- 1（象、海象、山豬的）長牙、獠牙。象牙製品那個「象牙」是 ivory，指材料；tusk 是長在動物身上的那顆牙本身，兩個字不要混。
A tusk is one of a pair of very long, pointed teeth that grow out past an animal's mouth and stay visible all the time — elephants have them, and so do walruses, wild boars, and narwhals. The key idea is that a tusk is a real tooth, not a horn: horns grow from the head, tusks grow from the jaw. That is why the word matters so much in news about wildlife, where elephants are killed for the ivory in their tusks. It is a countable noun, and because they usually come in twos you will often see the plural: 'its tusks', 'a pair of tusks'. There is also a rarer verb 'to tusk', meaning to dig or stab something with tusks, which you will mostly meet in nature writing rather than conversation.
組成From Old English tūsc, going back to Proto-Germanic *tunthskaz, 'canine tooth'. That is an extended form of the root that also gives us 'tooth', from the very old Indo-European word for tooth. So a tusk is, at heart, just a big tooth — the word has said so all along.
同家族的字
- toothboth grow from the same ancient root meaning 'tooth'; tusk is the extended form
原始詞典資料11 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。
Tuskname/ˈtuːsk/
- 1
A male surname from Kashubian
tusknoun詞源 1/ˈtʌsk/
- 1
One of a pair of elongated pointed teeth (either cuspids or incisors) that extend outside the mouth of an animal such as walrus, elephant or wild boar, and which continue to grow throughout the animal's life.
- Until the CITES sales ban, elephant tusks were the 'backbone' of the legal ivory trade.
- 2
A small projection on a (tusk) tenon.
- 3
A tusk shell.
- 4
businesscarpentryconstructionA projecting member like a tenon, and serving the same or a similar purpose, but composed of several steps, or offsets, called teeth.
- 5
A sharp point.
- 6
The share of a plough.
tuskverb詞源 1/ˈtʌsk/
- 1
To dig up using a tusk, as boars do.
- 2
To gore with the tusks.
- 3
obsoleteTo bare or gnash the teeth.
tusknoun詞源 2/ˈtʌsk/
- 1
An edible fish, Brosme brosme.
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。