platypus

英 ['pl?t?p?s] 美['pl?t?p?s]

IELTS暢通詞匯哺乳動物

復數:?platypuses;? platypi;

platypus 鴨嘴獸

來自希臘語platypous,寬腳的，來自platys,寬的，詞源同plate,pous,腳，詞源同foot.后用于鴨嘴獸這種動物，因其腳寬而得名。

platypus: platypus: [18] The platypus’s name means literally ‘flat-footed’. It was given to it at the end of the 18th century, and is first recorded in George Shaw’s Naturalists’ Miscellany 1799. It was adapted from Greek platúpous, a compound formed from platús ‘flat’ (source of English place, plaice, and plane the tree) and poús ‘foot’ (a relative of English foot).
=> foot, place, plane, plate
platypus (n.): Australian duck-mole, 1799, from Modern Latin, from Greek platypous, literally "flat-footed," from platys "broad, flat" (see plaice (n.)) + pous "foot," from PIE root *ped- (1) "a foot" (see foot (n.)).
Orig. the generic name, but, having already been given to a genus of beetles, it was in 1800 changed for Ornithorhyncus. [OED]

2. At home both in water and on land, the platypus is amphibious.: 鴨嘴獸的家可以在水中,也可以在陸上.它是兩棲動物.

3. Not many people could describe a platypus because few have seen one.: 很少有人能描述鴨嘴獸,因為幾乎沒有人見過它.

4. For this reason, scientists know less about the platypus than they would like to know.: 因為這個原因, 科學家對它知之甚少.

5. Researchers just mapped the genome of a female platypus from Australia.: 最近,研究人員們為一直來自澳大利亞的雌性鴨嘴獸繪制了基因圖.