- 1糟透了、極差
In older English, abysmal belonged with abyss — a hole so deep you cannot see the bottom. Today, when people say abysmal they almost never mean “deep”. They mean very, very bad: an abysmal film, abysmal service, abysmal weather, an abysmal exam result. It is stronger than bad and a bit more colourful; you can put it in a review or a complaint without sounding like slang, but it is not a gentle word. Though actually, the old “bottomless” feeling still sits underneath, which is why the word sounds so total — not a small fault, a drop into the pit. Use it when you really mean terrible, not when something is only a bit disappointing. Fairly common in speech and writing; a little dramatic.
組成abysm + -al. Abysm is an old English word for a bottomless deep (now we usually say abyss); -al makes an adjective. Compare abyssal, built the same way but kept the “deep” meaning in science.
同家族的字
- abysmthe old word for a bottomless deep that this adjective is built from
- abyssthe usual modern word for a bottomless deep, from the same root
- abyssalthe scientific word for things of the deep ocean — same pieces, but it kept the older “deep” meaning
原始詞典資料2 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
abysmaladj/əˈbɪz.məl/
- 1
archaicPertaining to, or resembling an abyss.
- The latter [geology] gives one the same sort of bewildering view of the abysmal extent of Time that Astronomy does of Space. [First attested in the early 19ᵗʰ century.]
- 2
Extremely bad; terrible.
- Robben curled an effort against the foot of the post from the edge of the box after being gifted the ball by an abysmal clearance from keeper Stephan Andersen.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。