| 词组 | glimpse, glance |
| 释义 | glimpse, glance Discussion of this pair of words goes back to Fowler 1926, who points out that "you take or give a glance at something, but get a glimpse of it." On the basis of the citations he gives as examples of what not to do, it would seem that his specific complaint was about the use of "a glimpse at" to replace "a glance at." We think that this must be a relatively unusual combination, because we do not have a single example for it in our files. All we have are one or two citations in which glimpse might, with some effort, be construed as meaning "glance." And we have only one citation in which glance means "glimpse." Clearly, these two nouns are, in the main, successfully distinguished by writers of English. Since Fowler's time a few usage books have included this topic, but most of these have not gone beyond merely restating the appropriate roles of the nouns glance and glimpse. Shaw 1975 adds, however, that "to glimpse is to obtain a brief view of something," and Harper 1985 is more expansive on the topic of verb uses. Harper's most pointed remarks concern whether glimpse is used as an intransitive verb to mean "to take a brief look." The editors believe that "it will probably be a surprise to most people to learn that dictionaries also give glimpse in the same sense and the same function [as glance]. Despite this, it is rare to hear or read statements such as 'She glimpsed at the stranger as he passed her.'" Harper is correct. Although glimpse is entered as an intransitive verb in some dictionaries (including ours), such use is very uncommon: • The purposes of life are beyond us, though glimpsed at by all revelation in the arts and religions of mankind — Times Literary Supp., 6 May 1955 • ... this helps them, I think, glimpse around the next corner of history —Jack Newfield, Evergreen, June 1967 Glance as a transitive verb synonymous with glimpse is not mentioned in the usage books, but, for the record1, this use is archaic. |
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