- 1雪花（一片一片飄下來的雪）；網路上罵人「玻璃心」時也用 snowflake，帶貶意
A snowflake is one single small piece of snow as it falls from the sky. Snow is water that has frozen high in the air, and it does not freeze into round balls — it freezes into flat, six-sided shapes with arms growing out from the middle. One of those shapes is a snowflake. They are very light and very soft, and one alone is so small that it can sit on your coat sleeve for a second before it melts. People often say that no two snowflakes are exactly the same. That is the famous line, and it is close enough to true for teaching, though scientists will tell you very simple ones can look alike. Because a snowflake is so small, so light, and melts the moment you touch it, English uses the word for delicate things: a snowflake pattern, a snowflake , a paper snowflake children cut out at school. There is also a newer, use. Since about the 2010s, people online call someone a snowflake to mean that person is too easily upset — too soft, breaks too fast. It is an insult, and it is often used in political arguments. You will meet it on the internet, so you should know it, but it is not a word to use about a real person you are talking to.
組成snow + flake. snow is the frozen water itself; flake is a thin flat little piece that comes off something bigger — the same flake as in soap flakes or cornflakes. So: a thin flat piece of snow. Other Germanic languages built the word the same way (Dutch sneeuwvlok, German Schneeflocke).
同家族的字
- snowmansame snow — a person-shape made of snow
- snowballsame snow — a ball of snow
- cornflakessame flake — thin flat pieces, but of corn
原始詞典資料11 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。
snowflakenoun/ˈsnəʊ.fleɪk/
- 1
A crystal of snow, having approximate hexagonal symmetry.
- 2
Any of several bulbous European plants, of the genus Leucojum, having white flowers.
- 3
The snow bunting, Plectrophenax nivalis.
- 4
derogatoryslangSomeone who believes they are particularly unique and special.
- When I come home, one space monkey is reading to the assembled space monkeys who sit covering the whole first floor. “You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile.”
- 5
derogatoryslangSomeone hypersensitive to insult or offense, especially a young person with politically correct sensibilities.
- When have words ever hurt anyone? The triggered snowflakes at this liberal university are trying to literally murder our freedom of speech.
- Fox News pundits claim to be upset because companies are choosing to embrace the "holidays" rather than "Christmas" to avoid offending any liberal snowflakes.
- 6
medicineophthalmologysciencesA type of lesion that appears as scattered white-brown spots under high magnification light microscopy.
- Robertson and colleagues reported 10 patients in four families with lesions similar to those of stage I and stage II snowflake generation.
- The authors have recently analyzed a PMMA lens explanted because of snowflake degeneration in the dry and hydrated states.
- 7
Something that is unique in every presentation.
- MS is referred to as a “snowflake” disease because symptoms vary from person to person.
- 8
derogatoryslangA Caucasian person.
- Alright, snowflake, where's the dope?
另外 1 個記錄的用法
- 9
historicalSomeone (usually white) who was opposed to the abolition of slavery (Missouri, 1860s)
snowflakeverb/ˈsnəʊ.fleɪk/
- 1
To fall in the manner of a snowflake.
- Like a seagull swooping, the white figure of a victim snowflaked against the cliff and then plummeted down.
- 2
computingdatabasesengineeringTo arrange (data) into a snowflake schema.
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。