expletive
US /ˈek.splə.t̬ɪv/
UK /ɪkˈspliː.tɪv/
名词
1.
脏话, 咒骂语
an oath or swear word
示例:
•
He uttered an expletive when he hit his thumb with the hammer.
他用锤子砸到拇指时，爆出了一句脏话。
•
The movie was full of expletives, so it wasn't suitable for children.
这部电影充满了脏话，所以不适合儿童观看。
2.
赘词, 填充词
a word or phrase inserted into a sentence, especially for emphasis, that is not necessary to the meaning of the sentence
示例:
•
The phrase 'there is' in 'There is a cat on the mat' is an expletive construction.
“垫子上有一只猫”中的“有”是一个赘词结构。
•
In grammar, an expletive can be a word like 'it' or 'there' that fills a syntactic position but adds no semantic meaning.
在语法中，赘词可以是像“it”或“there”这样的词，它们填充句法位置但没有增加语义。