dreary

英['drɪərɪ] 美['drɪri]
  • adj. 沉闷的,枯燥的

词态变化


比较级: drearier;最高级: dreariest;副词: drearily;名词: dreariness;

助记提示


1、from dreor "blood"; from dreosan (past participle droren) "fall, drop, decline, fail,"; from PIE root *dhreu- "to fall, drop, flow, drip, droop".
2、The word has lost its original sense of "dripping blood.".
3、其它具有同源性的相关词:drizzle, drip, drop, droop, drowsy.
4. 枯 --》就是枯萎,因为干燥才会枯萎,燥 --》本身就是干燥的意思。所以枯燥本身就表示很干、干巴巴的意思,所以:dry + ear => drear => dreary => 听得耳朵都干巴巴的、听起来很“干”。
5. 谐音“赘而累”------累赘得让人很累。

中文词源


dreary 沉闷的

来自PIE*dhreu, 滴,掉落,词源同drip, drop. 原义为滴血的,引申义沉闷的,阴深的。

英文词源


dreary
dreary: [OE] In Old English, dreary (or drēorig, as it then was) meant ‘dripping with blood, gory’, but its etymological connections are with ‘dripping, falling’ rather than with ‘blood’. It goes back to a West Germanic base *dreuz-, *drauz- which also produced Old English drēosna ‘drop, fall’, probably the ultimate source of drizzle [16] and drowsy.

The literal sense ‘bloody’ disappeared before the end of the Old English period in the face of successive metaphorical extensions: ‘dire, horrid’; ‘sad’ (echoed in the related German traurig ‘sad’); and, in the 17th century, the main modern sense ‘gloomy, dull’. Drear is a conscious archaism, created from dreary in the 17th century.

=> drizzle, drowsy
dreary (adj.)
Old English dreorig "sad, sorrowful," originally "cruel, bloody, blood-stained," from dreor "gore, blood," from (ge)dreosan (past participle droren) "fall, decline, fail," from Proto-Germanic *dreuzas (cognates: Old Norse dreyrigr "gory, bloody," and more remotely, German traurig "sad, sorrowful"), from PIE root *dhreu- "to fall, flow, drip, droop" (see drip (v.)).

The word has lost its original sense of "dripping blood." Sense of "dismal, gloomy" first recorded 1667 in "Paradise Lost," but Old English had a related verb drysmian "become gloomy."

双语例句


1. a dreary winter's day
阴沉的冬日

来自《权威词典》

2. The otherwise dreary book is enlivened by some very amusing illustrations.
这本枯燥乏味的书幸亏加了一些精彩的插图才变得生动有趣.

来自《简明英汉词典》

3. His speech was dreary.
他的讲演枯燥乏味.

来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

4. So a dreary Monday afternoon in Walthamstow is nothing to write home about, right?
这么说,在沃尔瑟姆斯托度过的一个沉闷的周一下午没什么值得大书特书的,是吗?

来自柯林斯例句

5. She was tired of hearing the same dreary tale of drunkenness and violence.
她听够了那些关于酗酒和暴力的乏味故事.

来自《简明英汉词典》