- 1居於劣勢的一方、不被看好的弱隊（也指總是被欺壓的弱者）。台灣體育播報常說「黑馬」，但要注意：黑馬強調「意外爆冷」，underdog 只是「賽前被看衰」，贏不贏是另一回事。
The underdog is the side everyone expects to lose — the weaker team, the smaller company, the candidate with no money. It is used constantly in sport ('Taiwan went in as underdogs'), and just as much in , business and stories. The feeling attached to the word is the interesting part: English speakers tend to like underdogs. 'Everyone loves an underdog' is a set phrase, and 'the underdog story' is a whole genre of film. So calling a team the underdog is not really an insult; it is closer to saying they have nothing to lose and the crowd is on their side. Teams even claim the label on purpose to take the pressure off. There is a second, older and sadder use, closer to the dictionary line: an underdog is a person who is always at the bottom and gets treated badly by those with power — 'he always stood up for the underdog'. That use is about injustice, not about odds. Note the article: you usually say 'the underdog' or 'an underdog', and the opposite is 'the favourite' — the one expected to win.
組成under- (below, losing) + dog. The picture is of two dogs fighting: the one pinned underneath is the underdog, the one on top the 'top dog'.
同家族的字
- top dogthe direct opposite from the same fighting-dogs image — the one on top, the winner
- dogthe same 'dog', used here in an old image of a dog fight
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。
underdognoun/ˈʌndəˌdɒɡ/
- 1
A competitor thought unlikely to win.
- They were the underdogs in the basketball competition.
- In Athens, the Americans are underdogs to the Chinese and the Canadians (the Canadians!)
- 2
Somebody at a disadvantage.
- Laszlo: Isn't it strange that you always happened to be fighting on the side of the underdog? Rick: Yes. I found that a very expensive hobby, too. But then I never was much of a businessman.
- 3
A high swing wherein the person pushing the swing runs beneath the swing while the person being pushed is at the forward limit of the arc.
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。