核心畫面

You can think of it as a word that points past the edge of the ordinary. Whatever line marks 'normal' for a thing, this word says the thing has gone out beyond that line — so far out that you notice it. Everything else follows from which way it goes out: further up (much more than usual) or simply off to one side (not like it usually is).

每件事都有一條「一般來說大概是這樣」的線,而這個字說的是——它跑到那條線外面去了,而且遠到你會忍不住注意。extra更多收起每件事都有一條「一般來說大概是這樣」的線,而這個字說的是——它跑到那條線外面去了,而且遠到你會忍不住注意。extra-(在…之外)加上 ordinary(平常的),字面就是「在平常之外」。剩下的差別只在往哪個方向出去:往上衝很遠,就是「極其、非常」;往旁邊偏,就是「反常、怪怪的」。

From the word’s history

From Latin extraordinarius, 'out of (extra) the usual order (ordo, ordinem)' — literally outside the regular arrangement of things.

來自拉丁文 extraordinarius,由 extra(在…之外)+ ordo/ordinem(常規、次序)組成,字面是「在常規次序之外」。這個字根到今天還撐著整個字:不管是「非常」還是「反常」,講的都還是同一件事——它不在一般的次序裡面。

Oxford English Dictionary / Online Etymology Dictionary (etymonline), s.v. extraordinary

Two branches

程度衝出常規:極其、非常

這一支是把「跑出常規之外」用在「量」上——不是方向不對,而是走得太遠。

extremely · r · B2

extremely — used before an adjective or another adverb to say that something is true to a much greater degree than usual.

極其;非常

樣子偏離常規:反常、怪異

同樣是「出了常規」,但這一支出去的方向不是往上,而是往旁邊——不是更多,而是不一樣。

strangely, unusually · r · B2

in a way that seems strange or very different from how someone or something usually is.

反常地;怪異地

原始詞典資料1 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。

extraordinarilyadv

  • 1

    In an extraordinary manner.

    • All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion […] such talk had been distressingly out of place.
    • With such a skewed probability, the quantum reasoning goes, we have long overlooked the tiny chance that the baseball can (and, on extraordinarily rare occasions, will) land somewhere completely different.

資料來源:英文維基詞典 English WiktionaryCC BY-SA 4.0)。 原文照列,未經改寫。