insidiousとは

意味・読み方・使い方

発音

• IPA^(key): /ɪnˈsɪdi.əs/

形容詞

insidious (comparative more insidious, superlative most insidious)

1. Producing harm in a stealthy, often gradual, manner.
   • 1847, George Lippard, The Quaker City: or, The monks of Monk-Hall:

     Strong and vigorous man as he looks, Livingstone has been for years the victim of a secret and insidious disease.

   • 1997, Matthew Wood, The book of herbal wisdom: using plants as medicine:

     At some point in time they may become the source of an insidious cancer.

   • 2007, Sharon Weinstein, Ada Lawrence Plumer, Principles and practice of intravenous therapy

     The nurse always must be alert to signs of slow leak or insidious infiltration.

2. Intending to entrap; alluring but harmful.
   • 1841 February–November, Charles Dickens, “Barnaby Rudge”, in Master Humphrey’s Clock, volume III, London: Chapman & Hall, […], OCLC 633494058, chapter 48, page 215:

     Gashford slid his cold insidious palm into his master's grasp, and so, hand in hand, and followed still by Barnaby and by his mother too, they mingled with the concourse.

   • 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 5, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, OCLC 223202227:

     The insidious whispers of the bad angel.

   • 1948, D.V. Chitaley (editor または publisher), All India Reporter, volume 3, page 341:

     All these facts clearly appear to me now to establish that the sanctioned scheme was a part of a bigger and […] more insidious scheme which was to hoodwink the creditors and to firmly establish and consolidate the position […]

   • 1969, Dorothy Brewster, John Angus Burrell, Dead reckonings in fiction

     The atmosphere of this insidious city comes out to meet him the moment he touches the European shore; for in London he meets Maria Gostrey just over from France.

   • 2005, Anita Desai, Voices in the City, page 189:

     This seemed to her the worst defilement into which this insidious city had cheated her and in her agitation, she nearly ran into the latrine, […]

   • 2007, Joseph Epstein, Narcissus Leaves the Pool, page 171:

     This is the insidious way sports entrap you: you follow a player, which commits you to his team. You begin to acquire scraps of utterly useless information about teammates, managers, owners, trainers, agents, lawyers.

   Hansel and Gretel were lured by the witch’s insidious gingerbread house.

3. (nonstandard) Treacherous.
   • 1858, Phineas Camp Headley, The life of the Empress Josephine: first wife of Napoleon:

     But with whom do you contract that alliance? With the natural enemy of France — that insidious house of Austria — which detests our country from feeling, system, and necessity.

   • 1912, Ralph Straus, The prison without a wall:

     ‘Believe me,’ he shouted, ‘these insidious folk talk dangerous nonsense. I hear they are spouting out their ridiculous platitudes not five miles from this park in which we are standing…’

   The battle was lost due to the actions of insidious defectors.

派生語

• insidiously
• insidiousness

関連する語