- 1
Lithe describes a body that bends and moves easily and with grace — a dancer, a gymnast, a cat stretching along a wall. The person is often slim, but the point is not weight: nothing looks stiff.
Lithe describes a body that bends and moves easily and with graceLithe（柔軟靈活的）形容一個身體彎曲和移動起來既輕鬆又優美 a dancer, a gymnast, a cat stretching along a wall像舞者、體操選手、或是沿著牆伸展的貓 The person is often slim這樣的人通常比較瘦 but the point is not weight但重點不是體重： nothing looks stiff而是沒有一個地方看起來僵硬
It is a compliment, and you will meet it more in stories and careful description than in everyday chat. You would not usually call a lithe over lunch.
It is a compliment這是一種讚美 and you will meet it more in stories and careful description than in everyday chat你比較會在故事和講究的描寫裡遇到它，而不是在日常聊天裡 You would not usually call a classmate lithe over lunch你通常不會在吃午餐的時候說同學lithe
Older English used a close form to mean “gentle” or “mild”; that softer meaning has mostly gone. What students meet now is the body: flexible, , able to twist without strain.
Older English used a close form to mean “gentle” or “mild”較早期的英文用一個很接近的字形來表示「溫和」或「溫柔」 that softer meaning has mostly gone那個比較柔軟的意思現在大多已經不用了 What students meet now is the body學生現在會遇到的是講身體的意思： flexible, graceful, able to twist without strain柔軟、優美、可以輕鬆扭轉而不費力
It can describe the figure (“a lithe body”) or, a little less often, the way someone moves.
It can describe the figure它可以形容身材 (“a lithe body”)（「a lithe body」） or, a little less often, the way someone moves或是比較少見地，形容一個人移動的樣子
組成From Old English līþe, “gentle, mild.” That came from older West Germanic and Germanic forms, and further back from an Indo-European root tied to being springy or able to bend. Close old words in Frisian, Danish, Dutch, and German meant “mild” or “thin.” Latin lenis (“soft”) and lentus (“supple”) are sometimes listed as relatives, but that link is not certain.
原始詞典資料10 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。
litheadj詞源 1/laɪð/
- 1
obsoleteMild; calm.
- lithe weather
- 2
Slim but not skinny.
- lithe body
- The noise of their battle with Numa had drawn an excited horde of savages from the nearby village, and a moment after the lion’s death the two men were surrounded by lithe, ebon warriors, gesticulating and jabbering—a thousand questions that drowned each ventured reply.
- 3
Capable of being easily bent; flexible.
- the elephant’s lithe trunk.
- … she danced with a kind of passionate fierceness, her lithe body undulating with flexuous grace …
- 4
Adaptable.
- Yet the 2016 Éxilé rosé from Lise et Bertrand Jousset in the Loire Valley, made mostly of gamay, was yeasty let^([sic – meaning yet]) light and lithe, while the 2016 Indigeno from Ancarani in Emilia-Romagna, made of trebbiano, was taut and earthy.
litheverb詞源 2/laɪð/
- 1
obsoleteTo become calm.
- 2
obsoleteTo make soft or mild; soften; alleviate; mitigate; lessen; smooth; palliate.
- England.. hath now suppled, lithed and stretched their throats.
- Give me also faith, Lord,.. to lithe, to form, and to accommodate my spirit and members.
litheverb詞源 3/laɪð/
- 1
obsoleteTo attend; listen, hearken.
- 2
To listen to, hearken to.
lithenoun詞源 4/laɪð/
- 1
Shelter.
- So Cospatric got him the Pict folk to build a strong castle there in the lithe of the hills, with the Grampians dark and bleak behind it, and he had the Den drained and he married a Pict lady and got on her bairns and he lived there till he died.
litheverb詞源 5/laɪð/
- 1
archaicdialectalto thicken (gravy, etc.)
- lithe widely used as a verb in nEng Sc and Ir, as a noun only in Cu
- to render lithe or thick, to thicken (broth, etc.)
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。