喜樂美語

You can picture pulling one single person out of a crowd and looking at just them, on their own, apart from the group. That single, separate one is the heart of the word — whether you point at the person (a noun) or use it to describe something as belonging to just that one (an adjective).

可以想成從人群裡把單獨一個人拉出來，只看他一個、跟整個群體分開。那個「單獨、分開的一個」就是這個字的核心——不管你是指著那個人（名詞），還是用它來形容某樣東西只屬於那一個（形容詞）。

From the word’s history

The Latin root 'individuus' means 'not divisible' — what cannot be split into smaller parts. A group can be divided into people, but the single person is the point where dividing stops.

拉丁字根 individuus 的意思是「不可再分的」——分到不能再分的那一個。一個群體可以被分成一個個人，而「單獨一個人」正是分割停下來的那一點，這也呼應了「個體」的核心畫面。

Oxford English Dictionary / Online Etymology Dictionary (etymonline)

登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。

同家族的字

複數 individuals

原始詞典資料7 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。

individualnoun/ɪndɪˈvɪd͡ʒʊəl/

  • 1

    A person considered alone, rather than as belonging to a group of people.

    • He is an unusual individual.
    • “You have to be an individual,” said Ms. Smoke, a 40-year-old saleswoman, as she sipped her beverage. “You can’t just get black coffee.”
  • 2

    lawA single physical human being as a legal subject, as opposed to a legal person such as a corporation.

    • Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination […].
  • 3

    An object, be it a thing or an agent, as contrasted to a class.

    • It is typically held that chairs, trees, rocks, people and many of the so-called ‘everyday’ objects we encounter can be regarded as individuals.
    • In plants, the ability to recognize self from nonself plays an important role in fertilization, because self-fertilization will result in less diverse offspring than fertilization with pollen from another individual.
  • 4

    mathematicssciencesstatisticsAn element belonging to a population.

individualadj/ɪndɪˈvɪd͡ʒʊəl/

  • 1

    Relating to a single person or thing as opposed to more than one.

    • Near-synonyms: individuated, solitary, self-standing, freestanding
    • As we can't print them all together, the individual pages will have to be printed one by one.
  • 2

    Intended for a single person as opposed to more than one person.

    • individual personal pension
    • individual cream cakes
  • 3

    Not divisible without losing its identity.

    • Near-synonyms: unatomizable, indivisible, undividable

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。