英语习语：rattle the cage
英语习语：rattle the cage 。习语可以是一个词或短语，要理解习语的意思不能脱离其文化背景。习语一词的含义甚广，其蕴含的意义往往不能从词或词组的字面意思推测而得。习语在所有语言中都很常见。英语习语是日常英语的重要组成部分。在英语的书面语和口语中，存在海量的习语。
《苔丝》词汇: sophistry and more
He looked at her imploringly, as if he would willingly have taken a lie from her lips, knowing it to be one, and have made of it, by some sophistry, a valid denial.
他恳求地望着她，仿佛他明知道她在说谎，也愿意听她从嘴里说出，然后用某种诡辩的方法，自欺欺人地把谎言当成真话。（第36章）
《苔丝》词汇: strait, contrivance, foreboding, inimical, stupor, effete, discordant,
The fire in the grate looked impish, demoniacally funny, as if it did not care in the least about her strait.
壁炉里的残火看起来顽皮，像魔鬼一样滑稽，似乎一点也不关心她的困境。（第35章）
《苔丝》词汇: lineament, smirk, frivolity, draughty, injunction, unrequited, dissipation,
As all visitors to the mansion are aware, these paintings represent women of middle age, of a date some two hundred years ago, whose lineaments once seen can never be forgotten.
所有到过这座豪宅的人都知道，那是两个中年妇女的画像，年份大约是两百年以前。她们的容貌很特别，只要看过一次，就永远不会被忘记。(第34章）
《苔丝》词汇: abeyance, weir, shilly-shally, in train
This penitential mood kept her from naming the wedding-day. The beginning of November found its date still in abeyance, though he asked her at the most tempting times. But Tess's desire seemed to be for a perpetual betrothal, in which everything should remain as it was then.
这种忏悔的心情使她没有说出结婚的日子。到了11月初，尽管他在最诱人的时候问过她，但婚礼的日期仍然遥遥无期。但是苔丝的愿望似乎永远处在订婚阶段，一切都保持现在的样子。（第32章）
《苔丝》词汇: superadd, succinct, temerarious, fraternize, contrite
Tess paid the penalty of walking about with happiness superadded to beauty on her countenance by being much stared at as she moved amid them on his arm.
苔丝满脸欢喜，光彩照人。 在她挽着他的胳膊在人群中挤来挤去的时候，总有很多人呆呆地盯着她看。（第33章）
《苔丝》词汇: chivalrous, fastidious, infelicitous, capricious
Though not cold-natured, he was rather bright than hot, less Byronic than Shelleyan; could love desperately, but with a love more especially inclined to the imaginative and ethereal; it was a fastidious emotion which could jealously guard the loved one against his very self.
他并非性格冷淡，却也不是热情洋溢，而他只能算是神采焕发，并不像拜伦，而倒是更像雪莱。他可以不顾一切地去爱，但这种爱更倾向于想象和灵空。这是一种严谨细腻的情感，宁愿委屈自己，也要保护自己所爱的人。（第31章）
《苔丝》词汇: disabuse, rumpus, lucubration
The “appetite for joy” which pervades all creation, that tremendous force which sways humanity to its purpose, as the tide sways the helpless weed, was not to be controlled by vague lucubrations over social rubric.
在万物中普遍存在这种“求欢的欲望”的本能，这是一种巨大无比的力量，人类都要受到它的摆布， 就像无奈的海草要受到潮水摆布一样，这是那些空谈社会道德的浮夸沉闷文章所左右不了的。
《苔丝》词汇: mirth, blandishment, countenance, recantation, roguish, tremulous,
The laughter which followed this sally was supplemented only by a sorry smile, for form's sake from Tess. What was comedy to them was tragedy to her; and she could hardly bear their mirth.
尼布斯很幽默，引得大家哈哈大笑，只有苔丝勉强苦笑了一下。在别人看来是喜剧在她看来却是悲剧。她几乎无法忍受那一阵嬉闹喧哗。（第29章）
《苔丝》词汇: coyness, circumspectly, coquette, scrupulousness，
His experience of women was great enough for him to be aware that the negative often meant nothing more than the preface to the affirmative; and it was little enough for him not to know that in the manner of the present negative there lay a great exception to the dallyings of coyness.
他和女人打过交道，知道否定往往不过是肯定的前奏。 但是这次他经验不足，看不出这个否定是个例外，并非是那种半推半就，故作忸怩。（第28章）