喜樂美語
  1. 1獨處（多半是好的、自己選的那種一個人；不是「寂寞」，寂寞是 loneliness）

    Solitude is the state of being alone — and in English it usually carries a good feeling. It is the alone-ness you chose: a quiet morning with nobody in the house, a walk in the mountains, a room where you can finally think. Writers and musicians speak of needing solitude to work. The word is normally uncountable ('she needs solitude', 'in solitude'), though you will meet a plural in older, poetic writing. The important thing for a is the difference from 'loneliness'. Loneliness is being alone and hurting because of it; solitude is being alone and being fine, even glad. English keeps two words where Chinese often uses one, so the choice you make tells the listener how you feel. Solitude is a fairly formal word — in daily speech people say 'some time alone' or 'peace and quiet'. There is also a geographical use: a place can have solitude, meaning it is remote and empty of people. And one heavier phrase to know: 'solitary confinement' in prison is enforced aloneness, which is the opposite of the warm sense.

From the word’s history

From Middle English solitude, from Old French solitude, from Latin sōlitūdō; sole + -itude.

經古法文來自拉丁文 sōlitūdō，即 sole 加 -itude。

Wiktionary

組成From Latin sōlitūdō, from sōlus 'alone', with -tūdō, an ending that makes a noun of state (like -ness in English). English took it through Old French. By surface analysis: sole + -itude.

同家族的字

  • solitarythe adjective from the same sōlus — alone, single
  • solefrom sōlus — the only one
  • solothe Italian form of the same Latin word — performed alone
  • desolatefrom Latin desolare, to leave alone — abandoned, empty

原始詞典資料2 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。

solitudenoun/ˈsɒlɪˌtjuːd/

  • 1

    Aloneness; the state of being alone, solitary, or by oneself.

    • Now the New Year reviving old Desires, The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires, Where the White Hand of Moses on the Bough Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.
    • Cranks like Rousseau made solitude glamorous, but sensible people agreed that it was really terrible.
  • 2

    A lonely or deserted place.

    • Mark where his carnage and his conquests cease! He makes a solitude, and calls it — peace.
    • [S]uch an one […] recalls as a vision of Paradise the land he has learnt to love; he exaggerates the insalubrity of a northern climate; he bewails the wretched formality of our civilised life, and so, back to the distant solitudes flies his recollection like a dove to the wilderness.

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。