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Ullswater is the name of a lake in the Lake District, in the northwest of England. It is a proper noun, so it always takes a capital U and never takes 'the' — you go to Ullswater, you sail on Ullswater, not 'the Ullswater'. It is the second largest lake there, long, narrow and curved, running between steep hills, and it is one of the best known because of the walking and the boats. The name is worth a moment: most of the lakes in that area are called 'mere' or 'water' rather than 'lake' — Windermere, Grasmere, Ullswater, Derwentwater — which is why English speakers find 'Lake Windermere' slightly odd, and why there is a well-worn local joke that the Lake District contains only one actual 'lake' (Bassenthwaite Lake). For a student, the useful lesson is not the geography but the pattern: British place names often hide old words for the land, and 'water' here is one of them.
阿爾斯沃特湖,英格蘭西北部湖區(Lake District)的湖泊之一。台灣中文常直接音譯「阿爾斯沃特湖」,或說「英國湖區的湖」。注意英文名稱本身不帶 lake 一字。
組成Two pieces: a personal name — probably a Norse chief or landholder called Ulf or Ulfr — plus 'water', which in the north of England is a normal word for a lake. So roughly 'Ulf's lake'. The Vikings settled that region, and their language left many names behind.
同家族的字
- Derwentwateranother Lake District lake using the same '-water' meaning lake
- waterthe everyday English word, used in northern place names to mean a lake
原始詞典資料3 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。
Ullswatername/ˈʊlzˌwɔːtə/
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A long lake in Eden district, Cumbria, England, within the English Lake District, formerly divided between Cumberland and Westmorland.
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A community in the township of Muskoka Lakes, Ontario, Canada.
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A locality in the Shire of West Wimmera, western Victoria, Australia.
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。