behemoth

大学 FREQ #36694

n. 庞然大物

发音

US /bəˈhi(ː).məθ/

词形变化

behemoths 复数 behemoths

教材释义与例句

名词

巨兽;河马

释义与例句

n.
  1. 1.

    A great and mighty beast which God shows to Job in Job 40:15–24.

    贝西摩斯

    巨兽

    宗教
  2. 2.

    Any great and mighty monster.

    巨兽

    引申义
  3. 3.

    Something which has the qualities of great power and might, and monstrous proportions.

    比喻

词汇关系

词源

From Middle English behemoth, bemoth, from Late Latin behemoth, from Hebrew בְּהֵמוֹת (behemót). Most likely, the Hebrew word is an intensive plural of בְּהֵמָה (behemá, “beast”), from Proto-Semitic (compare Ge'ez ብህመ (bəhmä, “to be dumb, to be speechless”), Arabic ب ه م (b h m)). Some have instead suggested a borrowing from a hypothetical Egyptian pA-i-H-E1-mw (*pꜣ-jḥ-mw, “hippopotamus”, literally “the ox of the water”), from pꜣ (“definite article”) + jḥ (“ox, cattle”) + mw (“water”) in a direct genitive construction (for the pronunciation, compare the later Coptic descendants ⲡ- (p-) + ⲉϩⲉ (ehe) + ⲙⲟⲟⲩ (moou)); this, however, suffers from problems such as the lack of attestation of the supposed etymon, and there seems little reason to prefer it to the intensive plural explanation.

来源:wiktionary