本文经授权转载自微信公众号：田间小站
考研 TOEFL TEM4 TEM8 GRE
外刊例句
- As the downtown streets emptied of workers, homelessness and public drug use became more conspicuous and intrusive.
随着市中心街道上的上班族越来越少，无家可归和公共场所吸毒越发惹眼和猖獗。
——《经济学人》 - He was shooting on 35 mm rather than in large formats; he disdained the tripod, abjured conspicuous lighting.
他用35毫米而非大画幅拍摄；他蔑视三脚架，摒弃显眼的灯光。
——《纽约时报》
基本释义
[adjective] clearly visible
[形容词] 清晰可见的
深入解读
Conspicuous 是一个与小站（微信公众号：田间小站）推送过的 assiduous 同形容词后缀 -uous （有……性质的、属于……的、有……的）的单词，两者可以一并联想记忆。
从词源上来看， conspicuous 一词源自拉丁语 conspicere （看、观察、注意），最早于16世纪40年代由拉丁语 conspicuus （可见的、公开可见的；引人注目的）进入英语，也是用来表示“易见的、显眼的、明显的、显著的”以及“惹人注目的、值得注意的”，主要适用于对眼睛或大脑显而易见且不可避免的东西，特别是因其独特性而在视觉上或脑海里留下深刻印象的事物。比如：
- 一个显而易见的优点
a conspicuous advantage - 坐在我改装过的碰碰车里，我感到十分惹人注目。
I felt very conspicuous in my modified bumper car. - 后来到做扫除时，本应在场的哈里却因为不在而引起了注意。
When it came to cleaning up afterwards, Harry was conspicuous by his absence.
惹人注目的东西通常要么亮丽出色，要么俗丽浮夸。因而 conspicuous 既可以褒义指“显著的、出色的”，也可以贬义指“炫耀的、摆阔气的”，后者常以明显有伤大雅为特征。比如：
- 非凡的勇敢
conspicuous bravery - 炫耀性消费/花费
conspicuous consumption/expenditure
名著用例
She would not make herself conspicuous by waiting on the spot, and she started to get past the church into the lane.
她不愿等在屋子的前面，免得引起别人注意，所以就绕过教堂，向一条篱路里走去。
出自英国小说家托马斯·哈代的长篇小说《德伯家的苔丝》（Tess of the d'Urbervilles）。
同近义词
- evident: clearly seen or understood; obvious
- overt: done or shown openly; plainly apparent
- flagrant: (of an action considered wrong or immoral) conspicuously or obviously offensive
