- 1
If a book, a film, or a piece of work engrosses you, it takes all of your attention. You do not hear the room. You do not notice the time. The thing does the engrossing; you are the one who gets lost in it. It is a little more at home in writing than in chat, but it is not rare, and it is a compliment: the thing was strong enough to hold you. We usually meet the idea in the forms engrossed and engrossing, but the verb is the root. Though actually, the word once had more concrete jobs: to write a legal paper in large, clear letters, and to gather goods in bulk, at wholesale. Those older uses are why it shares a piece with gross in the “large / in quantity” sense, not the “disgusting” sense. The “cannot look away” meaning grew from the idea of being taken up wholly, as if the thing had gathered you in.
使全神貫注
組成From Anglo-Norman engrosser, partly from en gros (“in bulk, wholesale”), from en- + gros, and partly from Medieval Latin ingrossō (“to write large and thick”), from in- + grossus (“big, thick”). English later used it for taking someone’s whole attention.
同家族的字
- grossthe “large / in bulk” piece (French gros, Latin grossus), not the “disgusting” slang
原始詞典資料7 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。
engrossverb/ɪnˈɡɹəʊs/
- 1
lawTo write (a document) in large, aesthetic, and legible lettering; to make a finalized copy of.
- This envelope had the air of an official record of some period long past, when clerks engrossed their stiff and formal chirography on more substantial materials than at present.
- laws that may be engrossed upon a finger nail
- 2
obsoletebusinessTo buy up wholesale, especially to buy the whole supply of (a commodity etc.).
- 3
To monopolize; to concentrate (something) in the single possession of someone, especially unfairly.
- After which time the Popes of Rome, engroſſing what they pleas'd of Politicall rule into their owne hands, extended their dominion over mens eyes, as they had before over their judgements, burning and prohibiting to be read, what they fanſied not; […]
- The Coral Islands are principally visited by the pearl-shell fishermen, who arrive in small schooners, carrying not more than five or six men. For a long while the business was engrossed by Merenhout, the French Consul at Tahiti, but a Dutchman by birth, who, in one year, is said to have sent to France fifty thousand dollars' worth of shells.
- 4
To completely engage the attention of; to involve.
- She seems to be completely engrossed in that book.
- Having made a few vain attempts at engrossing my attention in my book, I was obliged to let myself be carried away by the impetuous torrent of the squire's eloquence.
- 5
obsoleteTo thicken; to condense.
- As, when a foggy miſt hath ouercaſt / The face of heuen, and the cleare ayre engroſte, / The world in darkenes dwels, […]
- 6
obsoleteTo make gross, thick, or large; to thicken; to increase in bulk or quantity.
- The waues thereof ſo ſlow and ſluggiſh were, / Engroſt with mud, which did them fowle agriſe, / That euery weighty thing they did vpbeare, / Ne ought mote euer ſinck downe to the bottom there.
- Not ſleeping to ingroſſe his idle body, / But praying to inrich his watchfull ſoule.
- 7
obsoleteTo amass.
- Percy is but my factor, good my Lord, / To engroſſe vp glorious deeds on my behalfe.
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。