| 词汇 | agonizing reappraisal |
| 词源 | agonizing reappraisal. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles coined the phrase agonizing reappraisal and used it at a NATO meeting in December 1954. The term was so overworked and applied to so many piddling matters everywhere that it became a cliché, as did “massive retaliation,” which the Secretary had coined several months earlier. Agony itself derives from the Greek agonia, a contest between wrestlers, boxers, or even dramatists that took place at an agon, or meeting. The physical or mental struggles of these contestants gave rise to our word agony. Agony was first used in English by the translators of the Bible in describing Christ’s intense mental suffering or anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane. Thus in the true spirit of the word, any agonizing reappraisal would be best made regarding matters of great consequence, if used at all. |
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