leviathan n. [luh-VYE-uh-thun]

大海怪，庞然大物

Definition

1 a often capitalized Leviathan : a sea monster defeated by Yahweh in various scriptural accounts
b: a large sea animal
a 常用大写 Leviathan：在各种经文描述中，被耶和华打败的海怪
b：大海怪

2 capitalized Leviathan : the political state; especially: a totalitarian state having a vast bureaucracy
2 大写Leviathan：政体，尤其是指具有大量官僚机构的中央集权国家

3 : something large or formidable
3：大型或者令人害怕的物体

注：Yahweh：也作Jahveh或Yahveh，即耶和华，上帝；

Did You Know?

Old Testament references to a huge sea monster, Leviathan (in Hebrew, Liwyāthān), are thought to spring from an ancient myth in which the god Baal slays a mutiheaded sea monster. Leviathan appears in the book of Psalms as a sea serpent that is killed by God and then given as food to creatures in the wilderness, and it is referred to in the book of Job as well. We began equating Leviathan with the political state after the philosopher Thomas Hobbes used the word in (and as the title of) his 1651 political treatise on government. Today, Leviathan often suggests a crushing political bureaucracy. Leviathan can also be immensely useful as a general term meaning "something monstrous or of enormous size."

词源词根演化：Leviathan n. (English) / Liwyāthān n. (Hebrew)

圣经《旧约》讲述了一个巨型的海怪，名字叫Leviathan（在希伯来语版本中，写作Liwyāthān），被认为起源于古代太阳神Baal杀死一个多头海怪的神话故事。Leviathan出现在圣经的Psalms（赞美诗）一书中，以海蛇的形象出现，被上帝杀死以后，送给了荒野里的动物食用，在圣经的Job（约伯记）中也有记载。自打哲学家Thomas Hobbes在他1651出版的关于政府的政治论述中使用这个单词（包括在书名中使用）以来，我们就将Leviathan与政治关联起来了。现在Leviathan通常用于暗指一个腐败的政治官僚体系，也可以用来泛泛的描述“某物巨大无比或者无比怪异的”。

注：sprint from：起源于；Baal：（古代腓尼基人等崇拜的）太阳神；slay：杀害，残杀；Psalms：【圣经】赞美诗，圣歌；serpent：蛇，狡猾的人；

Examples

"Fossils of the ancient leviathan were unearthed from 480-million-year-old rocks exposed on a hillside in southeastern Morocco."
--- Sid Perkins, Science, 11 Mar. 2015
这个从4亿8千万年前的岩土中挖掘出的巨型的古生物化石被展放在摩洛哥东南部的一个小山坡上。
"... [T]he extension of the Star Wars story has been the biggest global movie phenomenon since Avatar .... It is a leviathan, totaling nearly $4.5 billion in global ticket sales and an entire subcultural media industry."
--- Sean Fennessey, The Ringer, 25 May 2018

《星球大战》的外传是自打《阿凡达》以后的最大的全球性的电影现象...。这个外传简直就是一个庞然大物，在全球票房市场以及整个亚文化媒介市场上总计斩获了45亿美元。

注：global ticket sales：全球票房

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【英语学习】【WOTD】leviathan 释义/词源/示例

leviathan n. [luh-VYE-uh-thun]

Definition

Did You Know?

Examples

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