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A leprechaun is a tiny old man in old Irish stories. He is not a real person. In the tales he is often a , clever and hard to catch, and he may keep a hidden pot of gold. Irish people told these stories for a long time. Today you also see a softer, brighter leprechaun on St Patrick's Day cards and in shops: a little man in a green coat and hat. That holiday picture is tidier than some of the older stories, where he could be sharp and not at all cute. In English the word belongs to and to that March picture; it is not an everyday word for a real person.
愛爾蘭小妖精
組成From Irish leipreachán (also luprachán), from older Irish luchorpán / luchrupán. The next step is argued over. The usual schoolbook story is Irish lú (small) + corp (body, from Latin corpus), with a small-word ending; another idea links it to Latin Lupercī, priests of Lupercus, later misread by Irish scholars. Treat 'small body' as a maybe, not a sure fact.
原始詞典資料2 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。
leprechaunnoun/ˈlɛpɹəkɔːn/
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artsfolklorehistoryA type of diminutive, solitary fairy or sprite, traditionally depicted as a small, bearded man wearing a green coat and hat, often found repairing a single shoe; they typically possess hidden treasure, such as a pot of gold hidden at the end of a rainbow, and can be forced to reveal its location if captured.
- So they wint, an' Tom held the Leprechaun fast in his hand, an' nivir tuk his eyes frum aff uv him, though they had to crass hidges an' ditches, an' a cruked bit uv a bog (fur the Leprechaun seemed, out o' pure mischief, to pick out the hardest and most conthrairy way), till at last they come to a grate field all full o' bolyawn buies, an' the Leprechaun pointed to a big bolyawn, an' sez he, "Dig undher that bolyawn, an' you'll git a crock chuck full o' goulden guineas."
- Do you not catch the tiny clamour, / Busy click of an elfin hammer, / Voice of the leprechaun singing shrill, / As he merrily plies his trade?
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offensiveslurslangAn Irish person.
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。