一根絲：形狀本身
這是核心畫面的最裸露版本：不管它長在哪裡、拿來做什麼，先只看「細長的一條」這個形狀。
a thin thread · noun · C1
A very thin thread, or one of the thin thread-like parts that form natural materials such as wood or carbon.
細絲
核心畫面
One way to hold it: a single long thin thread — and, because things like this rarely come alone, the bundle of such threads that a material is built out of. Cloth, wood, muscle, nerve, the tough strings in : all of them are made of fibres.
一根又細又長的絲——而且它幾乎不會單獨出現，通常是一大把這種細絲扭在一起，構成某個東西的本體。撕開一段芹菜、看棉花的…更多收起
一根又細又長的絲——而且它幾乎不會單獨出現，通常是一大把這種細絲扭在一起，構成某個東西的本體。撕開一段芹菜、看棉花的斷面、看木頭的紋路，你看到的那些一條一條的東西就是 fibre。所以這個字同時抓住兩件事：形狀（細長的線），和角色（東西是由這些線組成的）。從植物到布料、從肌肉到神經，只要材料在微觀上是「一絲一絲」的，英文就用得上 fibre。From the word’s history
From French fibre, from Latin fibra, which meant a filament, a thread, or the fine root-fibres and lobes of an organ (liver lobes, plant rootlets). The Latin word already covered both plant threads and threads inside a body — the same double reach the English word still has.
fibre 經法文 fibre 來自拉丁文 fibra，原意就是「細絲、纖維」，既用在植物的細根，也用在內臟（如肝葉）的絲狀組織。也就是說，「植物的絲」和「身體裡的絲」在拉丁文階段就已經是同一個字了——今天 fibre 一邊講棉花、一邊講肌肉和神經，並不是後來硬接上去的，而是這個字本來就有的兩隻腳。
Payload etymology (French fibre < Old French < Latin fibra), cross-checked against the standard Latin sense of fibra 'filament, fibre, lobe (of the liver), rootlet'.
Four branches
植物的絲：吃進去與織起來
還是同一根細絲，只是加上了「來自植物、而且人拿它做事」這一層。韌、細、不容易斷——這個特性讓它既能織成布，也讓它在腸道裡不被分解。
textile fibre · noun · C1
A mass of threads, from plants or made by people, used to make cloth, rope, or similar things.
紡織纖維
身體裡的絲
把細絲的畫面從植物移進動物身體：肌肉和神經在顯微鏡下同樣是一條一條的絲束，看起來就跟撕開的植物莖沒兩樣。
muscle or nerve fibre · noun · C1
The thin pieces of flesh that form the nerves or muscles in your body.
肌纖維
只活在片語裡的用法
最後一步是比喻：既然一個人（或一塊材料）是由無數細絲構成的，那「連每一根絲都在做同一件事」就等於毫無保留、整個人都是。
every fibre of your being · noun · C1
If you feel something with every fibre of your being, you feel it very strongly, with all your strength or feeling.
每一絲
原始詞典資料8 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。
fibrenoun/ˈfaɪ.bə(ɹ)/
- 1
A single piece of a given material, elongated and roughly round in cross-section, often twisted with other fibres to form thread.
- The microscope showed several different fibres stuck to the sole of the shoe.
- 2
Material in the form of fibres.
- The cloth was made from strange, somewhat rough fibre.
- 3
Dietary fibre.
- Fresh vegetables are a good source of fibre.
- 4
Moral strength and resolve.
- The ordeal was a test of everyone’s fibre.
- He was gentlemanly, steady, tractable, with a thorough knowledge of his duties; and in time, when yet very young, he became chief mate of a fine ship, without ever having been tested by those events of the sea that show in the light of day the inner worth of a man, the edge of his temper, and the fibre of his stuff; that reveal the quality of his resistance and the secret truth of his pretences, not only to others but also to himself.
- 5
mathematicssciencesThe preimage of a given point in the range of a map.
- Under this map, any two values in the fibre of a given point on the circle differ by 2π.
- 6
category-theorycomputingengineeringSaid to be of a morphism over a global element: The pullback of the said morphism along the said global element.
- 7
computingengineeringmathematicsA kind of lightweight thread of execution.
- 8
biologycytologymedicineA long tubular cell found in bodily tissue.
- It is the deeper parts of such cells which give rise to delicate muscular fibres or networks of fibres, while the superficially placed body of the cell myoblast), the part which produces the above, performs other functions, and usually bears a cilium.
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。