| 释义 |
Thermopylae|θɜːˈmɒpɪliː, -pɪlaɪ|
The name of a narrow pass on the north-east coast of Greece between Thessaly and Locris, the scene of a battle in 480 b.c. in which a small Greek force temporarily withheld a Persian invasion; used transf. and fig. with reference to heroic resistance against strong opposition.
1928A. Huxley Point Counter Point xxix. 471 E. talked a lot about Thermopylae and the Spartans. But my resistance was even more heroic. Leonidas had three hundred companions. I defended my spiritual Thermopylae single-handed against E. and his Freemen. 1929J. Buchan Courts of Morning iii. iii. 335 I'm going to try the Themopylae stunt... Our Thermopylae is going to be a more cunning affair than the old one. 1955in R. Megarry Second Miscellany-at-Law (1973) 157 It courageously held the line of reason at the Thermopylae of logic and did not give way at the Gettysburg of fact. 1967C. Seton-Watson Italy from Liberalism to Fascism iii. 125 A column of 500 Italian troops had been wiped out by several thousand Ethiopians at Dogali, after fighting almost to the last man and the last round. This ‘Italian Thermopylae’ caught the public imagination. 1972V. G. Kiernan Lords of Human Kind (ed. 2) p. xxiv, The consequence has been Vietnam's Thermopylae of twenty years. |