核心畫面

You can picture a tunnel as a long hollow passage bored straight through solid earth — a tube-shaped hole under a hill or river that you can travel through from one side to the other.

可以把 tunnel 想成一條穿過實心土石的長長中空通道——像一根埋在山下或河底的管子,鑽進一頭就能從另一頭出來。

From the word’s history

Tunnel comes (early 15c.) from Old French 'tonel,' a diminutive of 'tonne' (a barrel/cask). It first meant a funnel-shaped net for catching birds, then a 'tube or pipe' (1540s), and only later an 'underground passage' (1660s). The thread running through is the hollow tube shape — a barrel is a hollow tube, and so is a tunnel.

tunnel 約在十五世紀初來自古法語 tonel,是 tonne(大木桶)的小稱。它最早指捕鳥用的漏斗形網子,後來變成「管子、水管」(1540 年代),再晚才指「地下通道」(1660 年代)。一路串起來的就是「中空的管狀」這個形狀——木桶是中空的管,隧道也是。

etymonline: tunnel (Old French tonel, dim. of tonne 'cask'; 'tube' 1540s, 'underground passage' 1660s)

Two branches

通道本身(名詞)

名詞:那條中空的長通道本身,不管是給人車走的,還是動物挖來住的。

underground passage · noun · B1

A long passage dug under the ground or through a hill, so that cars, trains, or people can go through.

隧道

挖出通道(動詞)

動詞:做出那條通道的動作——一路挖、一路鑽,把中空的路挖出來。

dig a passage · verb · B1

To dig a long passage under the ground or through something.

挖隧道/挖地道

原始詞典資料14 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。

Tunnelname

  • 1

    A locality in the City of Launceston, northern Tasmania, Australia.

tunnelnoun/ˈtʌn(ə)l/

  • 1

    An underground or underwater passage.

    • In 1865 an outfit called the East London Railway Company bought the Brunel tunnel for £800,000, and in 1869 they opened a railway through it.
  • 2

    A passage through or under some obstacle.

    • But very soon he grew to like it, for the Boy used to talk to him, and made nice tunnels for him under the bedclothes that he said were like the burrows the real rabbits lived in.
    • Tunnels often feature in fictional journeys, so I will end with quotations from a fairly recent novel, Howard Spring's "Fame is the Spur", published in 1940, in which there is a journey from Manchester to Bradford via the Calder Valley route: "Ay, we're going through Todmorden. We'll soon be in t' tunnel, and when we get to t' other end we'll be in Yorkshire," and "Ah think this is t' filthiest tunnel in t' world."
  • 3

    A hole in the ground made by an animal, a burrow.

  • 4

    computingengineeringmathematicsA wrapper for a protocol that cannot otherwise be used because it is unsupported, blocked, or insecure.

  • 5

    A vessel with a broad mouth at one end, a pipe or tube at the other, for conveying liquor, fluids, etc., into casks, bottles, or other vessels; a funnel.

  • 6

    The opening of a chimney for the passage of smoke; a flue.

    • And one great chimney, whose long tonnell thence, / The smoke forth threw
  • 7

    businessminingA level passage driven across the measures, or at right angles to veins which it is desired to reach; distinguished from the drift, or gangway, which is led along the vein when reached by the tunnel.

  • 8

    Anything that resembles a tunnel.

    • Especially in the Eden Valley, trees create what is almost a green tunnel (particularly in summer).

tunnelverb/ˈtʌn(ə)l/

  • 1

    To make a tunnel through or under something; to burrow.

    • The 1955 Act gave powers for compulsory acquisition of "easements", or permission to tunnel beneath dwelling houses instead of, as had previously been necessary, following approximately the course of surface roads.
    • The 6.5km route is agreed from a junction with the relief lines of the Great Western main line to the west of Slough, the new link would tunnel under the M25 to reach Heathrow's Terminal 5 station, where space has been set aside to accommodate services from the west.
  • 2

    To dig a tunnel.

  • 3

    computingengineeringmathematicsTo transmit something through a tunnel (wrapper for an insecure or unsupported protocol).

  • 4

    medicinesciencesTo insert a catheter into a vein to allow long-term use.

  • 5

    natural-sciencesphysical-sciencesphysicsTo undergo the quantum-mechanical phenomenon where a particle penetrates through a barrier that it classically cannot surmount.

資料來源:英文維基詞典 English WiktionaryCC BY-SA 4.0)。 原文照列,未經改寫。