- 1測謊機
A polygraph is a machine the police (and sometimes a boss) use when they want to know if someone is telling the truth. It does not read thoughts. While a person answers questions, it down several body signs at the same time — heart, breathing, and sweat on the skin — as lines on paper or on a screen. The hope is that a lie will make the body jump a little, and the lines will show it. Poly- is 'many' and -graph is 'write', so it is a 'many-writing' machine: many lines at once. That is also why people nicknamed it a lie detector. Though actually, the tidy story and real life do not match well. Being afraid, angry, or just shy can move those lines too, and many scientists say the machine cannot really pick a lie out from that. Some places still use it; some courts will not trust it. In films it is a truth machine. In the real world it is a tool people argue about. You can also use it as a verb: to polygraph someone is to put them on that machine. There is an older, rarer sense too — a machine that copies writing, or a person who a lot — same pieces of the word, different job. When people say polygraph now, they almost always mean the police test.
組成poly- ('many') + -graph ('write'). Noun and verb both from those two pieces.
同家族的字
- photographsame -graph: 'write/draw' with light
- telegraphsame -graph: writing sent from far away
原始詞典資料8 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。
polygraphnoun/ˈpɒliɡɹæf/
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A device which measures and records several physiological variables such as blood pressure, heart rate, respiration and skin conductivity while a series of questions is being posed to a subject, in an attempt to detect deception.
- It used to be just a plain office with a chair and some instruments on a table. Then they got the new, fancy polygraph system.
- 2
datedA mechanical instrument for multiplying copies of a writing, resembling multiple pantographs.
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archaicA collection of different works, either by one or several authors.
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human-scienceslinguisticssciencesA group of letters that represent a single phoneme.
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Any group of letters treated as a single item.
- A polygraph consists of an unspecified number of adjacent letters. A polygraph need not be recognisable as a word in a language but if we are attempting to decipher a message which is expected to be in English and we find the heptagraph MEETING it is much more promising than if we find a heptagraph such as DKRPIGX.
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An author who writes on many subjects.
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mathematicssciencesA multidimensional directed graph.
polygraphverb/ˈpɒliɡɹæf/
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To administer a polygraph test to.
- The FBI polygraphed the suspect but learned nothing because they already knew he was lying.
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。