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单词 gnome
释义

gnome1

/nəʊm /
noun
1A legendary dwarfish creature supposed to guard the earth’s treasures underground.Elves and men and gnomes and goblins alike looked about in fear and confusion....
  • You do not have to discourse with fairies or elves, gnomes or trolls.
  • Before our modern era most people who had encounters knew that what they were dealing with were daemons, dragons, gnomes, fairies and trolls.
1.1A small garden ornament in the form of a bearded man with a pointed hat.I absolutely detest gnomes and the majority of people living in the big houses would not want gnomes in their gardens either....
  • We are walking up a woodland path and pause to look at a group of fly agarics; the red-and-white spotted ones popular with fishing gnomes in the gardens of suburbia.
  • The Front rescues gnomes from garden centres where they are insensitively placed among bottles of toxic garden chemicals.
1.2 informal A small ugly person: a grizzled gnome of a man...
  • Are you now saying that referring to members as gnomes is ruled out?
1.3 informal A person regarded as having secret or sinister influence in financial matters: the gnomes of Zurich...
  • It is said that even the bankers, known as the gnomes of Zurich because of the mounds of gold stored in underground vaults, have to relax.
  • The gnomes of Zurich chugged in at seventh while Milan notched up a distant 11 th place on the Jones Lang LaSalle index.

Derivatives

gnomish

/ˈnəʊmɪʃ / adjective ...
  • We discussed designing a robot avatar for the new world, but we were quickly divided about whether the robot should be modelled after a high elf wizard or a gnomish rogue.
  • These days the director of the Edinburgh International Festival is a dapper figure with three distinguishing features: shiny pate, gnomish beard, sober suit.
  • He has an almost gnomish manner, an unkempt beard that he scratches at absent-mindedly and a tumble of curly black hair that bobs as he talks.

Origin

Mid 17th century: from French, from modern Latin gnomus, a word used by Paracelsus as a synonym of Pygmaeus, denoting a mythical race of very small people said to inhabit parts of Ethiopia and India (compare with pygmy).

  • You would not really confuse a gnome with a pygmy, but the terms are closely related. It was probably the Swiss physician Paracelsus (c.1493–1541) who coined gnome as a synonym of Pygmaeus, the name given to a member of a mythical race of very small people believed to live in parts of Ethiopia and India. The gnomes of Zurich are Swiss financiers or bankers, thought of as having a sinister influence over international monetary funds. Former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson popularized the phrase in 1956: ‘All these financiers, all the little gnomes in Zurich and other financial centres about whom we keep on hearing’. Gnomic (early 19th century) meaning ‘clever but hard to understand’, as in ‘gnomic utterances’, is a different word. It comes from Greek gnōmē ‘thought, judgement’, which was related to gignōskein ‘to know’. See also naff

Rhymes

gnome2

/nəʊm / /ˈnəʊmi /
noun
A short statement encapsulating a general truth; a maxim.

Origin

Late 16th century: from Greek gnōmē 'thought, opinion' (related to gignōskein 'know').

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更新时间:2024/12/23 19:46:41