1. 1報應;活該的下場。

    Comeuppance is the trouble that finally catches you when you have been , dishonest, or too proud — and other people feel you had it coming. It is what you deserve, not bad luck that could have happened to anyone. People say someone “got their comeuppance.” It has a story-book flavour: a little old-fashioned, more at home in talk and colourful writing than in a law court. Though actually, it started as a law idea: come up once meant to appear in front of a judge. The feeling underneath is the same: you cannot run forever; the bill comes.

core核心畫面

組成From come up (“to appear before a judge”) + -ance (the ending that turns a verb idea into a noun).

同家族的字

  • come upthe two-word verb this is built from — here, to appear, especially before a judge

原始詞典資料1 筆記錄

以下是外部詞典記錄的用法,摘錄並精簡格式,我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的;有些用法可能上面已經講過了。

comeuppancenoun/kʌmˈʌpəns/

  • 1

    Retribution or outcome that is justly deserved.

    • So when Brown's second wife turned out a reg'lar ternygrunt, I wa'n't in no wise upset, for he needed a comeuppance, an' he got it in her.
    • The Sunday edition of the principal morning paper even expressed some bitterness under the heading, "Gilded Youths of the Fin-de-Siecle"--this was considered the knowing phrase of the time, especially for Sunday supplements--and there is no doubt that from certain references in this bit of writing some people drew the conclusion that Mr. George Amberson Minafer had not yet got his comeuppance, a postponement still irritating.

摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary,已精簡格式;依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用,改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。