uncanny「异常的；难以解释的」

Word of the Day：May 27, 2022

uncanny

异常的；难以解释的

adjective /un-KAN-ee/ [ʌnˈkæni]

What It Means

Uncanny is typically used to describe something that is strange or unusual in a way that is surprising or difficult to understand. It can also describe something that seems to have a supernatural character or origin.

Uncanny 通常指用令人惊讶的或难以理解的方式描述奇怪的、不寻常的事物。 它还可以描述似乎具有超自然特色的事物。

UNCANNY in Context

"Having reinvented contemporary circus as an aesthetically ambitious artform, the company here demonstrates……what can be achieved when uncanny acrobatic prowess meets the poised spatial intelligence of contemporary dance and the intensities of physical theatre." — Andrew Fuhrmann, Cameron Woodhead, and Jessica Nicholas, The Age (Melbourne, Australia), 10 Apr. 2022

‎“该公司在这里展示了重新将当代马戏团塑造为一种美学上的艺术形式...... 当不可思议的杂技遇见了现代舞的平衡智慧同物理剧院的完美结合时，可以取得怎样的成就呢。 ”‎

The child has an uncanny ability to recognize streets and locations she's seen only once or twice before.

这孩子有一种不可思议的能力，可以认识她以前只见过一两次的街道和地点。

Did You Know?

Uncanny describes that which unsettles us, such as disquieting observations, or mysterious situations and circumstances. Strip the word of its common negating prefix, though, and you’re left with canny, a word that shares semantic territory with clever and prudent. While canny and uncanny don’t appear to be antonyms, they both come from an early Scottish word canny meaning “free from risk; wise, prudent, cautious.” And in Scottish, canny has for centuries had a secondary meaning that correlates better to its mysterious cousin: the Oxford English Dictionary reports that the word is used in negative constructions to describe what is not safe to be involved with, or more broadly, what is not in accordance with what is right or natural. Rather uncanny.

Uncanny 描述了使我们不安的事物，像令人不安的观察结果，或神秘的情况。 但去掉它 un-的前缀后，canny与 clever 和 prudent 的含义共同。 虽然 canny 和 uncanny 看似不是反义词，但它们都来自早期的苏格兰语 canny，意思是“free from risk「没有风险的」； wise「明智的」、prudent「谨慎的」、cautious「小心的」。” 在苏格兰语中，canny 第二含义在几个世纪以来一直与 mysterious cousin 有关：《牛津英语词典》的描述中，该词用于否定形式，描述不安全的事物，或更宽泛的，指不符合常规的或自然的。 较难解释的事物。

Quiz

Fill in the blanks to complete a word meaning "exceeding usual limits": t _ _ ns _ en _ _ _ t.

填空完成单词，词义是“超出常规的限制”：t _ _ ns _ en _ _ _ t。

transcendent