| 词源 |
rara avis; rare bird. A rare person or thing, someone out of the ordinary, rara avis is the Latin for “a rare bird” and the ex- pression was first used figuratively by the Roman satirist Juve- nal. “A bird rarely seen on earth, and very like a black swan,” Juvenal called one of his fellow Romans (“Rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygne”). He chose a black swan for his com- parison because black swans, native to Australia, were un- known at the time. |