小词详解 | wade
CET6 TOEFL TEM8
外刊例句
Who else besides Huawei would wade through malarial swamps in Africa and haul base stations up the flanks of Colombian mountains?
除了华为以外,还有谁会趟过非洲充满疟疾的沼泽地,并把基站拖上哥伦比亚的山腰?
——《经济学人》They wade through long lists of candidates, state by state, region by region.
他们面对一长串候选人,要逐州、逐地区地筛查。
——《纽约时报》
基本释义
[verb] walk through water or another liquid or soft substance
[动词] 蹚过水、其他液体或软物质
深入解读
Wade 一词源自古英语 wadan (前进、行进、大步走),现在主要表示在通过水、雪、泥沙等妨碍物时“艰难地行进、跋涉、蹚”,比如:
水浅的河我们可以蹚过去,水深的河就得游过去。
We can wade shallow rivers, but deeper ones we'll have to swim.有时他们得通过齐腰深的泥浆。
Sometimes they had to wade waist-deep through mud.
其衍生词 wader 除了表示“涉水者、跋涉者”和“涉水鸟”外,还常用复数 waders 表示涉水、捕鱼等时用的“高筒防水胶靴”。
生活中有很多类似涉水跋涉那般艰难行进的事,比如“费力地做(乏味或困难之事)”或“费劲地阅读(大量信息)”,这可以用动词短语 wade through sth 引申表达,比如:
我们在签合同之前必须费力地读完好几页的法律行话。
We had to wade through pages of legal jargon before we could sign the contract.
但如果把 through 换成 in 或者 into ,意思则大不一样,指的是“强行介入、插手、干涉(打架、讨论、争论等)”,尤指不计后果地,比如:
警察挥舞着警棍冲入人群。
The police waded into the crowd with batons.即使对事情一无所知,她也要插嘴说说自己的意见。
Even when she knows nothing about it, she wades in with her opinion.
另外在美式英语中, wade 还可以表示“在浅水中蹚水(玩耍)”,对应英式英语中的 paddle ,比如:
孩子们戏水去了。
The children have gone wading/paddling.
名著用例
I am in blood stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er.
我已经两足深陷于血泊之中,要是不再涉血前进,那么回头的路也是同样使人厌倦的。
出自莎士比亚最短的悲剧,也是他最受欢迎的作品之一《麦克白》(Macbeth)。该剧常被认为是他悲剧中最为阴暗、最富震撼力的作品,故事讲述利欲熏心的国王和王后对权力的贪婪以及最后被推翻的过程。
同近义词
paddle: walk with bare feet in shallow water
dabble: immerse (one's hands or feet) partially in water and move them around gently
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