A useful picture: the surface you read something by. A face's skin colour and tone is the outward surface that people look at to judge health, mood, age — the visible outside that tells you what kind of thing you are looking at.
From the word’s history
From Old French complexion, from Latin complexiō "a combination, an encompassing", from complector "to entwine, to embrace". In medieval medicine a person's complexion was the particular mixture of the four humours that made up their constitution — and since that inner mixture was believed to show in the face, the word slid from "overall constitution" to "the look of the skin".
這個字來自拉丁文 complexiō「交織、混合而成的整體」（動詞 complector 是「纏繞、環抱」）。中世紀醫學認為一個人由四種體液依特定比例「調和」而成，那個調和出來的體質就叫 complexion；而體質好不好，古人相信會直接寫在臉上。於是這個字從「內在調和出的整體狀態」滑向「臉上看得到的那一層」。這段來歷剛好解釋了為什麼它今天既能講膚色、又能講一個政府的整體性格——它本來講的就是「混合而成的整體樣貌」，臉色只是它最看得見的出口。
Wiktionary (complexion < Old French < Medieval Latin complexiō); medieval humoral sense corroborated by Online Etymology Dictionary
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。
原始詞典資料6 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。
complexionnoun/kəmˈplɛkʃən/
- 1
The quality, colour, or appearance of the skin on the face.
- a rugged complexion
- a sunburnt complexion
- 2
The outward appearance of something.
- It was a little unfortunate that the fib unfibbed gave their consultations something the complexion of that close understanding which exists between penitent and confessor.
- 3
Outlook, attitude, or point of view.
- That minister was galbet, or admiral of the realm, very much in his master’s confidence, and a person well versed in affairs, but of a morose and sour complexion.
- But the purely marginal jottings, done with no eye to the Memorandum Book, have a distinct complexion, and not only a distinct purpose, but none at all; this it is which imparts to them a value.
- 4
obsoletemedicinesciencesThe combination of humours making up one's physiological "temperament", being either hot or cold, and moist or dry.
- Ne ever is he wont on ought to feed / But todes and frogs, his pasture poysonous, / Which in his cold complexion doe breed / A filthy blood […]
- “Indeed, sir,” answered the lady, with some warmth, “I cannot think there is anything easier than to cheat an old woman with a profession of love, when her complexion is amorous; and, though she is my aunt, I must say there never was a more liquorish one than her ladyship. […]
- 5
An arrangement.
- 1909, Ludwig Boltzmann, translated by Kim Sharp and Franz Matschinsky Second there is the level at which the energy or velocity components of each molecule are specified. He calls this a Komplexion, which we translate literally as complexion.
complexionverb/kəmˈplɛkʃən/
- 1
To give a colour to.
- From the pale refinement of her genteel heroine to the sallow complexioning of poor white trash, Stowe colors her narrative with the hues of the body.
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。