儒琴英语咀嚼《伤残的树》(The Crippled Tree)一书的用词。《伤残的树》是英籍女作家韩素音自传之一。写她的中国父亲在欧洲留学时与她比利时母亲恋爱结合的故事，以及她在童年时期的生活见闻。韩素音的英文造诣在当代英美文坛堪称一流，其精美、清丽、雅洁的文笔早在西方评论界获得公认。
英语文学词汇 Literature Terms
41.progenitor
noun [ C ] formal /proʊˈdʒen.ə.t̬ɚ/
a person or thing from which a person, animal, or plant is descended or originates; an ancestor or parent.
人、动物或植物的起源; 祖先或父母
A man’s life begins with his ancestors and is continued in his descendants. My father’s life, and after my father my own life begins the Family. To describe the Family I must go back in the time past and tell how the progenitors came to the Land. (Page 19)
42. plod
verb [ I + adv/prep ]/plɑːd/ (Cambridge)
A) to walk taking slow steps, as if your feet are heavy
艰难地行走；吃力地行进
B)to work slowly and continuously, but without imagination, enthusiasm, or interest
（缺乏想象力、热情和兴趣地）埋头工作
For years, he’s plodded away at the same dull routine job.
多年来，他一直在做同一项单调的工作。
Until the present road was built after the Revolution, only pathways wound up and down those parallel ranges barring the way to Lhasa, and along these paths one hundred thousand tea-carriers from Szechuan plodded, each with a four-hundred pound load of brick tea, climbing the passes three miles above the sea level to the Tibetan plateau. ( Page 19)
43. pleat
noun [ C ] & verb /pliːt/
a narrow fold in a piece of cloth made by pressing or sewing two parts of the cloth together; old into pleats.
褶; 折叠成褶
More ranges fret and curve in pleated folds eastwards, to hem Szechuan in, closing the access to the spreading plains of Middle China. (Page 19)
44. capillary
noun [ C ] anatomy specialized /ˈkapəˌlerē/
a very thin tube, especially one of the smaller tubes that carry blood around the body
毛细管；（尤指）毛细血管
…its once impetuous waters now diverging into nine hundred thousand man-dug canals, a web of water intricate as the body capillary system, nourishing the seabed silt into the best rice-growing earth of China. (Page 20)
45. bounteous
adj.[ˈbaʊntiəs]
generously given or giving; bountiful.
十分慷慨的; 非常大方的
Thus write the historians of the succeeding Manchu dynasty, quoting Chang the Yellow Tiger’s words against him:”Heaven is bounteous to man; but man turns against Heaven. (Page 20)
46. unpeople
A) verb
dramatically reduce the population of an area; depopulate.
急剧减少一个地区的人口; 使人口减少
B) noun
plural noun: unpeople
a group of people regarded as politically unimportant or without rights.
被认为在政治上不重要或没有权利的一群人。
More killing went on during the next fifty year, and these recurrent massacres unpeopled the Chengdu plain. ( Page 20)
47. troglodyte
noun [ C ]/ˈtrɑː.ɡlə.daɪt/ (Cambridge)
a person who lives in a cave
穴居人
Most people associate troglodytes with prehistoric times, but troglodyte communities still exist in Tunisia and China. 大多数人一说到穴居人就会想到史前时期，但是在突尼斯和中国如今仍然存在窑洞居民点。
Those who survived fled to the mountains, lived in trees as apes, or became troglodytes in the rock caves that pit the cliffs along the Great River. (Page 21)
48. denote
verb [ T ] /dɪˈnoʊt/ (Cambridge)
to represent something
表示，代表
The colour red is used to denote passion or danger. 红色用于表示激情或危险。
The word Hakka does not denote a racial group, for the Hakkas are Han People, the Chinese people. ( Page 23)
49. clannish
adjective /ˈklæn.ɪʃ/
used to describe members of a group of people or society who are friendly to each other, but not to people outside the group
宗族的；排外的；宗派的；小集团的
Circumstances thus defined their group characters: clannish, thrifty, loyal to each other, bad neighbours and and ready fighters. ( page 24)
50. precursor
noun [ C ]/ˌpriːˈkɝː.sɚ/ (Cambridge）
something that happened or existed before another thing, especially if it either developed into it or had an influence on it
先驱，先锋；先兆，前兆
Sulphur dioxide is the main precursor of acid rain. 二氧化硫是形成酸雨最重要的先决条件。
The fifth and last migration of Hakkas occurred at the end of the Taiping rising, one of the many enormous peasant revolts which have characterized the history of China, important because the present Revolution looks upon the Taiping as its precursor.