喜樂美語

Think of the short piece of steel between two railway carriages. Before it is closed, there are two separate things; after it is closed, there is one train, and whatever the engine does, the back carriage feels. That single picture holds the whole word, and it splits in exactly two directions. Look at the piece of metal and you get the part — the coupling you can check, tighten and replace. Look at what the piece of metal achieves and you get the state — two things now joined, so that one moving means the other moves too. Every later use is one of those two, carried somewhere else: to two dances on a concert programme, to two bodies, to two blocks of code, to two circuits on a board.

可以想成兩節火車車廂中間那一小段鋼。扣上之前，是兩個各自獨立的東西。扣上之後，是一列火車——車頭做什麼，最後一節都感覺得到。這一個畫面就撐起了整個字，而且它只往兩個方向長。看著那塊鋼本身，你得到的是「零件」：可以檢查、可以鎖緊、會鬆掉、要更換的那個接頭。看著那塊鋼造成的結果，你得到的是「狀態」：兩個東西現在連在一起了，所以一邊動，另一邊就跟著動。後面所有的用法，都是這兩者其中之一被搬到別的地方：搬到節目單上的兩首舞曲、搬到兩個身體、搬到兩塊程式碼、搬到板子上的兩個電路。看到這個字的時候，先問自己一句：這裡講的是那個接點，還是被接起來之後的狀態？

From the word’s history

From Middle English couplynge; couple + -ing. The -ing form of an action verb names either the action itself or the thing that performs it, which is exactly the two-way split the modern word still has.

來自中古英文 couplynge，構造就是 couple 加上 -ing。couple 本來的意思是「一對、把兩個湊成一對」。動詞加 -ing 變成名詞的時候，可以指那個動作，也可以指做那個動作的東西。這個字今天分成「接合這件事」和「接頭那個零件」兩支，正好就是這個構造直接的結果。

Wiktionary entry for coupling (etymology_text supplied in evidence packet: 'From Middle English couplynge; equivalent to couple + -ing', kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:1062295485)

登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。

容易混在一起的字在訂閱裡。容易混在一起的字需要訂閱帳號。

同家族的字

複數 couplings

意思相反

separationisolationuncouplingdecouplingsplitindependence

原始詞典資料8 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。

couplingnoun/ˈkʌplɪŋ/

  • 1

    The act of joining together to form a couple.

    • It is the first British yard in which every activity of hump marshalling, except for the driving of the hump locomotive and the uncoupling and coupling of wagons, is fully automatic or drastically simplified by modern aids.
  • 2

    A device that couples two things together.

  • 3

    computingengineeringmathematicsThe degree of reliance between two or more software modules.

    • The lack of coupling means that the elements of our system are better isolated from each other and from change. This isolation makes it easier to understand each element of the system.
  • 4

    businesselectrical-engineeringelectricityA connection between two electronic circuits such that a signal can pass between them.

  • 5

    natural-sciencesphysical-sciencesphysicsThe property of physical systems that they are interacting with each other

  • 6

    lifestylesexualityAn act of sexual intercourse.

    • The biggest film of March 1992 was “Basic Instinct,” an erotic thriller featuring an established movie star in explicit onscreen couplings with a sexy up-and-comer.
  • 7

    A link between the performance of an action and the location where that action occurs or the method used to perform that action.

    • It seems just as likely, though, that it simply never occurred to him to think about crime as something so tightly tied to place. Literary theorists and bridge engineers and police chiefs struggle with coupling.

這個拼法也被記錄為下列字的變化形：

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。