- 1二流的、次等的（指品質，不是比賽第二名）
Something second-rate is not of the very best standard or quality. A second-rate hotel is fine-ish, but you would not boast about it. A second-rate actor is not the star people remember. The phrase is a little ; it judges. It does not mean second place in a race — that is just second. And it does not mean the second thing in a list. Though actually, the phrase started with ships: the British navy ranked its big first-rate, second-rate, and so on by how many guns they carried. First-rate was the strongest class. Later people used the labels for almost anything, and second-rate came to mean ‘not the best’. We still write it with a .
「second-rate」指品質或水準不是最好的。例如「a second-rate hotel」還過得去，但你不會拿來誇耀；「a second-rate actor」不是人們會記住的那種明星。它放在名詞前面，形式是「second-rate + 名詞」。這個說法帶點不客氣，是在評價；它不是指比賽的第二名，那只叫第二。
這個說法原本來自船。英國海軍依大型軍艦的火炮數量，把它們分成第一等、第二等等級，第一等是最強的一級。後來人們把這套標籤用在幾乎任何東西上，「second-rate」就變成「不是最好的」的意思，現在仍寫成帶連字號的形式。
組成A compound of second + rate. Rate here is an old ranking, not speed. British navy ships were classed first-rate, second-rate, and so on.
同家族的字
- first-ratethe top of the same old ranking; now means very good
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。
second-rateadj
- 1
historicalgovernmentmilitarynauticalOf a Royal Navy ship of the line in the Napoleonic Era: having 80–98 guns across three gun decks, a complement of 700–750, and weighing approximately 2,200 tons burthen.
- 2
Of mediocre quality; not first-rate.
- ‘Revelation’, to a philosopher such as Plotinus, was not merely irrational: it led to second-rate counterfeits of traditional academic philosophical culture. It was as if the inhabitants of an underdeveloped country were to seek to catch up with western technology by claiming to have learnt nuclear physics through dreams and oracles.
- They are intrigued by Mrs Deelville; she is dowdy, languid-voiced, and ill-dressed, in every way appearing second-rate, who nonetheless - rather tiresomely - seems to have the knack of attracting men.
second-ratenoun
- 1
historicalgovernmentmilitarynauticalA second-rate ship of the line.
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。