| 词组 | abysmal, abyssal |
| 释义 | abysmal, abyssal Oddly enough, abysmal, derived from abysm, a relatively little used word, is the more commonly used adjective of this pair; abyssal, derived from abyss, which continues in vigorous use, is limited mostly to technical contexts. Abysmal is used for the most part figuratively, but it has some use of actual depths: • ... he tosses off the abysmal Royal Gorge of the Arkansas with the phrase "perpendicular precipices" —David Lavender, NY. Times Book Rev., 25 Sept. 1966 • ... driven at a good speed, often it appeared to me within a few inches of abysmal precipices —W. R. Arnold, The Postmark, May-June 1955 • ... only a few miles from the beach the bottom breaks off into the abysmal depths of the ocean — Thomas Barbour, That Vanishing Eden, 1944 • ... not much happens to star-light in its long passage through the abysmal depths of interstellar space — Paul W. Merrill, The Nature of Variable Stars, 1938 Or the depths may be figurative: • Geology gives one the same abysmal extent of Time that Astronomy does of Space —Thomas Carlyle, The Life of John Sterling, 1851 • ... two octaves below the standard bassoon, with the phenomenal bottom note B,,, flat, though whether that abysmal pitch can be directly audible to the human ear is more than doubtful —Robert Doning-ton, The Instruments of Music, 2d ed. rev., 1951 • ... the great head reared up, mouth open in a slack, savage grin, eyes black and abysmal —Peter Benchley, in Cosmopolitan, July 1974 Sometimes there is an allusion to the original abysm: • ... as if the spirit were steeped in abysmal blackness —George Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, 1859 Often figurative use suggests a sense of immensity or profundity: • Such staggering smugness, such abysmal ignorance leave one breathless —William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 1960 • ... he had known the abysmal depletions that follow intellectual excess —Edmund Wilson, A Piece of My Mind, 1956 • ... the abysmal solitude of aging —Maya Angelou, NY. Times, 4 Feb. 1973 But perhaps most often abysmal denotes wretchedness or low quality or sometimes quantity: • ... exploiting the just political grievances and the abysmal living conditions of the people there —New Republic, 6 Sept. 1954 • The weather, even by London standards, was abysmal —Frank Deford, Sports Illustrated, 12 July 1982 • ... I have suffered abysmal baseball luck when watching the Yankees —Roger Angell, New Yorker, 16 July 1973 • Earnings of the whole textile industry, traditionally low, were an abysmal 1 per cent of sales —Newsweek, 1 Aug. 1955 Abyssal is found chiefly in contexts referring to the bottom of the sea: • ... to where the continental slope meets the abyssal ocean floor —Neil H. Jacoby, "Pacem in Maribus," A Center Occasional Paper, 1970 • The creatures appear to limit their habitat to the dark, cold, high-pressure abyssal plains below depths of 10,000 feet —N. Y. Times, 2 Apr. 1970 |
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