喜樂美語
  1. 1警覺（性）、戒備

    Vigilance is careful, attention to what is going on around you, kept up because something bad might happen — danger, a crime, a mistake, a disease coming back. It is the noun for that state of watching. Two things make it different from ordinary 'attention'. First, it points outward and forward: you are watching for something that has not happened yet. Second, it lasts — you can pay attention for a second, but vigilance is attention held over time, which is why people talk about vigilance being , or slipping, or being relaxed. It is a fairly formal word. You meet it in news reports, safety notices, police and hospital language, and speeches: 'The public is urged to maintain vigilance.' In everyday talk people would just say 'keep an eye out' or 'be careful'. It is uncountable — say 'vigilance', 'more vigilance', not 'a vigilance'. Common partners: constant vigilance, increased vigilance, maintain / exercise / relax vigilance. There is also a well-known saying, 'the price of liberty is eternal vigilance', which is why the word often has a slightly noble ring to it.

From the word’s history

Via Middle French from Latin vigilantia.

源自拉丁文 vigilantia「警覺」。

Wiktionary

組成Borrowed from Middle French vigilance, from Latin vigilantia — from Latin vigil, 'awake'. The old idea inside the word is staying awake while others sleep.

同家族的字

  • vigilantthe adjective from the same Latin vigil, 'awake'
  • vigilsame Latin vigil — a night spent awake, watching or praying
  • vigilantesame root, but through Spanish, where it meant 'watchman'

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。

vigilancenoun/ˈvɪd͡ʒɪlɪns/

  • 1

    Alert watchfulness.

    • To-night she took her accustomed place; for, during the night, no vigilance could satisfy her but her own: any eye but hers might close in momentary forgetfulness.
    • I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields, in no very mild state of fear of that gentleman's wife, whose vigilance was seldom relaxed. And thus we came by a circuitous route to Mohair, the judge occupied by his own guilty thoughts, and I by others not less disturbing.
  • 2

    Close and continuous attention.

    • But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.
    • […] similarly, the empiriocritics' opposition to religion was a fraud intended to lull the vigilance of the proletariat and lead it by different paths in the same direction as religious mythology.
  • 3

    obsoleteA guard; a person set to watch.

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。