【英语学习】【WOTD】prodigous 释义/词源/示例

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prodigious podcast

prodigious adj. [pruh-DIJ-us]

adj. 巨大的；惊人的；奇异的

Definition

1: resembling or befitting a prodigy: strange, unusual
1：像奇迹的，适合于天才的：奇怪的，不寻常的

2: causing amazement or wonder
2：导致惊奇或者奇迹的

3: extraordinary in bulk, quantity, or degree: enormous
3：在体量，数量或者程度方面超乎寻常的：同义词enormous

注：prodigy：惊人的事物，奇迹，神通，天才；befit：适合，适宜，对…适当

Did You Know?

Prodigious, monstrous, tremendous, and stupendous all mean extremely impressive. Prodigious suggests marvelousness exceeding belief, usually in something that is felt as going far beyond a previous maximum of goodness, greatness, intensity, or size (“acrobats performing prodigious aerial feats”). Monstrous implies a departure from the normal in size, form, or character (“a monstrous billboard”); it can also suggest that someone or something is ugly, cruel, or vicious(“a monstrous criminal”; “a monstrous crime”). Tremendous and stupendous both imply a power, the former to terrify or awe (“the singer has tremendous talent”), the latter to stun or astound(“the young cast gave a stupendous performance”). prodigious and related noun prodigy derive from the Latin prodigium, meaning “omen” or “monster”; at one time, both words were used in English to refer to portents, or omens, but these senses are now considered obsolete.

词源词根演化：prodigium (“omen” or “monster”) —> prodigious (adj.) / prodigy (n.)

prodigious，monstrous，tremendous和stupendous这四个词都含有“极端地令人印象深刻的”意味。prodigious蕴含着超乎常识的奇迹，通常令人感觉超越了先前对精彩，伟大，强度或尺寸的最大值的认知（例如“杂技演员令人惊异的空中表演”）。monstrous‘暗含着超过正常的大小，形状或特征（“硕大无比的广告牌”）；这个词也有“丑陋，残暴，恶毒”这样的意味（“恶魔般的罪犯”，“凶残的犯罪”）。tremendous与stupendous都暗示某种力量，前者令人害怕或者敬畏（“这个歌手具有令人敬畏的才华”），后者令人目瞪口呆或者惊骇（“这个年轻演员做了令人吃惊的表演”）。prodigious及其相关的名词prodigy，衍生自拉丁单词prodigium，意思是“预示”或者“怪兽”，这两个词在英语中都曾经表示过“预兆，征兆”，但是这些意思现在都认为是过时的了。

注：feat：技艺，功绩；billboard：广告牌；vicious：恶毒的；stun：令人目瞪口呆；omen：预示，征兆；portent：前兆，预示；

Examples

• “Along with John Ashbery, his elder by two months, Mr. Merwin was one of the defining American poets of his generation, a prodigious and prolific talent who wrote two dozen books of poetry as well as story collections, memoirs, plays and acclaimed translations.”
  — Harrison Smith, The Washington Post, 15 Mar. 2019

  与Joh Ashbery一起，比他大两个月，Merwin先生是他那个时代的代表性的诗人，具有a 令人惊奇且多产的才华，他写了24本书，包括诗集，以及小说集，回忆录，戏剧和备受赞誉的翻译作品。

• “What you may have yet to encounter, or haven’t fully noticed yet, is the growing group of current medical students who are perhaps on track to achieve even greater fame, through their a prodigious and aggressive use of social media, particularly Instagram.”
  — Vishal Khetpal, Slate, 29 Nov. 2018

  或许你还没碰到，或者还没有完全意识到，现在成长中的医学院学生正在获得更大的名声，主要通过他们神奇且积极地使用社交媒体，尤其是Instagram。