英语词汇backbite的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

backbite. This expression was formed from the noun back and the verb bite, almost certainly as an obvious description of someone slandering another person in his absence, or behind his back. An old chestnut connects the words with the medieval “sport” of bearbaiting, where the bear was fastened to a post by a short chain, some of the dogs that fought him holding him at bay face to face while others attacked him from the back. There are no known old quotations to support this theory, the oldest one recorded (1175) referring to “Cursunge [cursing] backbi- tunge [backbiting] and fikelunge [deceit].” There is a legend that Diogenes, when asked what beasts “bit sorest,” answered: “Of wilde beasts, the Back-biter; of tame, the Flatterer.” Wrote Tennyson of the secret calumniator, “Face-flatterers and back- biters are the same.”

词汇	backbite
词源	backbite. This expression was formed from the noun back and the verb bite, almost certainly as an obvious description of someone slandering another person in his absence, or behind his back. An old chestnut connects the words with the medieval “sport” of bearbaiting, where the bear was fastened to a post by a short chain, some of the dogs that fought him holding him at bay face to face while others attacked him from the back. There are no known old quotations to support this theory, the oldest one recorded (1175) referring to “Cursunge [cursing] backbi- tunge [backbiting] and fikelunge [deceit].” There is a legend that Diogenes, when asked what beasts “bit sorest,” answered: “Of wilde beasts, the Back-biter; of tame, the Flatterer.” Wrote Tennyson of the secret calumniator, “Face-flatterers and back- biters are the same.”
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