| 词组 | truculent |
| 释义 | truculent This adjective is ultimately derived from the Latin trux, meaning "fierce, savage." Its oldest use is in fact as a synonym of savage: • His aspect ... was fierce, truculent, and fearful — Edward Topsell, The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes, 1607 (OED) In current usage, however, it has lost much of its etymological fierceness. It now chiefly serves to describe speech or writing that is notably harsh or a person who is notably self-assertive and belligerent: • ... his book has a more objective atmosphere than its famed, truculent predecessor —Robert S. Allen, Saturday Rev., 21 June 1947 • ... written with vigor and truculent eloquence — Orville Prescott, N. Y. Times Book Rev., 6 June 1954 • Though truculent at times he seemed strangely on the defensive —William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 1960 • ... I had become a truculent, moody husband — Winthrop Sargeant, In Spite of Myself, 1970 The "harsh" sense of truculent was first recorded in 1850; the "belligerent, surly" sense is a development of the 20th century. The extended meanings of truculent have met with little resistance from usage commentators. Partridge 1942 and Evans 1957 are mainly concerned that truculent should not be used to mean "base, mercenary," a sense that is cited as an error in the OED and that seems not to have been used since the 19th century, and even then it was rare. Partridge also considers the "surly" sense an error. The most interesting commentary on truculent has been from Theodore Bernstein. In Watch Your Language ( 1958), Bernstein quotes and criticizes a passage from the New York Times in which truculent is used to mean "belligerent." In The Careful Writer (1965), he quotes the same passage, but this time with complete approval, finding that the "savage" sense of truculent is now rarely seen and that the "belligerent" sense is well-established and useful. He also notes that dictionaries do not record the "belligerent" sense, an erroneous observation repeated by Copperud 1970, 1980. The "belligerent" sense of truculent has, in fact, been entered in Merriam-Webster dictionaries since the publication of Webster's Third in 1961. Most other dictionaries now also include this sense. |
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