本文经授权转载自微信公众号:田间小站
IELTS SAT TEM8 GRE
外刊例句
- Rainwater can be “harvested” or may seep into the ground to replenish an aquifer.
雨水可以被“收集”或渗入地下而补充地下含水层。
——《经济学人》 - You could work through each component individually, or you could let the egg yolk seep toward your beef while you sop up everything with your bread.
你可以单独处理每个部分,也可以让蛋黄渗向牛肉,同时用面包吸干所有东西。
——《纽约时报》
基本释义
[verb] (of a liquid) flow or leak slowly through porous material or small holes
[动词] (指液体)通过多孔材料或小孔缓慢流动或泄漏
深入解读
Seep 是一个只比小站(微信公众号:田间小站)在熟词僻义栏目中推送过的 steep 少一个字母的单词,两者可以一并联想记忆。
从词源上来看, seep 可能根本上源自古英语 sipian (渗),最早出现于1790年用来表示“渗、渗透、渗漏”,主要指液体通过多孔材料或小孔、细孔等缓慢而少量地流动或泄漏到不该流入的地方,比如:
- 水从墙里沁出。
Water seeps out of the wall. - 从汉福德受污染的土地里渗出的有毒物质很快就在水中稀释了。
The poisons seeping from Hanford's contaminated land quickly dilute in the water.
从这个概念出发, seep 常用来引申指秘密、疼痛、不快的情感等“逐渐外泄、逐渐释放、渐渐消失、渐渐消耗”,比如:
- 疼痛渐渐消失了。
Gradually the pain seeped away. - 正席卷欧洲的种族主义浪潮逐渐渗透到英国
The tide of racism which is sweeping Europe seeps into Britain.
名著用例
It was a painful and bewildering time, in which the love of my parents disintegrated under the joint weight of their new baby and of my aunt's age-old grievances; and gradually the confusion and ruin seeped out through the windows of the house and took over the hearts and minds of the nation, so that war, when it came, was wrapped in the same fuddled haze of unreality in which we had begun to live.
这段时间既令人痛苦又叫人迷茫,我父母之间的感情在新怀的孩子以及我姨妈多年积怨的双重压力下就此破裂。这种慌乱和毁灭的气息渐渐地从屋子的窗缝里钻出去,传染到了全国人民的心里。因此,当战争爆发时,整个国家似乎也笼罩在那种令人糊涂的虚幻的雾气中,我们原先正是在这种虚幻的雾气中开始生活的。
出自印裔英国作家萨尔曼·鲁西迪(Salman Rushdie,又译萨尔曼·拉什迪)在1981年出版的长篇小说《午夜之子》(Midnight's Children)。
同近义词
- ooze: (of a fluid) slowly trickle or seep out of something; flow in a very gradual way
- trickle: (of a liquid) flow in a small stream
- exude: discharge (moisture or a smell) slowly and steadily