- 1揭穿、揭發（拆穿某人的真面目）
To show what someone really is when they have been pretending to be something else. The picture inside it is literal — pulling the mask off a face — and English keeps that drama when it uses the word for people: a spy is unmasked, a cheat is unmasked, a false prophet is unmasked. Two things travel with it. First, there was a deliberate disguise: you unmask a fraud, not an honest person who happened to be wrong. Second, the truth becomes public — an unmasking is done in front of others, so the word suits journalism, detective stories, and . You will often see the pattern 'unmask someone as something': 'he was unmasked as a police informer'. It also works on things, not just people, where it means to reveal a hidden nature — 'the report unmasked the scheme as a simple fraud' — and in medicine it has a quieter technical use, where a treatment can unmask a condition that was there all along but hidden. The literal sense still lives too: you can just unmask your face. It is a slightly dramatic, written-feeling word; in ordinary talk people say 'find out who he really was' or 'expose'.
組成un- + mask. Here un- does not mean 'not' — it means 'undo, reverse the action', the same un- as in undo, untie, and unlock. So unmask is to take the mask off.
原始詞典資料6 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。
unmaskverb/ʌnˈmæsk/
- 1
To remove a mask from someone.
- 2
To expose, or reveal the true character of someone.
- The Charieſt maide is prodigall enough, / If ſhe vnmaske hir beautie to the Moone.
- 3
To remove one's mask.
- But instead of a direct answer to so important a question, Jones began to be very importunate with the lady to unmask; and at length having prevailed, there appeared not Mrs Fitzpatrick, but the Lady Bellaston herself.
- 4
To cease engaging in masking, to cease disguising one's autism.
- […] to unmask and to assume her 'natural' role (rather than her 'fitting in' role).
- Autistic females are trying to adhere to social expectations placed upon them, and masking and blending to fit those expectations, […] How do you unmask when you have spent a [long time masking].
- 5
datedgovernmentmilitarypoliticsTo expose something that was concealed or shielded from an enemy.
- He recalled his horse. This, retiring, unmasked the heavy infantry, which Hannibal called in from either flank and sent with a vigorous élan in close column across the ford against the ill-arrayed barbarians, followed by the cavalry, which had formed again in its rear.
- In less than an hour the batteries were unmasked. The Confederate works were visible and at 5:08 a.m., Seymour ordered the batteries to commence firing.
- 6
computingengineeringmathematicsTo enable (an interrupt, etc.) by unsetting or setting the associated bit.
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。