- 1打不破的、堅不可摧的(東西);也用於誓約、情誼、紀錄,如 unbreakable bond 牢不可破的情感。
Unbreakable means it cannot be broken. The plain physical use is about objects that survive being dropped or hit: unbreakable glass, unbreakable plates for small children, an unbreakable phone case. Be honest with students about how this is really used — much of the time it is advertising language, and 'unbreakable' in a shop means 'very hard to break', not literally impossible. The second use is just as common and more interesting: things that are not objects at all but that we imagine as things that could snap. An unbreakable promise, an unbreakable bond between two people, an unbreakable habit, an unbreakable record in sport (nobody will ever beat it), an unbreakable code (nobody can read it). In each case English is treating a promise or a friendship like a stick or a rope. There is also 'unbreakable spirit' — a person who cannot be crushed. The word is ordinary in level, at home in both writing and speech.
From the word’s history
From un- + break + -able.
un-(不)加 break(打破)加 -able(能)。
組成un- + break + -able. Three pieces, each doing simple work: -able means 'can be done to it', break + -able means 'can be broken', and un- turns the whole thing over. Break is a very old Germanic word, cousin to German brechen; -able came in from Latin through French, which is why an English root and a Latin ending sit together in one word here — extremely common in English.
同家族的字
- breakthe root verb
- breakablethe same word without un-, its exact opposite
- unthinkablethe identical un- + verb + -able pattern
- unbelievablesame pattern again — un- + verb + -able
原始詞典資料4 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。
unbreakableadj
- 1
Difficult or impossible to break and therefore able to withstand rough usage.
- unbreakable comb
- His 14 singles titles still look like a typo even for those like me who have watched him build that probably unbreakable record, red brick by red brick.
- 2
Resilient.
- the unbreakable spirit of the rebels
- 3
Not able to be broken in.
unbreakablenoun
- 1
Something that cannot be broken.
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。