- 1反美國精神的、不符合美國價值的（注意：這是指控用語，帶「你不算美國人」的攻擊性，不是中性的形容）
Said of an action, idea, or person that goes against what Americans generally think of as American values — freedom, fairness, loyalty to the country, the right to speak. But this word is almost never a neutral description. It is an accusation, and a loaded one. Calling something un-American is a way of saying it does not just disagree with me, it does not belong here — which makes it a strong political weapon, because it puts the other side outside the country rather than inside the argument. The word carries the memory of the House Un-American Activities Committee, a US congressional committee that from the late 1930s through the 1950s investigated Americans suspected of communist sympathies and ruined many careers on thin evidence. Because of that history, many Americans hear the word as a warning sign about the speaker, not about the person being accused. It keeps its capital A because America is a name, and it keeps the . You will also hear it lightly and jokingly — "Not liking baseball is un-American" — where the is the joke.
Un-American 用來形容一件事、一個想法或一個人，違背一般人心目中的美國價值，例如自由、公平、對國家的忠誠，以及發言的權利。這個詞幾乎不是中性的描述，而是指控，語氣很重。說某件事 un-American，等於說對方不只是跟我意見不同，而是「不屬於這裡」，所以它常被當成政治武器，把對方推到國家之外。
這個詞帶著歷史的記憶：美國眾議院的「非美活動調查委員會」在 1930 年代末到 1950 年代間，調查懷疑同情共產主義的美國人，很多人因為薄弱的證據而事業被毀。因此許多美國人聽到這個字時，會先懷疑說話的人。它要大寫 A，因為 America 是專有名詞，也保留連字號。有時也會被輕鬆地開玩笑使用，例如 「Not liking baseball is un-American」（不喜歡棒球是非美國的），這時誇張本身就是笑點。
組成un- ("not") + American. The un- is the old English prefix of negation, from Proto-Germanic *un-, going all the way back to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "not" — the same negative that sits inside no and not.
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。
un-Americanadj
- 1
Contrary to the principles, institutions or interests of the United States; anti-American.
- Besides, how can you talk about church politics? It would certainly be anti-Catholic and might easily become un-American.
- In 1959 ex-President Truman, never one to mince words, called the Committee the “most un-American thing in the country today.” Mr. Goodman strongly disagrees: “…unless one is prepared to blank out large and significant patches of our history, there is nothing un-American about the Un-American Activities Committee.”
- 2
informalIncivil, immoral.
- 3
Unrelated to America or the U.S.; untypical of U.S. mores or habits; non-American, not American.
- [About British filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock:] It’s not often addressed in criticism, but Hitchcock was un-American enough to dwell on the uneasiness or the unreliability of heroes.
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。