- 1
Not showing feelings. An unemotional person keeps a flat, calm face and a flat voice even when something big is happening — a death, a fight, very good news. Note carefully: it is about what shows on the outside, not about what is inside. An unemotional man at a funeral may be breaking inside; we only mean that nobody watching could tell. You can also call a thing unemotional, not just a person: an unemotional voice, an unemotional reply, an unemotional description of the accident. Here it means the words carry no feeling — just the facts, said straight. This is where the word gets interesting, because the same behaviour can be praised or criticised depending on who is speaking. A judge, a doctor, a news reporter is supposed to be unemotional, and there it is close to 'fair, not led by feelings'. But say it about a friend, a parent, a partner, and it usually means cold — you wanted them to react and they gave you nothing. English has softer neighbours (calm, cool-headed) and harsher ones (cold, ); unemotional sits in the middle and takes its colour from the sentence around it. It is a slightly formal, written-sounding word; in everyday speech people are more likely to say 'he didn't show any emotion' or 'he showed no reaction'.
不動聲色的、面無表情的;(語氣)平淡不帶感情的。注意這是「看不出情緒」,不等於「沒有情緒」,中文若直接說「無情」會太重,那比較接近 cold/heartless。
組成un-(不)+ emotion(情緒)+ -al(形容詞字尾)。emotion 從法文進來,更早是拉丁文 movere「移動」加上 e-「向外」——情緒本來的意思就是「心被往外推動」。所以 unemotional 字面上是「沒有被推動的樣子」。
原始詞典資料2 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。
unemotionaladj
- 1
Showing little or no feeling.
- an unemotional person
- 2
Reasoned and objective, involving reason or intellect rather than feelings.
- On a side note, I would like to also point out that when Mike was asked about what to do about a losing position, he replied that the trader must analyze the situation and make an unemotional decision.
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。