- 1發生率（新病例、新案件的次數）。不是「事件」(incident)；也不是「盛行率」(prevalence，現有病例)。
Incidence is how often something happens in a group, over a period of time — especially illness or crime. Doctors talk about the incidence of flu; newspapers talk about the incidence of theft. It is a counting word for reports and textbooks, not for chat. Though actually, students mix this up with incident almost every time, and that is nothing to be ashamed of: the two sit side by side on the page. An incident is one event: there was an incident on the train. Incidence is the rate: the incidence of accidents on that line has fallen. One is a thing that happened; the other is a number. Doctors also keep incidence apart from prevalence. Incidence is new cases. Prevalence is how many people have the illness right now, including old cases. Ten new colds this week is incidence; fifty people in town who currently have a cold is prevalence. There is another sense in science: the angle of incidence is the angle at which light hits a surface. That still comes from the old picture of something falling upon a thing. The illness-and-crime meaning is the one you need here.
From the word’s history
From Middle French incidence, from Medieval Latin incidentia 'a falling upon', from Latin in 'on' + cadere 'to fall'.
源自拉丁文 incidentia「落在…上」，來自 cadere「落下」。
組成From Latin in “on” + cadere “to fall,” via a “falling upon.” From that came the idea of how often something happens to a group.
同家族的字
- incidenta single event that befalls; same Latin incidere, and the word students mix this with
- coincidencethings falling together; related cadere family
- accidentsomething that befalls you; from ad + cadere
原始詞典資料7 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。
incidencenoun/ˈɪn.sɪ.dəns/
- 1
The act of something happening; occurrence.
- 2
The extent or the relative frequency of something happening.
- 3
The manner of falling; bearing or onus, as of a tax that falls unequally.
- 4
natural-sciencesphysical-sciencesphysicsThe striking of radiation or a projectile upon a surface.
- 5
epidemiologymedicinesciencesA measure of the rate of new occurrence of a given medical condition in a population within a specified period of time.
- 6
geometrymathematicssciencesThe falling of a point on a line, or a line on a plane.
- 7
graph-theorymathematicssciencesThe relation between an edge of a graph and one of the vertices it connects.
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。