When a person is in trouble, his mind is ill at ease. The Latin parent of the word trouble indicates just that, for turbo meant, “ disturb”. It came to us first with the spelling turble, then truble, finally trouble. This same Latin word turbo has given us turbulent,” full of commotion”; disturb,” throw into complete disorder”; and turbid, that is, a turbid stream which is “all muddied up.”
VIRILITY: for men only
All of the words deriving from the Latin word vir,”man,” are flattering. Virtus, in Latin meant strength, courage, excellence, all of which describe our word virility . And to be virtuous, of course, is to have the traits of a man. And should you be able
2. Sources of the Words of Attitudes and Emotions
AMUCK: murderous frenzy
The famous 18th-century British navigator,Captain Jamer Cook,who was certainly a traveled gentleman,claimed that when a man amuck it was all because of his jealousy of a woman,Whether this be true or not ,our exotix word is borrowed from the Malay.In the Malay language the term amoq,sometimes spelled amok,is the term for a mental disease similar morbid depression into a state of murderous frenzy in which he will attack anyone in his path.This description contains the sense in which we use our word amuck.
ASTONISH:thunderstruck
With changes in spelling from the French estoner,which is derived from the Latin ex,"out,"and tonare,"to thunder."When one is astonished,he is literally"thunderstruck."And a similar picture is behind our word "thunder,"which derives from the same source as thor,the god of Norse mythology called "the Thunderer,"who was supposed to hurl lighting bolts at the earth.In olden days when one was astonished,he was atunned as by a blow and in a trance."I astonysshe with a stroke upon thehead ,"writes a long-ago author.Nowadays astonished doesn not mean much more than surprised.
BEDLAM:is really "Bethlehem"
This is a British corruption of the word Bethlehem.The priory of St.Mary of Bethlehem was founded in 1242.But any londoner of this day would have called it,in his disalect,"St.Mary'of Bedlam."In 1402 the priory was turned into a hospital for the insane,and from the reign of Henry VIII it has been a royal foundation for lunatics.So when the Londoners spoke of the Holy City of Bethlehem they were careful to pronounce it the way we now do to distinguish it from the asylum,bedlam.But when our hourse is a perfect bedlam,it still sounds,with its noise and confusion,like the inside of old lunatic asylum.
A long familiar word, but brought into wide notice by the play R.U.R.(Rossum's Universal Robots)written by Karel Capek in 1929. In his play these man-made mechanical robots overpower human beings.The term robot is from the Czech word robotnik," slave," which goes back to the term robota, "work."
ROBUST:like an oak
That robust man with the magnificent build is literally "strong as an oak," for our descriptive word comes from the Latin robustus ,"oaken." If you wish to make a statement that is strong and powerful, you coroborate it, or "make it like an oak," from the Latin cor-, an intensive, and robur ,"a very hard oak."
SCAVENGER:FORMERLY A TAX-COLLECTOR
When England was young, scavenger was spelled scavager and meant a "tax-collector " or "inspector." Later on an "n" found its way into the word, and by this time the scavenger had become a supervisor of street cleaning, which comes close to our modern meaning. The word derives from Anglo-French scawager, ultimately from Old French escauver,”inspect.”In the reign of Henry VIII, Leonard Skevington, a lieutenant of the Tower, invented a dreadful instrument of torture that squeezed the body until blood flowed from the ears and nose.This was named”the scavenger’s daughter,”a revolting little tale that shows how the tax-collector has been loved through the ages.Of course, a scavenger now is an animal that feeds on a dead o r decaying carcass.
SCINTILIATE: gives out sparks
Some fifty years ago a lady named Ellen T.Fowler dashed off a relatively deathless line.” My wit,” she wrote,”is all of the P.m.variety and never scintillates in the moring.”As a matter of fact, the only thing that ever scintillates is wit,for the English language seems to have found no other use for the aord.In its special connection,however,scintillate is a highly descriptive word,as it means”to gtive off sparks”;it is based on the Latin scintilla which meant “spark”.And that sparkling tinsel on the Christmas tree comes from the identical Latin source, but in passing into French scintilla became etincelle.We English dropped the initial“e” and turned tincelle into tinsel.
