bromideとは

意味・読み方・使い方

語源

From brom(ine) + -ide. First used in the sense “dull person” by Gelett Burgess.^[1]

発音

• (英国発音) enPR: brō'mīd, IPA^(key): /ˈbɹəʊ.maɪd/
• (米国発音) enPR: brō'mīd, IPA^(key): /ˈbɹoʊ.maɪd/
• ハイフネーション: bro‧mide

名詞

bromide (複数形 bromides)

1. (inorganic chemistry) A binary compound of bromine and some other element or radical.
2. A dose of bromide taken as a sedative, or to reduce sexual appetite.
   • 1894, Anton Chekhov, Constance Garnett, transl., The Black Monk‎^[2], published 1917:

     “How fortunate Buddha, Mahomed, and Shakespeare were that their kind relations and doctors did not cure them of their ecstasy and their inspiration,” said Kovrin. “If Mahomed had taken bromide for his nerves, had worked only two hours out of the twenty-four, and had drunk milk, that remarkable man would have left no more trace after him than his dog. […] ”

3. (by extension) A dull person with conventional thoughts.

   Antonym: sulphite

   My adviser at college was a bromide who had not had an original thought in years.

   • 1906, Frank Gelett Burgess, Are You A Bromide?‎^[3]:

     The bromide conforms to everything sanctioned by the majority, and may be depended upon to be trite, banal, and arbitrary.

4. A platitude.

   Synonyms: platitude; see also Thesaurus:saying

   We hoped the speech would include reassurances, but instead it was merely one bromide after another.

   • 1974, Murray Newton Rothbard, “What the State Is Not”, in Anatomy of the State:

     No organicist metaphor, no irrelevant bromide that "we are all part of one another," must be permitted to obscure this basic fact.

   • 2020 June 2, Thomas L. Friedman, “America, We Break It, It’s Gone”, in New York Times‎^[4]:

     Certainly not Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who is clearly the Rupert Murdoch of his generation. He’s always justifying his cowardly choices with vacuous bromides about “free speech,” but he’s obviously just in it for the money — no matter how much his platform is used to destroy our democracy.

5. (photography) A print made on bromide paper.

派生語

Further reading

• bromide on Wikipedia.
• bromide (language) on Wikipedia.

参照