核心畫面
You can picture an 'inch' as one tiny, fixed step of length — about 2.5 cm, the width of a thumb. It's deliberately small. From that smallness everything else grows: 'an inch' comes to stand for any tiny distance at all, then for moving by such tiny amounts, then it gets locked into sayings that play on 'just this little bit.' The core feeling is always 'a very small amount of space.'
可以把 inch 想成一小段固定的長度——大約 2.5 公分,差不多一個拇指寬。它刻意就是很小。後面的用法全是從這個…更多收起
可以把 inch 想成一小段固定的長度——大約 2.5 公分,差不多一個拇指寬。它刻意就是很小。後面的用法全是從這個「小」長出來的:一個 inch 拿來代表「任何一丁點距離」,再變成「以這麼小的幅度一點一點移動」,最後鎖進一些玩「就差這麼一點」的固定說法。核心感覺始終是「很小的一段空間」。原始詞典資料13 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。
Inchname
- 1
A town in County Wexford, Ireland.
inchnoun詞源 1/ɪnt͡ʃ/
- 1
An English unit of length equal to 1/12 of a foot or 2.54 cm.
- The sledges of the Esquimaux are of large size, varying from six and a half to nine and even eleven feet in length, and from eighteen inches to two feet in breadth.
- The term "precision measurement" […] refers to the art of reproducing and controlling dimensions expressed in thousandths of an inch or smaller.
- 2
Any very short distance.
- Don't move an inch!
- Beldame, I think we watched you at an inch.
- 3
Any of various similar units of length in other traditional systems of measurement.
- At the time of Augustus, the Roman inch was standardized at a length about 3% shorter than the modern English one.
- 4
climatologymeteorologynatural-sciencesA depth of one inch on the ground, used as a measurement of rainfall.
- Let us consider what one inch of rain really means. If an acre of land were covered with water to the depth of only the tenth part of an inch, that layer of water would weigh more than 10 tons: thus 1 inch of rain is ten times that amount—in fact, very nearly 101 tons.
- Expect around 2 inches of rain on Saturday afternoon.
- 5
A depth of one inch in a glass, used as a rough measurement of alcoholic beverages.
- My partner only drinks about a 1 inch pour with dinner, leaving the rest of the bottle for me.
inchverb詞源 1/ɪnt͡ʃ/
- 1
To advance very slowly, or by a small amount (in a particular direction).
- Fearful of falling, he inched along the window ledge.
- On reaching the section under construction they must be capable of inching the train forward on rough track up gradients as steep as 1 in 30.
- 2
To drive by inches, or small degrees.
- He gets too far into the soldier's grace / And inches out my master.
- 3
To deal out by inches; to give sparingly.
inchnoun詞源 2/ɪnt͡ʃ/
- 1
A small island; an islet.
- The blackening wave is edged with white; / To inch and rock the sea-mews fly.
- 2
A meadow, pasture, field, or haugh.
- An ivy-clad farmhouse surrounded by trees, it stood on the sunny side of a sloping hill at the foot of which the Darigle river curved its way through gold-furzed inches to disappear under a stone bridge into the woods beyond.
- As these calves grew older they did not need to return to the farmyard for feeding as they were able to eat sufficient grass for themselves. They were then kept in the fields, known as the inches, along by the river[,] where they grew strong[,] and during the winter cold when grass was scarce[,] hay was carried down to them.
inchadj詞源 3/ɪnt͡ʃ/
- 1
cocky and cheeky
- I still remember Donald Duck sit next to him after NG dog being 'Done'd to F.2 building... he is still very Inch in Year 1983-4 teaching me RS
- The service was professional but very "inch". We were served by a Cantonese speaking local. The waiter asked if we wanted water without telling us it costs $75 for just water!!
inchverb詞源 3/ɪnt͡ʃ/
- 1
to burn (to insult); to speak in a cocky and cheeky manner
- Sorry for changing the intention of the post last time; it was for nothing but the personal joy and satisfaction of "inch"-ing the person who criticized my writing while he/she can't even write. (no hard feelings, alright?!) I'd avoid that in the future. I'll try to make this a constructive discussion and be as objective as possible.
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。