- 1（想像中會搞壞機器的）小妖精、小惡靈
A gremlin is an imaginary little that people blame when a machine goes wrong for no clear reason. The picture comes especially from wartime air crews: something tiny and spiteful in the engine, the radio, the landing gear. You do not have to believe in spirits to use the word. In easy, joking English, “a gremlin in the system” means a mysterious fault. The origin is uncertain. People have guessed a link with , or Irish gruaimín (“gloomy little person”), or Dutch words for soiling or spoiling; the Oxford English Dictionary says there is little evidence for those. What we do know is that the word was made famous, especially in the United States, by Roald Dahl’s children’s book The Gremlins (1943), in which gremlins sabotage RAF aircraft. Later films used the name for quite different movie monsters; the older sense is the machine-blaming one. It is informal, colourful, and a bit dated in serious talk — engineers will look for a real fault — but it still works as a smile when the dies.
組成Does not split in a way we can trust. Origin uncertain; popularized by Roald Dahl’s The Gremlins (1943).
原始詞典資料5 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。
gremlinnoun/ˈɡɹɛmlɪn/
- 1
obsoleteaeronauticsaerospaceaviationA contemptible person.
- 2
aeronauticsaerospaceaviationAn imaginary creature reputed to be mischievously inclined, for example, to damage or dismantle machinery.
- Like Abominable Snowmen, gremlins have never actually been seen; but nobody who works with electronic gear doubts the existence of these mischievous and elusive entities. There are too many malfunctions and failures that can have no other explanation.
- Crucial time was saved by the fact Nexus didn't require a Transport & Works Act. Nevertheless, other gremlins kept raising their heads.
- 3
Any mysterious, unknown source of mischief or trouble, or the problem created thereby.
- We rechecked everything, and we suspect gremlins in the database.
- 4
slanghobbieslifestyleskateboardingA young, inexperienced surfer or skateboarder, regarded as a nuisance.
- 5
A person regarded as similar to a fictional gremlin, in particular: mischievous, troublesome, short, or annoying.
- Rosa, the main character in Tears of Themis, is also very smart, justice-driven, and willing to help. Meanwhile, the Honkai: Star Rail Trailblazer […] can often be a sarcastic, pessimistic, lazy, self-serving, dumpster-diving gremlin. […] That’s absolutely gremlin behavior.
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。