儒琴今日英语单词选自日常用语，欧美报刊文章, 以及英语原文小说。每天坚持学习今日英语单词，有助于阅读和理解当今欧美主流媒体的新闻时事报道和英语文学作品；增强日常英语交流能力。
儒琴今日英语单词 Word of the Day
brush off
意思：dismiss someone or something in an abrupt way； to refuse to listen to someone, or to accept that something might be true or important.
忽略，不理睬; 对…充耳不闻，对…不加理睬;
举例：The Foreign Secretary brushed off suggestions that he had considered resigning.
As a wave of recent polling indicated that Mr. Newsom was likely to brush off his Republican challengers, the baseless allegations accelerated.
minion
noun [ C ] usually disapproving /ˈmɪn.jən/
意思：1.a servile dependent, follower, or underling He’s one of the boss’s minions. 2 : one highly favored : idol his great charity to the poor renders him the minion of the people— Jonas Hanway. 3 : a subordinate (see subordinate entry 1 sense 1) or petty official government minions.
下属; 小卒; 杂役; 手下；奴才；仆从
举例： There’s basically no one at the highest echelon of Republican politics who seems willing to take a stand against Trump or his minions in 2024. The conventional wisdom is that if Trump runs again, he wins without a fight. (washingtonpost)
make-or-break
意思： A make-or-break situation will bring great success or complete failure；be the factor which decides whether (something) will succeed or fail
不成则败的；要么成功要么毁灭；要么极度成功,要么彻底失
举例：With a make-or-break vote looming in the Senate on a sweeping voting-rights and anti-corruption bill, President Joe Biden and his advisers have said in recent weeks that Biden will pressure wavering Democrats to support reforming the filibuster if necessary to pass the voting bill,” Rolling Stone reports.
down-ballot
意思：used to refer to people who are trying to get elected for less important political jobs, whose names are printed lower down on the ballot (= list of people you can vote for), or to contests between these people （Cambridge）
（竞选相对不那么重要的政治职位的人，或者这些人之间的竞争）下方票的，低位票的
举例：Politico: “Though Covid-19 is still afflicting the nation, Democrats in all three of the upcoming gubernatorial contests… have extensive field operations, as do down-ballot candidates and battleground state parties preparing for competitive 2022 elections.”
leave nothing to chance
意思：to prepare for everything possible 把事情做得四平八稳，不留漏洞
举例：We planned for everything and left nothing to chance.
It is a notable shift from last year’s elections, when Biden held off deploying field staffers until about a month before the election amid concerns about the coronavirus, while Republicans largely continued field work as normal. After a disappointing year down-ballot, Democrats say they can’t leave anything to chance with competitive off-year elections this fall. ( Politico)
