喜樂美語

核心畫面

One flat layer settles, then another settles on top of it, and then another, until what you are looking at is a stack of bands. The band at the bottom got there first. Wherever something is built up in layers like that, this word fits: rock, soil, air, tissue, the plants in a forest, even the levels of a society.

可以想成這樣的畫面：一層東西平平地鋪下去，上面再鋪一層，再一層，時間久了就疊成一疊帶子。最底下那條通常是最早鋪的。只…更多收起可以想成這樣的畫面：一層東西平平地鋪下去，上面再鋪一層，再一層，時間久了就疊成一疊帶子。最底下那條通常是最早鋪的。只要某個東西是這樣一層一層堆起來、而且層跟層分得出來，stratum 就用得上——岩石、泥土、空氣、皮膚組織、森林裡的樹冠都可以，連社會也常被這樣描述。

From the word’s history

Latin stratum meant something spread out, such as a cover laid on a bed. It is the neuter form of stratus, from sternere, to spread. Spreading one cover over another gives the same picture as one layer resting on another.

拉丁文 strātum 的意思是「鋪開來的東西」，本來指鋪在床上的墊子，來自 sternō（鋪、攤開）。鋪好一張、再鋪一張，正好就是一層疊一層的畫面。英文的 street（鋪出來的路）是同一個來源長出的另一條路。

Supplied Wiktionary etymology for stratum (kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:403331243:28199): Latin strātum, neuter of strātus, participle of sternō (to spread); doublet of estrade and street.

Two branches

看得見的一層一層

這一群就是核心畫面本身：真的有東西一層層疊在那裡，切開就看得到。

noun · C1

A layer of rock or earth in the ground. Each stratum was laid down at a different time, so where the ground is cut open you can see them as bands lying one above another.

岩層／地層

社會裡的層

把一疊岩層的畫面借去看人群：收入、教育、影響力相近的人被想成同一層，層與層上下相疊。這是比喻上的連結，不代表字義上真的從地質學走過來。

noun · C1

One of the levels a society is divided into: a group of people who have a similar amount of money, education, or power. It is used most often in the plural, strata.

社會階層

原始詞典資料8 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。

stratumnoun/ˈstɹɑː.təm/

  • 1

    One of several parallel horizontal layers of material arranged one on top of another.

    • It is built of alternate strata of brick and clay, and the sides correspond to the direction of the meridians and parallels.
    • He describes the operation thus: "The heavy ram employed to impart the finishing strokes, hoisted up with double purchase and snail's pace to the summit of the Piling Engine, and then falling down like a thunderbolt on the head of the devoted timber, driving it perhaps a single half inch in to the stratum below, is well calculated to put to the test the virtue of patience, while it illustrates the old adage of—slow and sure."
  • 2

    geographygeologynatural-sciencesA layer of sedimentary rock having approximately the same composition throughout.

    • An illuminating article in a recent issue of the Eastern Region's Civil Engineering News points out that where coal is worked over a reasonably large area, it is not only the whole of the strata above the workings, but also an area beyond which is liable to subside at varying rates after the coal has been removed.
  • 3

    Any of the regions of the atmosphere, such as the stratosphere, that occur as layers.

  • 4

    biologynatural-sciencesA layer of tissue.

  • 5

    A class of society composed of people with similar social, cultural, or economic status.

  • 6

    biologyecologynatural-sciencesA layer of vegetation, usually of similar height.

  • 7

    computingengineeringmathematicsThe level of accuracy of a computer's clock, relative to others on the network.

    • Computers that synchronize themselves to the stratum 1 time servers are known as stratum 2 time servers if they allow others to synchronize to them, and so on.
  • 8

    human-scienceslinguisticssciencesA historical layer of a language.

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