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If something is thinkable, a person can hold it in their mind as a real possibility — it can be imagined, considered, seriously entertained. Here is the honest thing about this word: in real English you will meet its opposite, unthinkable, ten or twenty times for every once you meet thinkable. Unthinkable is a very common everyday word ('war between them was unthinkable'). Thinkable on its own sounds , and it turns up mostly in philosophy, in argument, or in a deliberate answering-back move — where a writer takes something that used to be unthinkable and says it has now become thinkable. That is really its home: it marks a change, the moment an idea crosses from impossible-to-imagine into imaginable. So it usually needs a 'now', a 'suddenly', or a 'once' near it to make sense. If you simply mean that something is possible or , say possible or ; thinkable will sound strange there.
可想像的、想得到的、能被認真考慮的。日常英文幾乎只用反義的 unthinkable(不可思議、想都不敢想),thinkable 偏學術書面。
組成think + -able. The -able ending means 'can be done to' — a thinkable idea is one that can be thought. It came into English through Old French from Latin -bilis, which is why so many -able words (comfortable, considerable) feel more formal than their plain English cousins.
同家族的字
- unthinkablethe same word with un- in front; far more common in everyday speech
- thinkthe verb it is built on
- readablesame -able ending: can be read
原始詞典資料3 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。
thinkableadj/ˈθɪŋkəbəl/
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Able to be thought or imagined; conceivable.
- Marx held that a society from which all sources of conflict, aggression, and evil have been thus extirpated was not only thinkable, but was historically imminent.
- “Nothing can separate us; not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not threats, not even sin, not the thinkable or unthinkable can get between us,” it reads.
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rareMorally acceptable or legal.
thinkablenoun/ˈθɪŋkəbəl/
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human-sciencesphilosophysciencesSomething that can be thought about.
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。