look to

1. Pay attention to, take care of, as in You'd best look to your own affairs. [c. 1300]

2. Anticipate or expect, as in We look to hear from her soon. [c. 1600]

3. look to be. Seem to be, promise to be, as in This looks to be a very difficult assignment. [Mid-1700s]

Idioms:

take to

1. Have recourse to, go to, as in They took to the woods. [c. 1200]

2. Develop as a habit or steady practice, as in He took to coming home later and later. [c. 1300]

3. Become fond of, like, as in I took to him immediately, or The first time she skied she took to it. This expression, from the mid-1700s, is sometimes expanded to take to it like a duck to water, a simile dating from the late 1800s.

4. take to be. Understand, consider, or assume, as in I took it to be the right entrance. [Mid-1500s] Also see the subsequent entries beginning with take to.
*****

China's flagging economy

Strong as an ox?

Definition

simile

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noun [C or U] 明喻
(the use of) an expression comparing one thing with another, always including the words `as' or `like':
The lines 'She walks in beauty, like the night...' from Byron's poem contain a simile.

Stereotypes

The most commonplace similes offer a window into the stereotypes that pervade a given language and culture. For example, the following similes convey a stereotypical view of people, animals and things:

as precise as a surgeon
as regular as a clock
as cunning as a fox
as ugly as a toad
as strong as an ox
as sour as vinegar
as lithe as a panther
as quiet as a mouse
as bumpy as a gravelled road
as straight as a round-about

These similes have the status of a cliché or platitude in English, and their use is typically taken to signify a lack of creative imagination.

[Lat.,=likeness], in rhetoric, a figure of speech in which an object is explicitly compared to another object. Robert Burns's poem “A Red Red Rose” contains two straightforward similes:

My love is like a red, red rose
[U+00A0][U+00A0]That's newly sprung in June:
My love is like the melody
[U+00A0][U+00A0]That's sweetly played in tune.

The epic, or Homeric, simile is an elaborate, formal, and sustained simile derived from those of Homer.

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2009年1月24日 星期六

look to, take to, simile,