舀液體的杓子，和做這件事的人或零件
這一組就是核心畫面本身：東西往液體裡下去，再帶著液體上來。差別只在「做這件事的是什麼」——是一支杓子，還是一個人、一個零件。
noun · B2
A big spoon with a long handle, used to take liquid out of a large container such as a pot, a barrel, or a bucket.
長柄杓／舀水杓
核心畫面
One way to hold this word: a deep bowl on the end of a long handle, pushed down under the surface of water and lifted out again full. The handle exists so your hand stays out of the hot or the deep; the bowl is the part that goes under. Everything the word names keeps a piece of that picture — the tool itself, the small bird that drops under a stream and comes back up, the seven stars drawn as that same bowl-and-handle shape, and the worker or machine arm whose whole job is that one downward dip.
可以想成一支長柄的大杓子：杓身往水面下壓進去，再滿滿地提上來。柄做得長，是為了讓手離熱湯或深水遠一點；真正下去的是前…更多收起
可以想成一支長柄的大杓子：杓身往水面下壓進去，再滿滿地提上來。柄做得長，是為了讓手離熱湯或深水遠一點；真正下去的是前端那個深深的杓身。dipper 的幾個意思，看起來都還留著這個畫面的一部分——舀水的工具本身、會鑽進溪水裡再冒出來的鳥、天上被畫成「杓身加杓柄」的七顆星，還有工作內容就是「一直往下浸」的人或機器零件。From the word’s history
The word is dip plus the agent ending -er, recorded in Middle English as dippere: the one that dips. That ending does not care what kind of thing it labels, which is why one word can name a tool, a bird and a worker.
Wiktionary 把這個字記成 dip（往下浸）加上 -er（做這件事的那一個），中古英文寫作 dippere。-er 不挑對象，所以工具、鳥、工人都可以共用同一個字，因為牠們做的是同一件事。
Wiktionary, via packet evidence source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:1053203492 — 「From Middle English dippere; equivalent to dip + -er.」
Three branches
會鑽進水裡的鳥
這次往下浸的不是工具，是鳥自己。牠把自己當成杓身，整隻沉進急流裡再上來。
noun · C1
A small, round, dark bird that lives beside fast-moving streams and goes under the water, walking along the stream bed to find insects to eat.
河烏（溪邊的小鳥）
天上那把杓子
這裡借的是杓子的「形狀」，不是它的動作：四顆星圍成杓身，三顆星拉出杓柄。
noun · B1
The Dipper: a group of seven bright stars in the northern sky drawn as a dipper, with four stars making the bowl and three making the handle. The larger pattern is the Big Dipper; the smaller one near it is the Little Dipper.
北斗七星