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pro·di·gious AHD[prə-dĭjʹəs] D.J.[prəˈdɪdʒəs]K.K.[prəˈdɪdʒəs]adj.（形容词）- Impressively great in size, force, or extent; enormous:巨大的，庞大的：尺寸、力量或程度异常巨大的；巨大的：a prodigious storm.暴风骤雨
- Extraordinary; marvelous:不可思议的；惊人的：the young Mozart's prodigious talents.小莫扎特惊人的天赋
- Obsolete Portentous; ominous.【废语】 预兆的；不祥的
- Latin prōdigiōsus [portentous, monstrous] 拉丁语 prōdigiōsus [预兆的，不祥的]
- from prōdigium [omen] 源自 prōdigium [预兆]
prodiʹgiously adv.（副词）prodiʹgiousness n.（名词）注释- No one would now say, as did a character in Fanny Burney'sEvelina (1778), "You are prodigiously kind!”But this utterance, exclamation point and all,illustrates two important points about intensives, linguistic elements,such asextremely or awfully, that provide force or emphasis.One point is that we press words that originally had other meanings into service as intensives.Prodigiously is an adverb formed on prodigious, which meant such things as "ominous, amazing, enormous,” going back to the Latinprōdigiōsus, "portentous, marvelous, unnatural.”Prodigiously, first recorded in 1595, meant "portentously, ominously,”and was later used to mean "wonderfully, astonishingly,”therefore making a perfect candidate for use as an intensive.The other point about intensives illustrated byprodigiously is that they go in and out of fashion. The character inEvelina used prodigiously in a way that was no doubt very stylish; no one would find it so today.Perhaps the main reason for such shifts in the use of these intensives is that once they have been used for a whilethey no longer intensify.现在没有人会象芬妮·伯尼的小说埃维莉娜 (1778年）中的人物那样说， “您真是太好了!”但这种说法，感叹号和全句，说明了关于加强语气的重要两点，如extremely 或 awfully 这样的语言要素， 具有加强语气或表示强调的作用。要点之一是我们把一些最初有其他意思的词当作了加强语气的词来使用。Prodigiously 是在意为“不祥的，惊人的，巨大的”的形容词 prodigious 基础上形成的副词， 可追溯到拉丁词prodigiosus， 意思是“不祥的，奇异的，不自然的。”Prodigiously 最早记录于1595年， 意为“预兆性地，不祥地，”后来意为“奇妙地，惊人地，”因此很适于用作强调词。Prodigiously 说明的关于强调词的另一个要点是这些词流行一时然后就过时了。 埃维莉娜 中的人物使用 prodigiously 的方式无疑是很时髦的； 但今天已没有人这样用了。或许这些强调词用法变换的主要原因是一旦这些词被使用了一段时间后，其加强语气或强调作用就不再明显了
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