- 1休戰、停戰（協議）；吵架時的「暫時停火、休兵」
A truce is an agreement between two sides who are fighting — armies, countries, gangs — to stop the fighting for a while. The key word is *for a while*. A truce is not peace. Peace means the fight is over; a truce means both sides put their weapons down for an agreed time and everyone knows they might pick them up again. Soldiers stop shooting so each side can carry away its wounded, or so people can bring food into a city, or because it is Christmas. The word covers both the agreement itself and the stretch of time it buys you: you can *call a truce*, *agree a truce*, *break a truce*, or something can happen *during the truce*. It is also very common in a smaller, softer way, and this is where your students will actually meet it. Two people who argue all the time — brothers, a married couple, two colleagues — can call a truce, meaning "let's stop this argument, at least for today." Said this way it is often half a joke, with hands held up: "Truce?" It is a slightly formal, slightly literary word, so using it about a small quarrel sounds dramatic, and that is part of the fun. Note that a truce is normally something both sides accept together; one side alone can *offer* a truce, but a truce that only one side keeps is not really a truce at all. Countable: *a truce*, *two truces*.
From the word’s history
From Middle English trewes, plural of trewe 'faithfulness, pact', from Old English trēow; related to true.
源自中古英文 trewes，是 trewe「承諾」的複數，和 true 同源。
組成Comes from Old English trēow, meaning "faith, a pledge, an agreement" — the same root that gives us true. Originally *truce* was a plural: several pledges, several promises. So the word literally carries the idea of promises given, not of fighting stopped. That is a nice thing to hold on to: a truce is built out of trust, which is exactly why breaking one is treated as so serious.
同家族的字
- trueBoth go back to Old English trēow / trȳw. True once meant "faithful, loyal to a promise" — as it still does in "a true friend" — and a truce is the promise itself.
- truthSame Old English root as true; the older sense was faithfulness to one's word before it settled into "what is factual".
- betrothContains the same Germanic root (troth = pledged faith); to betroth is to promise someone in marriage.
原始詞典資料3 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。
trucenoun/tɹuːs/
- 1
A period of time in which no fighting takes place due to an agreement between the opposed parties.
- An uneasy truce
- [I]n about ſix VVeeks or tvvo Months, the Dyſentery gave Truce, in vvhich Time I vvas often fretted vvith ſtrangurious Symptoms.
- 2
An agreement between opposed parties in which they pledge to cease fighting for a limited time.
- He asked for a truce with his school enemy for five days.
- They should meet that night on some neutral spot to ratify the truce.
truceverb/tɹuːs/
- 1
To come to an agreement to cease fighting.
- Only undaunted Henry de Tracey […] held up the cause; trucing at last, in loyal terms, till the king should become more powerful and be able in person to restrain the country.
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。