| 词汇 | bribe |
| 词源 | bribe. A bribe, a sinister thing today, was originally, in 14th- century France, alms that one gave a beggar. Because beggars began to demand such alms the word came to mean “to extort or steal” when it reached England a century or so later. Within a century or so a bribe came to mean, instead of an extortion, “a voluntary inducement to get someone to do something for the giver,” an ironic change that has carried over into the word’s meaning today. |
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