喜樂美語

From the word’s history

From Middle English owen, from Old English āgan 'to own, possess'; see own, ought.

源自古英文 āgan「擁有」；和 own、ought 同源。

Wiktionary

You can picture owe as carrying a debt that you are bound to give back. Something of value passed from them to you, and now there is a string attached: you are to return it. At its most concrete it is money you must repay; from there the 'thing owed' into a favour, an apology, your gratitude, your loyalty — but the picture stays the same: a balance tilted toward someone, waiting to be settled.

可以想成「背著一筆非還不可的債」。有某種有價值的東西從對方流到你這邊，於是綁上了一條線：你有義務把它還回去。最具體的版本是該還的錢；再往外，那個「欠的東西」就軟化成一份人情、一句道歉、你的感激、你的忠誠——但畫面始終一樣：天平朝某人那邊傾斜，等著被擺平。

登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。

容易混在一起的字在訂閱裡。容易混在一起的字需要訂閱帳號。

同家族的字

owed owed owing owes

意思相近

be in debt tobe indebted tothanks tobe in the redbe grateful tobe due toshould givebe deeply grateful toought to givehave a duty toresult fromshould do+4

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。

oweverb/əʊ/

  • 1

    To be under an obligation to give something back to someone or to perform some action for someone.

    • We owe it to our children to make our nation a better place to live in the future.
    • I owe Kevin five bucks which he lent to me last week.
  • 2

    To have debt; to be in debt.

  • 3

    To have as a cause; used with to.

    • The record owes its success to the outstanding guitar solos.

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。