The Japan Times OnlineのOct.3に次ぎのキャプションがありました。
Nuke plant has 38-hour margin for meltdown Tokyo Electric releases an estimate saying the deformed cores at its meltdown-stricken Fukushima power plant can last 38 hours if the cooling systems conk out again.
ここで使われている "conk out" は知らない表現ですが、文脈からして、冷却システムが機能しなくなる事を意味していると推測できます。
記事の最初のパラグラフを読みます。
Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Saturday released an estimate saying that if the water injections cooling its stricken Fukushima power plant are halted again, the fuel rods could start melting within 38 hours, unleashing another wave of cancerous radioactive fallout.
キャプションと同じ様な内容を本文では "halt" を使っています。相変わらず怖い話ですが、それはともかく "conk out" を辞書で確認します。
・Vocabulary.com: stop operating or functioning, use up all one's strength and energy and stop working: And the battery conks out after less than an hour.
・Cambridge Dictionaries Online:
1, If vehicles and other machines conk out, they stop working or fail suddenly: I was just two miles from home when my motorbike conked out!
2. to go to sleep very quickly, or to suddenly become unconscious: After a six-hour flight and a long day of meetings, it's not surprising you conked out.
語源辞典には "conk" の由来として次ぎの説明がありました。
as in conk out, 1918, coined by World War I airmen, perhaps in imitation of the sound of a stalling motor, reinforced by conk (v.) "hit on the head," originally "punch in the nose" (1821), from conk (n.), slang for "nose" (1812), perhaps from fancied resemblance to a conch (pronounced "conk") shell.
バハマの海岸で食べた "conch" を思い出しましたが、 "conch shell" から "conk out" の意味には中々つながりません。
Nuke plant has 38-hour margin for meltdown Tokyo Electric releases an estimate saying the deformed cores at its meltdown-stricken Fukushima power plant can last 38 hours if the cooling systems conk out again.
ここで使われている "conk out" は知らない表現ですが、文脈からして、冷却システムが機能しなくなる事を意味していると推測できます。
記事の最初のパラグラフを読みます。
Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Saturday released an estimate saying that if the water injections cooling its stricken Fukushima power plant are halted again, the fuel rods could start melting within 38 hours, unleashing another wave of cancerous radioactive fallout.
キャプションと同じ様な内容を本文では "halt" を使っています。相変わらず怖い話ですが、それはともかく "conk out" を辞書で確認します。
・Vocabulary.com: stop operating or functioning, use up all one's strength and energy and stop working: And the battery conks out after less than an hour.
・Cambridge Dictionaries Online:
1, If vehicles and other machines conk out, they stop working or fail suddenly: I was just two miles from home when my motorbike conked out!
2. to go to sleep very quickly, or to suddenly become unconscious: After a six-hour flight and a long day of meetings, it's not surprising you conked out.
語源辞典には "conk" の由来として次ぎの説明がありました。
as in conk out, 1918, coined by World War I airmen, perhaps in imitation of the sound of a stalling motor, reinforced by conk (v.) "hit on the head," originally "punch in the nose" (1821), from conk (n.), slang for "nose" (1812), perhaps from fancied resemblance to a conch (pronounced "conk") shell.
バハマの海岸で食べた "conch" を思い出しましたが、 "conch shell" から "conk out" の意味には中々つながりません。
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