- 1（古）奴隸；現代英文幾乎只用在片語 in thrall to ＝ 被…完全掌控、被…迷得無法自拔（可以是被壞勢力控制，也可以是被某人某物深深吸引）。
Thrall has two lives, and in modern English one of them has almost entirely taken over.
The old, literal one: a thrall was a slave, especially in Viking-age and Anglo-Saxon England. Historians still use it as a technical term for that particular class of unfree people, alongside the free farmers and the nobles. In this use it is a countable noun: 'the thralls worked the fields'.
The living one, and the one your students will actually meet: the fixed phrases 'in thrall to' and 'held in thrall by'. These mean completely controlled or by something — so gripped that you cannot break away. 'The country was in thrall to a single family.' 'She sat there, in thrall to his voice.' Notice the double edge: it can be sinister (a bad power controls you) or (something is so beautiful you cannot look away). Which one it is comes from the surrounding words, not from 'thrall' itself.
It is worth telling students : outside those phrases, 'thrall' is rare in ordinary modern English. Learn the phrase, not the bare noun. Say 'in thrall TO someone', with 'to' — that preposition is the part people get wrong.
A dictionary may also list it as an adjective meaning enslaved, but that use is archaic; you will only see it in old poetry.
組成From Old English þrǣl, borrowed from Old Norse þræll, 'slave'. Behind that is a Germanic word meaning a runner or gofer — someone who runs errands for another. The Vikings brought it into English, which is why it fits the Viking world so exactly.
同家族的字
- thraldomthrall + -dom, the state of being a thrall
- enthralen- ('put into') + thrall — literally to put someone into thrall; today it means to fascinate completely. Also spelled 'enthrall'
- enthrallingthe adjective from 'enthral' — so gripping you cannot look away
原始詞典資料6 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。
Thrallname
- 1
A surname.
thrallnoun詞源 1/θɹɔːl/
- 1
literarySlave; one under the control of another.
- My father was always a thrall to alcohol.
- My servant, which that is my thrall by right
- 2
The state of being under the control of another person.
- Today's kids are in thrall to their phones.
- Go: release him from the thrall of Hautia.
- 3
A shelf; a stand for barrels, etc.
thralladj詞源 1/θɹɔːl/
- 1
archaicEnthralled; captive.
- Rather than to live thrall, under the awe Of lordly lokes, wrapped within my cloke […]
thrallverb詞源 2/θɹɔːl/
- 1
literaryTo make a thrall; enslave.
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。