daft

英 [dɑ?ft] 美[d?ft]

TEM8GRE低頻詞擴(kuò)展詞匯

比較級(jí):?dafter;最高級(jí):?daftest;名詞:?daftness;

1. 諧音“打發(fā)他、打發(fā)的”----愚蠢的人是最好打發(fā)的。

daft 愚蠢的

來自PIE*dhabh, 匹配，組裝，詞源同fabric. 原義為溫和的，舉止得體的，詞源同deft. 后詞義由溫和的諷刺的過渡到笨拙的，愚蠢的。

daft: daft: [13] Daft was not always a term of reproach. It originally meant ‘mild, gentle’, and only in late Middle English slid to ‘stupid’ (in a semantic decline perhaps paralleling that of silly, which started off as ‘happy, blessed’). Middle English dafte corresponds directly to an Old English ged?fte, whose underlying sense seems to have been ‘fit, suitable’ (the sense connection was apparently that mild unassuming people were considered as behaving suitably).

There is no direct evidence of its use with this meaning, but Old English had a verb ged?ftan ‘make fit or ready, prepare’ which, together with the Gothic verb gedaban ‘be suitable’, points to its origin in a Germanic base *dab- ‘fit, suitable’. This ties in with the semantic development of deft, a variant of daft, which has moved from a prehistoric ‘fit, suitable’ to ‘skilful’.
=> deft
daft (adj.): Old English ged?fte "gentle, becoming," from Proto-Germanic *gadaftjaz (cognates: Old English daeftan "to put in order, arrange," gedafen "suitable;" Gothic gadaban "to be fit"), from PIE *dhabh- "to fit together" (see fabric). Sense of "mild, well-mannered" (c. 1200) led to that of "dull, awkward" (c. 1300). Further evolution to "foolish" (mid-15c.), "crazy" (1530s) probably was influenced by analogy with daffe "halfwit" (see daffy); the whole group probably has a common origin.

1. I can lose a few pounds without resorting to daft diets.: 我不用瘋狂地節(jié)食也能減輕幾磅。

2. "I found a mermaid."— 'Don't be daft. There's no such thing.': “我發(fā)現(xiàn)了一條美人魚。”——“別說傻話了。哪有那種東西。”