- 1生硬做作、不自然（用於文筆、對話、氣氛）
Stilted describes language that is stiff, over-formal, and does not sound like a real person talking. The writer or speaker is trying too hard to be correct or impressive, and the result . Dialogue in a bad novel where nobody uses ; a speech translated too literally from another language; an email so polite it sounds like a machine wrote it — all stilted.
The key is the . Formal language at a funeral or in a contract is just formal, and nobody calls it stilted. It becomes stilted when the formality is too heavy for the situation, so the effort shows. Two old friends meeting for coffee and speaking in careful full sentences would be stilted.
It stretches past words to whole situations. A stilted conversation is one where nothing flows and both people are working hard — after an argument, or on a first meeting with someone's parents. A stilted atmosphere is awkward and unrelaxed. So it covers not only how something is said but how it feels to be in the room.
It is always a criticism, though a fairly gentle and educated-sounding one. You meet it most in book reviews, film reviews, and writing classes.
A useful comparison: stiff is the everyday word for the same idea; stilted is the word a uses. And there is a rarer literal use — a house built on stilts can be described as stilted — but almost nobody means that.
組成From stilt + -ed. Stilts are the long poles people strap to their legs to walk high above the ground — the walking is upright and tall, but stiff, careful, and clearly not natural. Language on stilts is exactly that: raised up, and unable to move easily.
同家族的字
- stiltthe same stilt — a tall pole for walking on; the image the adjective is built from
原始詞典資料4 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。
stiltedadj/ˈstɪltɪd/
- 1
Making use of or possessing a stilt or stilts, or things resembling stilts; raised on stilts.
- And laugh at this fantaſtic Mummery, / This antic Prelude of groteſque Events, / Where Dwarfs are often ſtilted, and betray / A Littleneſs of ſoul by Worlds o'er-run, / And Nations laid in blood.
- The state of husbandry is very far behind. The plough generally used is the single stilted one. In using this kind of plough, the ploughman bends towards the soil, and well merits the title of curvus arator, bestowed by Virgil on the Italian ploughman. [...] The two-stilted plough is beginning to be used; but the general opinion is against it.
- 2
Elevated or raised in a contrived or unnatural way; stiff and artificially formal or pompous; also, depending on redundant, unnecessary elements.
- He gave a stilted bow and left.
- Untutored intellects are pleased with its frothy sentiment and its florid language, just as young and uneducated eyes are delighted with the gaudy hues of coloured prints in aquatinta. But though the tinsel of this stilted prose greatly contributed to [Salomon] Gessner's success in this and in every other country where his work has been naturalized, the story was not less essentially in its favour.
- 3
architectureOf a building or architectural feature such as an arch or vault: supported by stilts (“supporting pillars or posts”); also (generally) having the main part raised above the usual level by some structure.
- In Winchester Cathedral and Romsey Abbey Church, we have examples of what is called the stilted or horse-shoe arch, which is where the curvature of the arch does not spring immediately from the capitals or imposts of the piers, but the extreme points of the semicircle are continued straight down below the spring of the curve before they rest on the imposts, thus giving the idea of an arch stilted or raised, and somewhat approximating in form that of a horse-shoe.
- The stilted arch was a good and much used expedient in ancient and modern times.
這個拼法也被記錄為下列字的變化形：
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。