either

英 ['a?e?; 'i?-] 美['ie?]

近義詞both each

反義詞

CET4TEM4考研CET6高頻詞常用詞匯

either 兩者中的任何一個

縮寫自古英語aeghwaether, 來自ae, 詞源同each. hwaether,同whether. 即兩者中永遠有一個。

either: either: [OE] Either is the modern descendant of an ancient Germanic phrase which meant literally ‘a(chǎn)lways each of two’. Its constituents were *aiwō, source of English aye ‘ever, always’, (which was also one of the building blocks of which each was made) and *gikhwatharaz, ancestor of English whether. In Old English this became lexicalized as the compound ?gehw?ther, subsequently contracted to ?gther, from which developed modern English either. Despite its similarity, neither is more than just either with a negative prefix tacked on: its history is parallel but slightly different.
=> aye, whether
either: Old English ?geer, contraction of ?ghw?eer (pron., adv., conj.) "each of two, both," from a "always" (see aye (adv.)) + ge- collective prefix + hw?eer "which of two, whether" (see whether). Cognate with Dutch ieder, Old High German eogiwedar, German jeder "either, each, every").

Modern sense of "one or the other of two" is late 13c. Adverbially, for emphasis, "in any case, at all," especially when expressing negation, by 1828. Use of either-or to suggest an unavoidable choice between alternatives (1931) in some cases reflects Danish enten-eller, title of an 1843 book by Kierkegaard.

2. He seems either to fear women or to sentimentalize them.: 他似乎要么怕女人要么就對她們懷有浪漫想法。

3. On either side of the tracks the ground fell away sharply.: 跑道兩側(cè)都是很陡的斜坡。

4. Both groups on either side are just picking off innocent bystanders.: 對峙雙方都只是在瞄準(zhǔn)射擊無辜的旁觀者。