- 1修補關係、重修舊好。新聞裡常說「修好之旅」「修補邦交／關係」；不是真的在修籬笆。
Fence-mending trips, talks, and visits are what countries (or parties, or old friends in public) do after a quarrel: they meet, they speak carefully, and they try to make the relationship work again. The picture underneath is a farmer repairing the fence shared with the neighbour. You cannot stay furious and keep a good fence; the repair is the relationship. Though actually, this is newspaper and diplomat English. Friends do not say “I’m going fence-mending”; they say “we should talk” or “let’s make up.” Nobody on a fence-mending visit is carrying a hammer. The phrase can sound a little tidy, as if a few smiles could undo a deep hurt — and sometimes the talks are only for the cameras.
組成fence + mending (repairing). From the older idiom to mend fences: to repair a damaged friendship, as if you were fixing the fence you share with your neighbour.
原始詞典資料2 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，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。
fence-mendingnoun
- 1
governmentpoliticsSocial assistance given to a community in order to retain popularity with the electorate.
- In summary, the recognition of the mandate of a group by government is useful not only to the group's leaders but to government as well. The existence and operations of organized groups introduce an element of stability into the political process; […] they enable government to carry on a continuous process of “fence mending” by continually drawing attention to the fences which require mending; […]
- Patronage and political fence mending had come to bore him.
- 2
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see fence, mend.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。