- 1
To overstretch is to try to do more than you can really handle, or to use more money, people, or supplies than you have. A company overstretches itself by opening too many shops at once. A person overstretches by taking on too many jobs, until something snaps — time, money, or health. News and work English use this sense a lot. You will also hear overstretch yourself: the person is the thing being pulled too thin. Though actually, there is an older body sense — to pull a muscle or a material further than it should go — and that picture is still sitting inside the money-and-effort meaning. The word is a little formal. Friends more often say you're doing too much or you've taken on too much.
過度擴張、把人力或錢用過頭(身體也可說拉太猛、拉傷,但這條意思偏做事或花錢超過自己能力)
組成over- (beyond, too much) + stretch (to pull out). From Middle English overstrecchen, the same pieces. Dutch and German have close sister verbs, but you do not need those to see the English parts.
同家族的字
- stretchthe base verb: to pull further; here, further than you can manage
原始詞典資料3 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。
overstretchverb
- 1
To stretch too far.
- The idle triumphes, maskes, lasciuious showes And prodigall gifts bestowed on Gaueston, Haue drawne thy treasure drie, and made thee weake, The murmuring commons ouerstretched hath.
- 1640, Charles I of England, Speech given to the Lords and Commons, at the Benquetting-House in White-Hall, 25 January, 1640, in The Works of King Charles the Martyr, London: Ric[hard] Chiswell, p. 169, If some of [the Bishops] have overstretched their power, and incroached too much upon the Temporalty, if it be so, I shall not be unwilling these things should be redressed and reformed […]
- 2
To stretch over something.
overstretchnoun
- 1
The act of stretching something too far or beyond available resources.
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。