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A harbinger is a sign that something — often something big — is going to happen soon. Dark clouds can be a harbinger of a storm; a sudden drop in sales can be a harbinger of trouble for a shop. The word is literary and a bit old-fashioned in speech. You meet it in news headlines, essays, and novels more than at the dinner table. Though actually it did not start as a “sign.” It started as a person: someone sent ahead of a travelling group to arrange lodgings, a place to sleep. From “the person who arrives first,” it slowly became “the thing that arrives first and shows what is coming.”
先兆、預兆
組成Originally a person sent ahead to arrange lodgings. From Middle English herberjour, from Old French herbergeor (someone who gives shelter), from a verb meaning to set up camp or take shelter, sitting on an old German word for an army camp or shelter. English harbor grew from the same family.
同家族的字
- harborsame old “shelter / lodging” root (British spelling: harbour)
原始詞典資料3 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。
harbingernoun/ˈhɑːbɪndʒə/
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A person or thing that foreshadows or foretells the coming of someone or something.
- harbinger of danger; harbinger of doom; harbinger of spring
- Make all our Trumpets ſpeak, giue thẽ all breath / Thoſe clamorous Harbingers of Blood, & Death
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obsoleteOne who provides lodgings; especially, the officer of the English royal household who formerly preceded the court when travelling, to provide and prepare lodgings.
- outward decency […] is the Harbinger to provide the lodging for inward holinesse
harbingerverb/ˈhɑːbɪndʒə/
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To announce or precede; to be a harbinger of.
- It was harbingered also by the terrible comet of January, which appeared in a cadent and obscure house, denoting sickness and death; […]
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。