- 1
A timeserver is someone who does just enough at work to get by and no more — putting in the hours, waiting for the day to end, the pay to arrive, the pension to come. It is an insult, and a fairly cutting one, because it says the person has no real interest in the job, only in surviving it. The word is old-fashioned and formal now; you are far more likely to meet it in a novel or a serious newspaper than in speech, where people would say something like 'he's just putting in time' or 'she's coasting'. There is an older and slightly different sense you may still run into in reading: a timeserver as someone who changes their opinions to suit whoever is in power at the moment — a person who serves the times rather than any principle. That sense is closer to the original one, and the lazy-worker meaning grew out of it. Both are . It is written timeserver or time-server; both are fine.
混日子的人;尸位素餐者(帶明顯貶意,指上班只等下班、只求安穩的人;書面語,口語很少用)
組成time + server, 'one who serves the time'. The bite is in that phrase: a good worker serves the work or the people, but this person serves only the clock — or, in the older sense, serves whatever the times happen to favour.
同家族的字
- timeservingthe adjective from the same compound — timeserving officials
- serverthe same 'one who serves', as in a restaurant server
- self-servingsame -serving pattern, and also disapproving: serving oneself rather than others
原始詞典資料4 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。
timeservernoun/ˈtʌɪmˌsəːvə/
- 1
A person who conforms to current opinions, especially for reasons of personal advantage; an opportunist.
- Another of Lilly's confidants was the time-server, John Gauden, who was distinctly anti-Laudian in outlook, but who nevertheless became Bishop of Worcester at the Restoration.
- 2
Someone who performs a job for the required time only, making a minimum of effort.
- 3
computingengineeringmathematicsA device, node or program that transmits the correct time to clients in a network.
- 4
obsoleteSomeone who honors their commitments only when it is personally easy to do so.
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。