喜樂美語

核心畫面

Think of it as 'full of dread' — the word is dread plus -ful. Dread is that heavy, sinking fear you feel about something. Once, dreadful described things that really did fill you with that feeling. But the word has been used so often, for so many ordinary bad things, that most of the fear has worn off it: today it mostly just means very bad, very unpleasant. The old weight is still there, though — that is why it sounds stronger and more emotional than bad.

「滿滿的 dread」——這個字就是 dread（那種沉甸甸、心往下沉的恐懼）加上 -ful（充滿…的）。它原本形容…更多收起「滿滿的 dread」——這個字就是 dread（那種沉甸甸、心往下沉的恐懼）加上 -ful（充滿…的）。它原本形容的是真的會讓你心裡發沉的東西。但一個字被拿來講太多普通的爛事之後，裡面的恐懼就磨掉了大半：今天講 dreadful，多半只是「很糟、很難受」而已。不過那個舊有的重量還留著一點餘味，所以它聽起來比 bad 更帶情緒、也更強烈一些——想像一個原本用來形容暴風雨的字，現在也拿來形容一頓難吃的晚餐，字沒變，只是被用鈍了。

One branch

很糟、很難受

這一族就是核心畫面本身，以及它被用久之後鬆開成純強調詞的那一步。

extremely bad/unwell · adjective · B2

Extremely unpleasant or bad. You can say it about a thing, a place, or a situation, and also about how a person feels — if you feel dreadful, you feel very ill or very upset.

糟透的；很難受的

原始詞典資料10 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。

dreadfuladj/ˈdɹɛd.fl̩/

  • 1

    Full of something causing dread, whether

    • "...Aunt Em will surely think something dreadful has happened to me, and that will make her put on mourning..."
  • 2

    Full of something causing dread, whether

    • Here some... Look dreadful gay in their own sparkling blood.
    • [I]ndeed I began ſincerely to hate my ſelf for a Dog, a VVretch that had been a Thief, and a Murtherer; […] I vvent about vvith my Heart full of theſe Thoughts, little better than a diſtracted Fellovv; in ſhort, running headlong into the dreadfulleſt Deſpair, and premeditated nothing but hovv to rid my ſelf out of the VVorld; […] nothing lay upon my Mind for ſeveral Days, but to ſhoot my ſelf into the Head vvith my Piſtol.
  • 3

    obsoleteFull of something causing dread, whether

  • 4

    obsoleteFull of dread, whether

    • Shame to the slothful and woe to the weak one. Death to the dreadful who turn to flee. Blood to the tearing, the talon’d, the beaked one. Timor Mortis are We.
  • 5

    obsoleteFull of dread, whether

  • 6

    obsoleteFull of dread, whether

dreadfuladv/ˈdɹɛd.fl̩/

  • 1

    informalDreadfully.

    • I'm sorry, Miz Terrigan. I'm dreadful sorry.
    • You don't look so dreadful poor in the face as you did a while back.

dreadfulnoun/ˈdɹɛd.fl̩/

  • 1

    A shocker: a report of a crime written in a provokingly lurid style.

  • 2

    A journal or broadsheet printing such reports.

  • 3

    A shocking or sensational crime.

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。