| 词组 | obtuse |
| 释义 | obtuse Trouble is brewing for obtuse. This adjective has been used for about five centuries without causing a stir, but recent years have seen the development of a new sense, and voices of criticism are beginning to be heard. Its older senses are consistent with its derivation from the Latin obtusus, "dull, blunt." An obtuse angle is an angle that is not acute, and an obtuse person is a person who is not sharp—who has, in other words, a dull or insensitive mind: • ... another point missed by the disarmingly honest but hopelessly obtuse Meneghini —Peter G. Davis, N.Y. Times Book Rev., 21 Nov. 1982 Recently, however, obtuse has begun to be used in the sense "difficult to comprehend; unclear": • ... they are now so obscure, so obtuse, so contradictory —Charles Price, Esquire, May 1977 • His answer, often phrased in obtuse language, was in brief that a child learns by discrete stages —Alden Whitman, N.Y. Times, 17 Sept. 1980 • ... offered only an obtuse explanation. "I wanted to be more aggressive," he said, "but there was a situation, something I don't want to discuss, that dictated the approach we took...." —Dale Robertson, Houston Post, 3 Sept. 1984 This sense most likely arose from confusion with obscure and abstruse. The use has not yet become very common and is therefore not yet notorious, but its occurrence in a letter written by a U.S. general in 1983 did draw some unfriendly commentary from William Safire. If this sense becomes more widespread, the critical reaction to it will no doubt become more virulent. The use is well enough established to appear in some dictionaries, but if you are cautious about new words and meanings, you might want to avoid it. |
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