喜樂美語
  1. 1阻撓、挫敗（把別人正在進行的計畫擋下來）

    To stop someone from doing what they are trying to do, especially by getting in their way on purpose. If police thwart a robbery, the robbery does not happen because the police blocked it. The word carries two extra ideas that plain 'stop' does not. First, there was a plan, and the plan was moving — you thwart an attempt, a plot, an ambition, an escape, not an accident. Second, the person is left : their effort has been wasted. Because of this it is a favourite word of newspapers, where you constantly read 'police thwarted an attack' or 'the bill was thwarted in the senate'. It is formal, so in ordinary talk you would say 'we stopped them' or 'it didn't work out'. It also has a common passive use with no villain at all: 'his plans were thwarted by the weather' — here nothing chose to block him, things just went wrong. Note that it is normally the plan or the person's aim that gets thwarted, and that you cannot thwart something that has already happened.

組成From Old Norse þvert, meaning 'across, crosswise'. The picture is of lying across someone's path — putting yourself sideways in the way. English kept that image: to thwart is to cross someone. The same Norse root also gave us the noun 'thwart', the seat that lies across a rowing boat.

同家族的字

  • athwartthe same root — a formal word meaning 'across', still used at sea

原始詞典資料12 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。

thwartadj/θwɔːt/

  • 1

    Placed or situated across something else; cross, oblique, transverse.

    • Which elſe to ſeveral Sphears thou muſt aſcribe, / Mov'd contrarie with thwart obliquities, / Or ſave the Sun his labour, and that ſwift / Nocturnal and Diurnal rhomb ſuppos'd, / Inviſible elſe above all Starrs, the Wheele / Of Day and Night; […]
  • 2

    datedOf people: having a tendency to oppose; obstinate, perverse, stubborn.

    • […] harke Nature, heare deere Goddeſſe, ſuſpend thy purpoſe, if thou did'ſt intend to make this creature fruitful into her wombe, conuey ſterility, drie vp in hir the organs of increaſe, and from her derogate body neuer ſpring a babe to honour her, if ſhee muſt teeme, create her childe of ſpleene, that it may liue and bee a thourt diſuetur'd^([sic – meaning disnatured]) torment to her, […]
    • […] and it is without all controuerſie, that learning doth make the minds of men gentle, generous, maniable, and pliant to gouernment; whereas Ignorance makes them churliſh, thwart, and mutinous; […]
  • 3

    datedOf situations or things: adverse, unfavourable, unlucky.

thwartadv/θwɔːt/

  • 1

    obsoleteAcross the direction of travel or length of; athwart, crosswise, obliquely, transversely.

    • With adverſe blaſt up-turns them from the South / Notus and Afer black with thundrous Clouds / From Serraliona; thwart of theſe as fierce / Forth ruſh the Levant and the Ponent VVindes / Eurus and Zephir with their lateral noiſe, / Sirocco, and Libecchio.

thwartprep/θwɔːt/

  • 1

    archaicAcross, athwart.

thwartverb/θwɔːt/

  • 1

    To cause to fail; to frustrate, to prevent.

    • Our plans for a picnic were thwarted by the thunderstorm.
    • The police thwarted the would-be assassin.
  • 2

    obsoleteTo place (something) across (another thing); to position crosswise.

  • 3

    obsoleteTo hinder or obstruct by placing (something) in the way of; to block, to impede, to oppose.

  • 4

    obsoleteTo move (something) across or counter to; to cross.

    • An arrow thwarts the air.
    • Thither came Uriel, gliding through the Eeven / On a Sun beam, ſwift as a ſhooting Starr / In Autumn thwarts the night, […]

thwartnoun/θwɔːt/

  • 1

    nauticaltransportA seat across a boat on which a rower may sit.

    • The fisherman sat on the aft thwart to row.
    • When taking his seat in a boat, the learner should first observe that the thwart is firmly fixed, and that the mat upon it is securely tied to that part of it which is farthest from his rowlock.
  • 2

    nauticaltransportA brace, perpendicular to the keel, that helps maintain the beam (“breadth”) of a marine vessel against external water pressure and that may serve to support the rail.

    • A well-made dugout canoe rarely needs a thwart.
    • A conſiderable number of thwarts were laid from gunwale to gunwale, to which they were ſecurely laſhed on each ſide, as a ſtrengthening to the boat [a canoe].
  • 3

    rareAn act of thwarting; something which thwarts; a hindrance, an obstacle.

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。