- 1嚴酷考驗；折磨人、撐過一段時間的痛苦經歷
An ordeal is a terrible or painful experience that continues for a period of time — not one sudden shock, but something you have to go through. A long illness, days of waiting, a hard trial in court, or a night of disaster can all be called an ordeal. People say What an ordeal after something exhausting. Though actually, the old meaning was a kind of judgement: a test used to decide if someone was guilty, such as walking on hot iron or being thrown into water. The idea of “a hard test you must pass through” is still hiding in the word, but today we almost never mean a real trial by fire. We mean a grim stretch of life.
From the word’s history
From Middle English ordel, from Old English ordāl 'judgement', literally 'an out-dealing'; see or- and deal.
源自古英文 ordāl「審判、判決」，和 deal 有關。
組成From Middle English ordel, ordal, from Medieval Latin ordālium or from Old English ordēl, ordāl (“ordeal, judgement”), from Proto-West Germanic *uʀdailī (“judgement”, literally “an out-dealing”), from *uʀdailijan (“to deal out”). The second piece is the same family as English deal. German Urteil (“verdict”) is a cousin.
同家族的字
- dealshares the old “deal out / give out” piece; ordeal was literally an out-dealing, a judgement
原始詞典資料3 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。
ordealnoun/ɔːˈdiːl/
- 1
historicalA trial in which the accused was subjected to a dangerous test (such as ducking in water), divine authority deciding the guilt of the accused.
- trial by ordeal
- 2
A painful or trying experience.
- “And do you realize that in a few shakes I've got to show up at dinner and have Mrs Cream being very, very kind to me? It hurts the pride of the Woosters, Jeeves.” “My advice, sir, would be to fortify yourself for the ordeal.” “How?” “There are always cocktails, sir. Should I pour you another?” “You should.”
- All the same, nearly eight hours on the footplate covering a distance of 320 miles, with an ambient temperature of up to 103° for much of the time, proved an ordeal which I would not lightly undertake again.
- 3
The poisonous ordeal bean or Calabar bean.
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。