核心畫面

A pressing FORCE bearing down on something — pressure pushing on a thing hard enough to strain it or change its shape. From that one physical picture of 'pressure on a thing' grow all the others: pressure on the mind (worry), pressure put on an idea (emphasis), and extra push given to a syllable (the loud beat). Stress is always 'force pressing on something'.

可以想成一股「壓上去的力」:有東西用力按、壓、撐在另一個東西上,壓到它緊繃、甚至變形。從這個「力壓在物體上」的畫面,更多收起可以想成一股「壓上去的力」:有東西用力按、壓、撐在另一個東西上,壓到它緊繃、甚至變形。從這個「力壓在物體上」的畫面,長出其他所有意思——壓在心上的力(心理壓力)、壓在某個想法上的力(強調)、壓在某個音節上的額外力道(重音)。stress 始終是「一股施壓的力」。

From the word’s history

From Latin strictus 'drawn tight' (via distress/destresse), root sense of tightness/pressing; English stress keeps the 'pressing tension' core.

源頭可追到拉丁文 strictus「被拉緊」(經由 distress 一路而來),帶著「緊、壓」的根義;英文的 stress 保留了「壓力、張力」這個核心。

Online Etymology Dictionary (etymonline.com), 'stress' (aphetic of distress; ultimately Latin strictus 'drawn tight')

Four branches

物理的壓力:力壓在物體上

核心畫面本身:一股力實實在在地壓在某個東西上。

stress (physical force, engineering) · noun · B1

The physical force or pushing power that presses on an object and can change its shape.

應力 / 壓力

心理的壓力:壓在心上的力

把「力壓在物體上」搬到心理:工作、生活的問題像重量一樣壓著你,讓你緊繃、放鬆不下來。

stress (worry/pressure) · noun · B1

A worried feeling that stays with you because of problems in your work or life, making it hard to relax.

壓力

強調:把份量壓在某個重點上

把「施壓」用在說話上:你刻意把份量壓在某個想法或事實上,讓它凸顯、被人注意。

stress (verb, emphasize) · verb · B1

To say strongly that something is true or important so that people notice it.

強調

重音:壓在音節上的額外力道

把「施壓、加重」用在聲音上:在某個音節或某個音上多壓一點力,使它聽起來更響、更強。

stress (on a syllable or note) · noun · B1

The extra force or loudness given to one part of a word or one note in music, making it sound stronger.

重音 / 重讀

原始詞典資料16 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。

stressnoun/ˈstɹɛs/

  • 1

    biologynatural-sciencesA physical, chemical, infective agent aggressing an organism.

  • 2

    biologynatural-sciencesAggression toward an organism resulting in a response in an attempt to restore previous conditions.

  • 3

    natural-sciencesphysical-sciencesphysicsThe internal distribution of force across a small boundary per unit area of that boundary (pressure) within a body. It causes strain or deformation and is typically symbolised by σ or τ.

  • 4

    natural-sciencesphysical-sciencesphysicsForce externally applied to a body which cause internal stress within the body.

  • 5

    Emotional pressure suffered by a human being or other animal.

    • Go easy on him, he's been under a lot of stress lately.
    • Lazarus and Folkman’s transactional model of stress and coping describes psychological stress as “a particular relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her well-being” (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, p.19). According to these authors, the essence of inducing stress is how a person appraises the situation and whether he or she has the physical and mental ability to cope with the problem.
  • 6

    human-scienceslinguisticsphoneticsA suprasegmental feature of a language having additional attention raised to a sound, word or word group by means of of loudness, duration or pitch; phonological prominence.

    • lexical stress
    • phrase stress, prosodic stress
  • 7

    human-scienceslinguisticsphoneticsThe suprasegmental feature of a language having additional attention raised to a sound by means of loudness and/or duration; phonological prominence phonetically achieved by means of dynamics as distinct from pitch.

    • The shift from pitch to stress appears to happen before the other obliques begin merging in the Proto-Italic, Proto-Germanic, Primitive Irish, and Middle Indo-Aryan. But further investigation into the timeline of sound changes […] shows that, at least in Germanic, the oblique and core noun stems sound quite unpredictably different in all these families by the time of the crucial accent shift from pitch to stress. […] once a language becomes stress-sensitive, there seems to be a strong tendency in early Indo-European languages to shift the stress to the first syllable. This change happens shortly after the change to stress accent in Proto-Germanic, Proto-Italic, and Proto-Celtic, and even Thessalian, with evidence from Dybo's Law and Verner's Law left behind to show that sound changes happened after the changes to stress accent.
  • 8

    Emphasis placed on a particular point in an argument or discussion (whether spoken or written).

另外 1 個記錄的用法
  • 9

    distress; the act of distraining; also, the thing distrained.

stressverb/ˈstɹɛs/

  • 1

    To apply force to (a body or structure) causing strain.

  • 2

    To apply emotional pressure to (a person or animal).

  • 3

    informalTo suffer stress; to worry or be agitated.

  • 4

    To emphasise (a syllable of a word).

    • “Emphasis” is stressed on the first syllable, but “emphatic” is stressed on the second.
  • 5

    To emphasise (words in speaking).

  • 6

    To emphasise (a point) in an argument or discussion.

    • I must stress that this information is given in strict confidence.

這個拼法也被記錄為下列字的變化形:

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