- 1（形容遊樂設施、經歷）緊張刺激到讓人手心冒汗、抓緊不放的；white-knuckle ride 常譯「刺激驚險的遊樂設施／驚險歷程」
Describes something so and that you grip hard and hold on tight — a white-knuckle ride at a theme park, a white-knuckle drive down a mountain road, a white-knuckle finish to a football match. The mixture of fear and thrill is the whole point: a white-knuckle ride is scary in a way people pay for. It goes in front of a noun (a white-knuckle ride, a white-knuckle moment, white-knuckle stuff), and 'white-knuckle ride' is by far the commonest phrase, used both literally about roller coasters and about anything tense — 'the last month of the project was a white-knuckle ride'. You will also hear the -ing form 'white-knuckled' describing a person: he sat white-knuckled in the passenger seat. Informal, and common in both British and American English.
From the word’s history
Evokes tightly clenched hands with whitened knuckles.
緊握時血色退去、指節發白，用來比喻緊張害怕。
組成white + knuckle. Your knuckles are the bumps on the back of your hand where the fingers bend. Grip something hard enough and the blood is squeezed out, so the skin over them turns white. The word is that picture: hands clenched tight in fear.
同家族的字
- knucklethe finger joint itself — the same word, unchanged
- knuckle downan unrelated meaning (to start working hard) but the same knuckle
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。
white-knuckleadj
- 1
Causing fear, excitement, apprehension, suspense, or nervousness.
- "No surprise given both Bellamy and White share - or have inherited - Hendrix's unique blend of experimental instincts and white-knuckle showmanship," said Mr Goldsmith.
- BP said its capped-off well appeared to be holding steady Friday morning, almost midway into a white-knuckle waiting period in which engineers watched the pressure gauges for signs of a leak.
white-knuckleverb
- 1
To endure despite feeling terror, fear, apprehension, anxiety, discomfort, or torment.
- The rest of the drive home I white knuckled it.
- “I white-knuckled it down there. Went as fast as I could. I didn't tell anyone I was going. When I got there, they wouldn't let me in. Because I wasn't family.”
- 2
To grip tightly in fear, apprehension, suspense, or nervousness.
- That lifting sensation is so strong, I inadvertently feel myself white-knuckling the hand grips.
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。