喜樂美語

核心畫面

Picture one piece of clothing with two tubes hanging from a : you step in one leg at a time, pull it up, and everything from the waist down is covered. That two-legged shape is what the word holds on to. However far 'pants' travels inside a sentence, the everyday garment you pull on each morning is still standing behind it. One thing to keep in mind: the garment itself changes across the Atlantic. In American English the tubes are long and worn on the outside; in British English they are small and worn underneath.

可以想成一件從腰帶垂下兩根「管子」的衣服：一腳一腳伸進去、往上一拉，腰部以下就全包住了。這個「兩條腿各一管」的形狀，…更多收起可以想成一件從腰帶垂下兩根「管子」的衣服：一腳一腳伸進去、往上一拉，腰部以下就全包住了。這個「兩條腿各一管」的形狀，是這個字一直握著不放的畫面——pants 在句子裡跑到多遠的用法，背後都還站著那件你每天早上套上的衣服。要留意的是，這件衣服在大西洋兩岸不是同一件：美式英文裡它是外穿的長褲，英式英文裡卻是穿在裡面的那件小內褲。

From the picture

誇張到「連褲子都掉了」

褲子是身上最貼身、最不會輕易離開你的東西。既然如此，一件事強到「把你的褲子都弄掉了」，就是強到不能再強——這組說法借的正是核心畫面的這個特性。

scare the pants off someone · noun · B1

Used in phrases like 'scare the pants off someone' to mean to make someone feel something very strongly, such as very scared or very bored.

嚇得半死（等）

用褲子標出一個人的身分或階段

穿褲子是每個人都得做、而且做法都一樣的日常動作，於是它很適合拿來當標記——標記「你其實跟大家一樣」，或標記「你當時還在哪個階段」。

put their pants on one leg at a time · noun · B1

Used in the saying that someone 'puts their pants on one leg at a time' to say that a famous or important person is really just like everyone else.

也是普通人

英式口語：很爛

這一支是從英式的「內褲」那一義長出來的：拿內褲來形容一件事，等於把它放到最不起眼、最上不了檯面的位置。

rubbish / poor quality · adjective · B1

In informal British English, very bad or of poor quality.

很爛 / 很糟

Also in this word

trousers · noun · B1

A piece of clothing that covers you from the waist down, with a separate part for each leg.

褲子 / 長褲

underpants · noun · B1

In British English, the short piece of underwear you wear under your trousers.

內褲

原始詞典資料8 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。

pantsnoun詞源 1/pænts/

  • 1

    An outer garment that covers the body from the waist downwards, covering each leg separately, usually as far as the ankles; trousers.

    • “But they cover the legs,” Joseph explained. “That is the only reason my people wear pants: to cover the legs in the winter, or when traveling through rough country, full of thorns. In warm weather, or in open country, pants are unnecessary, uncomfortable, and foolish.”
    • It's in the evening after dark when the blackleg miner creeps to work. With his moleskin pants and his dirty shirt, there goes the blackleg miner.
  • 2

    An undergarment that covers the genitals and often the buttocks and the neighbouring parts of the body; underpants.

    • I decided to pass up her underclothes, not from feelings of delicacy, but because I couldn't see myself putting her pants on and snapping her brassière.
    • Big girls get candy for dry pants.
  • 3

    slangRubbish; something worthless.

    • You're talking pants!
    • The film was a load [or pile] of pants.

pantsadj詞源 1/pænts/

  • 1

    slangOf inferior quality, rubbish.

    • Your mobile is pants — why don’t you get one like mine?
    • 'Is that what you're going to do when you graduate?' he asked. 'Be a photographer?' 'I wish, but I'm pants at the technical stuff. ...'

pantsverb詞源 1/pænts/

  • 1

    To pull someone’s pants down; to forcibly remove someone’s pants.

    • Keith Gerber has been pantsed twice already this summer by Lannie and Cling, and so his face is more resolved, the fear tempered by the fact that he understands these things to be inevitable.
    • [T]he other boys, Stretch Latham and Rod Becker mainly, pantsed him, got his jockey shorts away and threw them onto Hubcap Willie’s roof.

這個拼法也被記錄為下列字的變化形：

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。