英语词汇grasshopper的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

grasshopper. The very appropriate name for this common in- sect is more colorful in other languages. The Italian name for the grasshopper is cavalletta, “little mare,” while the Spanish call it saltamontes, “jump mountains.” For some reason the Germans call it die Heuschrecke, “the terrible hay-thing.” In Greek mythol- ogy the sound of the grasshopper is said to be the voice of the handsome Tithonus, who married Aurora, the goddess of dawn. Aurora asked Zeus to grant her husband immortality, which the great god did, but she neglected to ask Zeus to keep him forever young. Time passed and the handsome Tithonus fell victim to its ravages, while Aurora remained young and beautiful. She even- tually took pity on her old doddering husband and turned him into a grasshopper, locking him in a palace room. Tithonus has since been heard every evening at his palace window crying for his lost Aurora. Knee-high to a toad, first recorded in 1814, was the original of the Americanism knee-high to a grasshopper, which came on the scene some 37 years later. Knee-high to a grasshopper is generally used in comparisons, emphasizing youth, smallness, or remoteness in time. There are some 120,000 varieties of grasshoppers, and to be literally knee-high, or tibia- high, to a grasshopper a person would have to range from one millimeter tall to little more than an inch tall. See gull.

词汇	grasshopper
词源	grasshopper. The very appropriate name for this common in- sect is more colorful in other languages. The Italian name for the grasshopper is cavalletta, “little mare,” while the Spanish call it saltamontes, “jump mountains.” For some reason the Germans call it die Heuschrecke, “the terrible hay-thing.” In Greek mythol- ogy the sound of the grasshopper is said to be the voice of the handsome Tithonus, who married Aurora, the goddess of dawn. Aurora asked Zeus to grant her husband immortality, which the great god did, but she neglected to ask Zeus to keep him forever young. Time passed and the handsome Tithonus fell victim to its ravages, while Aurora remained young and beautiful. She even- tually took pity on her old doddering husband and turned him into a grasshopper, locking him in a palace room. Tithonus has since been heard every evening at his palace window crying for his lost Aurora. Knee-high to a toad, first recorded in 1814, was the original of the Americanism knee-high to a grasshopper, which came on the scene some 37 years later. Knee-high to a grasshopper is generally used in comparisons, emphasizing youth, smallness, or remoteness in time. There are some 120,000 varieties of grasshoppers, and to be literally knee-high, or tibia- high, to a grasshopper a person would have to range from one millimeter tall to little more than an inch tall. See gull.
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