SIMPLICITY: has nothing to hide
Simplicity is single in purpose and has nothing to conceal. It comes from a hypothetical Latin prefix sem-,”one,” and plico,”fold”.That is ,opened up,unfolded,laid out flat. The word duplicity, however, is from the Latin duo, “two”, and plico,”fold”.In this case the paper is “folded overtwice”and can hide something in to. Those who practice duplicity are double-dealing, the opposite of simple, or single dealing. They are trying to fool you. With the word diplomat, we turn to the Greek word diploma, “a paper folded twice, “which diplomats took along as their credentials, and which college students now receive as their reward.
STEWARD: watched the pigs
A steward in one of our exclusive clubs might not be pleased to know that his name used to signify” keeper of the pigs”. The word steward recalls the days when a man’s chief treasure really was his pigsty. To guard the valuable herd from robbers and wild beasts, a special watchman was appointed who was called a steward from stig,“sty” and weard,”warden”or”guardian.”Later on, wealth expanded from herds of swine to herds of cattle and to lands and the job of the steward was now to watch over all of these.In feudal times,the steward rose to great power,becoming a sort of agent for the lord of the manor.He leased lands and collected rents.In some cases he became a magistrate,sttling disputes and such.Thus,in Great Britain,until 1849.the Lord Steward of the Household even had judicial powers and was a minister of the British Cabinet.
THUG: an ancient gangster
From the Hindustani word thag,“cheat,” which in turn derives from the Sanskrit sthaga,”cheat,”from sthag,”conceal.”These East Indian thugs operated until about 100 years ago. Like modern gangsters they had their “finger men” who spotted the victim. When these thugs were in formed by their spies that a man of property was about to take a journey, they followed him until he arrived at some lonely spot and then, like our modern muggers, they strangled and robbed him. It was all presumed to be done in honor of their goddess Kali, but this ancient murder syndicate profited handsomely by this service to their faith. And their brutality gave us our word thug.
TROUBLE: full of commotion
When a person is in trouble, his mind is ill at ease. The Latin parent of the word trouble indicates just that, for turbo meant, “ disturb”. It came to us first with the spelling turble, then truble, finally trouble. This same Latin word turbo has given us turbulent,” full of commotion”; disturb,” throw into complete disorder”; and turbid, that is, a turbid stream which is “all muddied up.”
VIRILITY: for men only
All of the words deriving from the Latin word vir,”man,” are flattering. Virtus, in Latin meant strength, courage, excellence, all of which describe our word virility . And to be virtuous, of course, is to have the traits of a man. And should you be able
2. Sources of the Words of Attitudes and Emotions
AMUCK: murderous frenzy
The famous 18th-century British navigator,Captain Jamer Cook,who was certainly a traveled gentleman,claimed that when a man amuck it was all because of his jealousy of a woman,Whether this be true or not ,our exotix word is borrowed from the Malay.In the Malay language the term amoq,sometimes spelled amok,is the term for a mental disease similar morbid depression into a state of murderous frenzy in which he will attack anyone in his path.This description contains the sense in which we use our word amuck.
ASTONISH:thunderstruck
With changes in spelling from the French estoner,which is derived from the Latin ex,"out,"and tonare,"to thunder."When one is astonished,he is literally"thunderstruck."And a similar picture is behind our word "thunder,"which derives from the same source as thor,the god of Norse mythology called "the Thunderer,"who was supposed to hurl lighting bolts at the earth.In olden days when one was astonished,he was atunned as by a blow and in a trance."I astonysshe with a stroke upon thehead ,"writes a long-ago author.Nowadays astonished doesn not mean much more than surprised.
BEDLAM:is really "Bethlehem"
This is a British corruption of the word Bethlehem.The priory of St.Mary of Bethlehem was founded in 1242.But any londoner of this day would have called it,in his disalect,"St.Mary'of Bedlam."In 1402 the priory was turned into a hospital for the insane,and from the reign of Henry VIII it has been a royal foundation for lunatics.So when the Londoners spoke of the Holy City of Bethlehem they were careful to pronounce it the way we now do to distinguish it from the asylum,bedlam.But when our hourse is a perfect bedlam,it still sounds,with its noise and confusion,like the inside of old lunatic asylum.
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