英和和英

語源

From 中期英語 wevel, from 古期英語 wifel (“beetle”), from Proto-West Germanic *wibil, from Proto-Germanic *wibilaz, from Proto-Indo-European *webʰel-, from *(h₁)webʰ- (“to wave, to weave”), said to be from the woven appearance of a weevil’s larval case, + *-el-, *-l̥- (diminutive or attributive suffix); see also wave and weave.

Compare Old Saxon *wivil (“beetle”); Middle Low German wevel; Old High German wibil, wipil (modern German Wiebel (“beetle; chafer”)); Lithuanian vãbalas (“beetle; weevil”); Old Norse vifill, as in tordyfill (“dung beetle, scarab”) (whence Dutch tortwevel; Icelandic tordýfill, Norwegian tordivel, 古期英語 tordwifel, Swedish tordyvel); dialectal Russian ве́блица (véblica, “intestinal worm”).

発音

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈwiːv(ə)l/
• (General American) IPA: /ˈwiːvɪl/
• 韻: -iːvəl
• ハイフネーション: wee‧vil

名詞

weevil (plural weevils)

1. Any of many tens of thousands of species of herbivorous beetles, ranging in size from tiny to large, in the superfamily Curculionoidea, the most characteristic species having the head projecting in a distinctive snout with the mouthparts at the tip.
2. Any of many tens of thousands of species of herbivorous beetles of various sizes, in the family Curculionidae within the superfamily Curculionoidea.
3. Any of many similar, but more distantly related, beetles such as the biscuit weevil (Stegobium paniceum).
4. (figurative, derogatory) A loathsome person.
   • 1950, Jack Lindsay, Fires in Smithfield. A Novel of Mary Tudor’s Reign, London: The Bodley Head, →OCLC, page 201:

     But you accuse other men of villainy with too easy a tongue, you weevil. I have never wanted you in this matter, and I have said so.

   • 2010 August 30, Charlie Brooker, “Buzzwords for blowhards”, in The Guardian‎, archived from the original on 30 May 2023:

     Have you tried doing it yourself? It's not easy. I was hoping to illustrate this article with some self-created buzzwords for leftwingers to use. The first one I came up with was "molehill mountaineer", a pejorative term to describe the sort of perpetually furious rightwing weevil who spends their life calculatedly conflating issues such as the "Ground Zero mosque" into gigantic media crapgasms.

同意語

• (beetle of the family Curculionidae): snout beetle, true weevil, nunu

派生語

参照