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English Evil Middle Moral German Word Originally Meant

正面 3471.evil
英 ['iːv(ə)l; -vɪl]美 ['ivl]

背面
释义:
adj. 邪恶的;不幸的;有害的;讨厌的n. 罪恶,邪恶;不幸
例句:
1. When we go out, girls are always giving me the evil eye.我们出去时,女孩子们总是用忌妒的眼神看着我。

1. 人一定要正常地、良性地活着(live),要不然颠倒过来就变成了evil,变成了邪恶的、罪恶的人,就像希特勒、东条英机这种恶魔。2. 魔鬼、恶魔一般都是晚上出来活动,它们是不是跟我们正常的生活是颠倒的啊!
evil 邪恶的来自PIE*upelo, 来自*upo的扩大形式,词源同sub-, 在下面。其本义为过度,后词义进一步恶化,并最终由过度到邪恶的。
evilevil: [OE] Evil has got distinctly worse over the millennia. Originally it seems to have signified nothing more sinister than ‘uppity’, and in the Old and Middle English period it meant simply ‘bad’; it is only in modern English that its connotations of ‘extreme moral wickedness’ came to the fore. It probably comes ultimately from *upelo- a derivative of the Indo-European base *upo- ‘under’ (source of Greek hupó ‘under’, Sanskrit upa ‘at, to’, and English up and over), and so its underlying connotation is of ‘exceeding due limits, extremism’.Its Germanic descendant was *ubilaz, source of German übel ‘evil’ as well as English evil.=> over, upevil (adj.)Old English yfel (Kentish evel) "bad, vicious, ill, wicked," from Proto-Germanic *ubilaz (cognates: Old Saxon ubil, Old Frisian and Middle Dutch evel, Dutch euvel, Old High German ubil, German übel, Gothic ubils), from PIE *upelo-, from root *wap- "bad, evil" (cognates: Hittite huwapp- "evil"). In Old English and other older Germanic languages other than Scandinavian, "this word is the most comprehensive adjectival expression of disapproval, dislike or disparagement" [OED]. Evil was the word the Anglo-Saxons used where we would use bad, cruel, unskillful, defective (adj.), or harm (n.), crime, misfortune, disease (n.). In Middle English, bad took the wider range of senses and evil began to focus on moral badness. Both words have good as their opposite. Evil-favored (1520s) meant "ugly." Evilchild is attested as an English surname from 13c. The adverb is Old English yfele, originally of words or speech. Also as a noun in Old English, "what is bad; sin, wickedness; anything that causes injury, morally or physically." Especially of a malady or disease from c. 1200. The meaning "extreme moral wickedness" was one of the senses of the Old English noun, but it did not become established as the main sense of the modern word until 18c. As a noun, Middle English also had evilty. Related: Evilly. Evil eye (Latin oculus malus) was Old English eage yfel. The jocular notion of an evil twin as an excuse for regrettable deeds is by 1986, American English, from an old motif in mythology.evil (n.)Old English yfel (see evil (adj.))."

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