rather

英 ['rɑ?e?] 美['r?e?]

CET4TEM4考研CET6高頻詞基本詞匯

rather 相當(dāng)，頗，相較

來自 rathe,早的，急切的，-er,比較級后綴。即更早的，更快的，引申副詞詞義相當(dāng)，頗，相較。

rather: rather: [OE] Rather originated as the comparative form of the now obsolete adjective rathe ‘quick’, and so to begin with meant ‘more quickly’, hence ‘earlier, sooner’. Its most frequent modern meaning, ‘more willingly’, emerged as recently as the 16th century. Rathe itself went back to a prehistoric Germanic *khrathaz, which may have been derived from the same base as produced English rash ‘impetuous’.
=> rash
rather (adv.): Old English hrator "more quickly, earlier, sooner," also "more readily," comparative of hrate, hr?te "quickly, hastily, promptly, readily, immediately," which is related to hr?e "quick, nimble, prompt, ready," from Proto-Germanic *khratha- (cognates: Old Norse hraer, Old High German hrad), from PIE *kret- "to shake." The base form rathe was obsolete by 18c. except in poetry (Tennyson); superlative rathest fell from use by 17c. Meaning "more willingly" is recorded from c. 1300; sense of "more truly" is attested from late 14c.
The rather lambes bene starved with cold
[Spenser, "The Shepheardes Calender" (Februarie), 1579]

1. Rather taken aback by such forwardness, I slammed down the phone.: 如此無禮的言語讓我火冒三丈，我砰的一下把電話掛了。

3. I gradually got rather disillusioned with the whole setup of the university.: 漸漸地，我對大學(xué)的整個體制感到相當(dāng)失望。

4. She was in rather a bad film about the Mau Mau.: 她出演了一部關(guān)于茅茅運動（20世紀50年代肯尼亞基庫尤人反抗英國殖民者的民族主義運動）的爛片。