核心畫面

Picture a country cut into big pieces on a map, each piece with its own name, its own capital town and its own local government - Ontario in Canada, Gyeonggi in Korea. One way to hold the word is that piece: a marked-off area that someone has been put in charge of. Once you can see the boundary and the person answerable for what is inside it, the other uses follow.

可以想成地圖上一個國家被切成幾大塊,每一塊有自己的名字、自己的首府、自己的地方政府——加拿大的 Ontario、韓國更多收起可以想成地圖上一個國家被切成幾大塊,每一塊有自己的名字、自己的首府、自己的地方政府——加拿大的 Ontario、韓國的京畿道。可以把這個字想成那一塊:一片畫好界線、交給某個人管的地方。只要看得見那條界線,以及線裡面的事由誰負責,其他用法就跟著站起來了。

From the word’s history

From Latin provincia, which in Latin meant both 'territory outside Italy under Roman rule' (Sicily was the first) and 'a public office; a public duty' - the charge a magistrate was given. Etymonline notes the origin of provincia itself is uncertain (the common pro- + vincere 'to conquer' story does not fit the earliest Latin uses). The word entered Middle English in the mid-14th century via Old French as 'country, territory, administrative division', and the figurative sense 'one's particular business or expertise' appears in English by the 1620s.

拉丁文的 provincia 一開始就同時裝著兩件事:一是「羅馬統治下、義大利以外的一塊地」(西西里是最早的一個),二是「一個公職、一份被交付的職責」——也就是行政長官被派去管的那一攤。這個字十四世紀中經古法文進入英文時先用地理義,「某人專門負責的那一塊」則到十七世紀初(1620 年代)才在英文裡出現。知道這一層,就看得懂為什麼 That is not my province(那不歸我管)跟「省」是同一個字:管一塊土地和管一攤事,在這個字裡本來就是同一個畫面。要提醒的是,provincia 更早的來源學界並不確定,常聽到的 pro-(在前)+ vincere(征服)這個說法跟最早的拉丁用法對不太起來。

Online Etymology Dictionary (etymonline.com), entry 'province'

From the picture

歸誰管的那一攤

同一條界線,這次不畫在地上,而是畫在工作和知識上:線裡面的事情歸這個人管、他也最懂。拉丁文的 provincia 本來就同時指「一塊地」和「一份被交付的職責」,所以這一族不是後來硬接上去的比喻,而是這個字從頭就帶著的另一半。

area of expertise · noun · C2

A subject that someone knows a lot about, or an area of work that only they deal with.

專長領域 / 職責範圍

Also in this word

administrative region · noun · C2

One of the large areas a country is divided into, with its own local government.

the provinces (away from capital) · noun · C2

The parts of a country that are away from the capital city.

外地 / 地方

原始詞典資料9 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。

Provincename

  • 1

    A surname.

provincenoun/ˈpɹɒv.ɪns/

  • 1

    A region of the earth or of a continent; a district or country.

    • […] we should find, as we do find, some groups of beings greatly, and some only slightly modified,—[…]—in the different great geographical provinces of the world.
  • 2

    An administrative subdivision of certain countries, including Canada and China.

    • Chowta-Zhin, who is ſaid to be a man of buſineſs and preciſion, and cautious of advancing facts, at the requeſt of Earl Macartney, delivered to him a ſtatement taken from one of the public officers in the capitol, of the inhabitants of the fifteen ancient provinces of China, or China proper, within the great wall ; according to which the number of inhabitants, taken by a regular enumeration, amounts to 333,000,000!
    • The telegraph administration refuses to transmit messages either to or from the Provinces of Hu-Peh, Hu-Nan, Kiang-Si, Sze-Chuan, Kwei-Chow, and Yu-Nan^([sic – meaning Yun-Nan]).
  • 3

    historicalAn area outside Italy which is administered by a Roman governor or prefect.

    • He reminded his audience of events in 88BC, when the same Mithridates invaded the Roman province of Asia, on the western coast of Turkey.
  • 4

    ChristianityAn area under the jurisdiction of an archbishop, typically comprising a number of adjacent dioceses.

    • In 1309, neither the Archbishop of Canterbury nor his suffragans would attend in Parliament while the Archbishop of York had the cross borne erect before him in the province of Canterbury.
  • 5

    CatholicismChristianityRoman-CatholicismAn area under the jurisdiction of a provincial within a monastic order.

  • 6

    The parts of a country outside its national capital.

    • To-day the first part of the new Indian Constitution comes into force with the granting of a large measure of autonomy to the provinces.
    • "What are the Russian provinces?" he said. "Dirt, ruins, poverty, drunkenness. That is what we need to be working on, rather than expanding our prison to include Georgia, Ukraine, the Baltic states, and Belarus. That is the kind of Russian nationalist that I am…. There is no sense in using force to hold people that don’t want to be with you."
  • 7

    geographygeologynatural-sciencesA major region defined by common geologic attributes and history.

  • 8

    An area of activity, responsibility or knowledge; the proper concern of a particular person or concept.

    • Some few hands are reserved called ship-keepers, whose province it is to work the vessel while the boats are pursuing the whale.
    • More than half a million women are now employed on the railways of the Soviet Union, and some of them perform such duties as those of engine drivers and stationmasters, formerly considered the sole province of men.

資料來源:英文維基詞典 English WiktionaryCC BY-SA 4.0)。 原文照列,未經改寫。