- 1漏洞（尤其是法律、規定上可鑽的空隙；鑽漏洞）
A loophole is a small gap in a rule or law that lets someone avoid what the law was meant to make them do, while still staying technically legal. People exploit a loophole, find a loophole, close a loophole. Tax, contracts, school rules, and online terms are full of talk of loopholes. It is a slightly formal, news-and-office word, but everyone meets it. The picture underneath is older and more physical: a loophole was a narrow slit in a castle wall that you could shoot through — a hole you could use. The law sense is that slit: the rule looks solid, but there is a gap you can fire through. It is not a looping hole, even though the modern spelling looks like loop + hole.
From the word’s history
Middle English loupe 'opening in a wall' + hole; first an arrow slit, now an escape in a rule.
中古英文 loupe「牆上開口」加 hole「洞」，原指城牆射擊孔。
組成From Middle English loupe, an opening in a wall, plus hole, from a Germanic source. It only looks like loop + hole on the surface. Compare old words like Medieval Latin loupa and Middle Dutch lupen “to watch”.
同家族的字
- holethe second half, in its ordinary “gap” sense; the first half is the old wall-opening word, not loop
原始詞典資料4 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。
loopholenoun/ˈluːphəʊl/
- 1
historicalA slit in a castle wall; today, any similar window for shooting a ranged weapon or letting in light.
- […] and having a fair loophole, as it were, from a broken hole in the tree, he took a sure aim, without being seen, waiting till they were within about thirty yards of the tree, so that he could not miss.
- There was a loophole in this wall, to let the light in, just at the height of a person's head, who was sitting near the chimney.
- 2
A method of escape, especially an ambiguity or exception in a rule or law that can be exploited in order to avoid its effect.
- Coupling the poor girl's intelligence with my previous knowledge, and the result of our good friend's inquiries on the spot, I left him no loophole of escape, and laid bare the whole villany which by these lights became plain as day.
- You have a contract that says you will work until Island Towers is finalized, which I interpret as completion of construction, or I can stop you working elsewhere. And there's no loopholes, because you drafted it and you're the best.
loopholeverb/ˈluːphəʊl/
- 1
governmentmilitarypoliticsTo prepare a building for defense by preparing slits or holes through which to fire on attackers
- The lower windows were barricaded, and the whole building loopholed for musketry fire.
- The doors were barricaded, the shutters closed upon the windows and loopholed, and provisions were brought in from the outhouses.
- 2
To exploit (a law, etc.) by means of loopholes.
- Abroad they had developed loopholing the law into an art; in Israel they jettisoned loopholing for ignoring the law wherever possible. Obeying laws was for naive fools.
- De-moralizing the subject can be, quite simply, demoralizing, as stirring statements of ideals turn into persnickety rules with exceptions crying out to be loopholed.
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。