One way to hold this word: picture a canvas with paint on it thick enough that you can still see where the brush went. Oil paint stays wet for days, so the painter keeps returning to the same spot, layer over layer, until it is finished. That slowness is why an oil painting is, in English, the most 'finished' kind of picture — the kind you frame and hang. From that one picture the word reaches in two directions: out to the craft that makes it, and sideways into a British joke about a face worth framing.

可以想成一塊畫布,上面的顏料厚到還看得見筆刷走過的痕跡。油彩好幾天都還是濕的,所以畫家可以一再回到同一個地方,一層疊一層,直到完成。正因為慢,oil painting 在英文裡是那種最「完成」的畫——會裱框、會掛起來的那種。這個畫面往兩邊延伸:一邊是做出這幅畫的那門技術,另一邊是英國人的一句玩笑話,借用「值得被畫下來的臉才算好看」這個想法。

Two branches

畫出來的那幅畫,和畫它的那門技術

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a picture in oil paint · noun · B1

A picture that someone has made with oil paint — the thick, slow-drying kind of paint artists use on canvas. The words name the finished picture itself, so you can count them.

油畫(作品)

拿「值得被畫下來」當好看的標準(英式玩笑)

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he's/she's no oil painting · noun · B2

A joking, indirect way of saying that someone is not good-looking. It is almost always used in the negative — no oil painting — and very often about yourself. The source marks it as British and humorous.

長得不好看(幽默的說法)