English Collection

日頃目に付いた覚えたい英単語、慣用句などの表現についてのメモです。

squat

2012年10月29日 | 英語学習

A MOMENT OF WARの主人公達は列車で前線に近い町についた様です。
We fell stiffly from the train and lined up raggedly on the platform, and were faced by a small brass band like a firing-squad. In the dead morning light they pointed their instruments at our heads and blew out a succession of tubercular blasts. Then a squat mackintoshed Commander climbed on to a box and addressed us in rasping tones.
"squat mackintoshed Commander" ですが、"mackintoshed" は以前取り上げた "mackintosh" の形容詞的な用法に違いありませんが、"squat" の方は何度か取り上げた "squat toilet" とそれに関係する動作の意味しか頭に浮かびません。 辞書を見ます。
・Cambridge English Dictionary: short and wide, usually in a way that is not attractive: a row of ugly squat houses: a heavily-built squat man
・Vocabulary.com: short and thick; as e.g. having short legs and heavy musculature: “a little church with a squat tower”
As an adjective, squat describes someone who is very short and thick. In the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the dwarfs are depicted as squat little men.
Vocabulary.comの解説は記憶するのに役立ちますね。

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