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A bestiary is a kind of book from the Middle Ages. It describes animals — lions and pelicans, but also dragons and unicorns that the writer had never really seen — and then draws a moral or Christian lesson from each one. It is not a science book and not a modern zoo guide; the pictures and stories were meant to teach people how to live. Scholars still use the word for those old volumes. The name was borrowed from Medieval Latin bēstiārium, from Latin bēstia, “beast.” On the surface you can also hear beast + -ary, a collection of beasts.
中世紀異獸誌；動物寓言集
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，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。
bestiarynoun/ˈbiːstiˌɛɹi/
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A medieval treatise of various real or imaginary animals.
- Back in the 60s, Robin Boyd told us how ugly Australian architecture was. As his valediction, he has left us a bestiary of ugly Australians.
- This book is not actually a bestiary. It is what most people think a bestiary is—namely an assemblage of vividly imagined beasts who behave somewhat quirkily, bear only the vaguest application to real life, […]
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A collection of various beasts, depicted in art, literature, or the like.
- More commonly known to the English speaker as “Genie”; the “dijn” is a powerful demon in the bestiary of the Middle East, mistaken in this instance for the Buddha.
- Later artworks showed many animals and gods, some of which were clearly identified with heavenly bodies. [...] Each shows a splendidly vivacious bestiary and pantheon, including the Sun-Moon-Venus symbols and a lion-versus-bull combat scene with an eagle or man-bull joining in.
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gamesgamingA list or guidebook of the monsters to be found in a roleplaying game.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。