高考英语作文易混淆的词汇解析（五）

发布时间：2017-03-11

作者：Kimmy

来源于：昂立外语网站

16. Decimate

What you think it means: To destroy or annihilate你以为单词的含义是：毁坏或击败。What it really means: To destroy ten percent。单词的真正含义是：10%毁坏。

This one is really goofy and one day this won’t be true. For the time being, decimate actually means removing only ten percent of something. If you know a little bit about words it’s not difficult to figure out. The prefix “dec” means ten. However, the traditional definition of this word is antiquated and it’ll probably be changed eventually. Until then, it’s technically correct to use a word like exterminate or annihilate instead。这个单词有点别扭，或许以后就没人用了。不过现在而言，decimate是指“只抽取某事物的10%”。如果你稍微了解一点英语构词法的话，这就不难理解了。它的前缀“dec”就是“十”的意思。不过，这个单词的传统定义比较古旧，估计以后会有所改变。但在那之前，最好还是使用exterminate(铲除)或annihilate(歼灭)替代吧。

17. Panacea

What you think it means: A cure。你以为单词的含义是：治愈。What it really means: A cure for a lot of things。单词的真正含义是：万灵药。

This one is easy to confuse because the explanation is virtually the same even if the definitions are vastly different. A panacea is something that cures a lot of things all at once. For instance, penicillin is a panacea. It cures a bunch of diseases. The flu vaccine is not a panacea because it only protects against the flu。这个单词很容易混淆，因为即便定义迥异，解释起来实质还是一样的。Panacea(万灵药)能立刻治愈各种疾病。比如说，盘尼西林就是panacea(万灵药)，它能治疗很多疾病;而流感疫苗就不是panacea(万灵药)，因为它只预防流感。

18. Fortuitous

What you think it means: Lucky。你以为单词的含义是：幸运的。What it really means: By chance。单词的真正含义是：偶然碰巧。

There is a difference between luck and chance. Unfortunately, people use the two interchangeably, so much so that it’s difficult to explain the differences anymore. Lucky is an event that happens by chance that can be described as fortunate. Winning the lottery is lucky. Fortuitous means simply by chance. For instance if you drop your basketball and it bounces into the road and gets hit by a car, that’s a fortuitous instance. It’s neutral, so it can be good or bad things that happen by chance。运气和机会是有区别的。可是人们总把它们交互使用，所以很难再去解释其中的区别了。运气是偶然发生的一件事，可以视为“幸运的”。中彩票是幸运的。Fortuitous是指“纯属偶然”。举个例子，假设你没拿住篮球，结果篮球弹到路上击中了一辆车，这就是fortuitous(纯属偶然)。这个单词是中性的，既可以指偶然发生的好事，也可以指偶然发生的坏事。

19. Plethora

What you think it means: A lot of something。你以为单词的含义是：很多事物。What it really means: More than is needed。单词的真正含义是：多余。

This is one I use incorrectly all the time. In fact, I almost used it a couple of times in this very article. Plethora simply means that there is more of something than is needed. For instance, you may think that 5,000 people is a plethora of people. However, when you put them into a hockey arena that seats 13,000 people, it’s actually less than half capacity and therefore not a plethora. If you had 13,500 people in that same arena, that would be a plethora of people。这个单词是我总用错的。其实，这篇文章里可能也有几次相关的错误。Plethora是指“再也不需要什么了”。比如，你可能觉得5000人是很多人，但是，如果你把这些人放到能容纳13000人的冰球场，那么人数还不到容量的一半，所以就不能算plethora(多余);如果你把13500人放到那个冰球场，那就是plethora(多余)的了。