| 释义 |
escalate, v.|ˈɛskəleɪt|
[Back-formation f. escalator.]
1. a. trans. To climb or reach by means of an escalator. b. intr. To travel on an escalator.
1922Granta 10 Nov. 93/2, I dreamt I saw a Proctor ‘escalating’, Rushing up a quickly moving stair. 1927Atlantic Monthly Jan. 48/1 With almost incredible ingenuity we ward off the bumps, plane the sharp corners, ‘escalate’ the heights. 1959Observer 21 June 14/6 Why does other people's luggage always look so neat and articulate as it comes escalating along at the airport?
2. fig. (trans. and intr.). To increase or develop by successive stages; spec. to develop from ‘conventional’ warfare into nuclear warfare.
1959Manch. Guardian 12 Nov. 1/1 The possibility of local wars ‘escalating into all-out atomic wars’. 1961Economist 28 Oct. 317/2 Using tactical nuclear weapons which would be likely to escalate hostilities into a global nuclear war. 1962Listener 29 Mar. 543/2 To keep the Communists from escalating the war to a stage in which they are capable of..taking over the reins of local government themselves. Ibid. 549/1 Something short of a deliberate Soviet attack, some sort of accident, some sort of border incident, will escalate so rapidly into nuclear war that we shall be unable to stop it. 1963Horizon (U.S.) July 37/1 The wish of the author to magnify or escalate (favorite new word in Washington) the importance of a trivial utterance by grandiloquent terminology. 1963Oxf. Mail 26 July 6/9 Peace as well as war, can escalate. 1966Punch 28 Sept. 482/2 The animal book boom is terrific and still escalating. 1967Listener 3 Aug. 131/3 Only a tiny percentage of cannabis-smokers escalate to heroin. 1970Guardian 4 June 12/1 The National Council has before it a demand to ‘escalate Palestinian action in all fields’. |