barrel

Japan Times Online、Sept.23の記事からの抜粋です。
Hong Kong braces for Typhoon Usagi
After killing two people in the Philippines and unleashing landslides in Taiwan, Typhoon Usagi barreled toward Hong Kong on Sunday, shutting down one world’s busiest seaports and throwing flight schedules into disarray.
上に出てくる "barreled" ですが、樽が転がるように進んだという意味でしょうか？ ・Macmillan Dictionary: to move very quickly in a deliberate or determined way: barrel down/into/through etc.: David was barreling down the hall toward her.
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: to move at a high speed or without hesitation: The truck went barreling down Main Street.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to travel somewhere very quickly: We were barrelling along the autobahn at 180 kph.
さて、この意味の由来ですが、ONLINE ETYMOLOGY DICTIONARYに次ぎの説明がありました。
Meaning "to move quickly" is 1930, American English slang, perhaps suggestive of a rolling barrel.

To your good health!

いつもは日曜日にジョークを紹介しているのですが、明日の日曜日には初めて地元ではない場所での10kmランに参加するために早出をするので、今日ジョークを投稿します。
I recently changed doctors, and after two visits and exhaustive lab tests he said I was doing "fairly well" for my age of 70.
A little concerned about that comment, I couldn't resist asking: "So do you think I'll live to be 85?"
"Well," he said, "Do you smoke, drink, eat fatty steaks and spend a lot of time out in the sun playing golf, hiking or bicycling?"
"No, I don't do any of those things," I said.
"Then why on earth do you want to live to be 85?"

receivership

今日の単語もRD９月号の記事からです。
I helped out a semi-famous man once when he and his family reached the checkout with their trolley and the card declined (because he was in receivership!) I paid for the items and on their way they went. "receivership" の意味を調べます。
・Macmillan Dictionary: a situation in which a business is being managed by a receiver: The company went into receivership two years ago.
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: law : the state of a business that has been placed under the control of a receiver because it is bankrupt: Years of financial difficulty eventually placed the company into receivership.
・Oxford Dictionary: the condition of being administered by a receiver: He has been on loan to a Seria B side, but they went into receivership , like Fiorentina. 絶対になりたくない状況ですね。

wherewithal

RD９月号の記事、TAG, you're it!から一部抜粋します。
These guys aren't just a bunch of overgrown kids running around something. "Tag! You're It!" Tag is a children's game in which one player pursues the others until he or she is able to touch or "tag" one of them, who then in turn becomes the pursuer. OK, maybe they are bunch of overgrown kids running around shouting, "Tag! You're It!" But they're also successful professionals, businessmen and spiritural leaders who have taken this childhood game to a whole other level by combining a Peter Pan-ish I'll-never-grown-up mind set with the money and wherewithal to pull off the ridiculous.
ここに出てくる "Tag" も "It" も普通の意味とは違いますが、文中で子供の遊びとして説明があるので分かります。しかし最後の個所に出てきた "wherewithal" が分からないので辞書を見ます。
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: means, resources; specifically: money: didn't have the wherewithal for an expensive dinner
・Cambridge English Dictionary: the money necessary for a particular purpose: I'd like to buy a bigger house, but I don't have the wherewithal
. ・Oxford English Dictionary: [usually with infinitive] (the wherewithal): the money or other means needed for a particular purpose: they lacked the wherewithal to pay

Everyone who is anyone

今日採り上げる表現もRD９月号の記事 Hello Goodbyeからです。
Khrushchev arrives at Twentieth Century-Fox and enters a packed room. Everyone who is anyone is here: elizabeth Taylor, tony Curtis, Edwad G. Robinson, Judy Garland, Ginger Rogers, Kirk Douglas, Nut "King" Cole, Frank Sinatra, Maurice Chevalier, Zsa Zsa Gabor.
"anyone" は誰でも良いと思っていましたが、上の文の "Everyone who is anyone" の "anyone" はその後に有名人が連なっているのでどうも誰でも良いとは思われません。早速辞書で調べると "anyone who is/was anyone" としての使い方で次ぎの意味になることが分かります。
・Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus : all the most famous and important people: In those days anyone who was anyone dined in this exclusive little restaurant.
・Oxford Dictionary: a person of importance or authority: they are read by anyone who’s anyone
有名人、重要人物を指しているではないですか。

Pregnancy test

今日は英検のテストを受ける日だと息子がいっていましたが、次ぎのテストは男性には受験資格はありません。
When my eight-year-old asked how I knew I was pregnant, I told her I had taken a pregnancy test..
"Oh," she said, "What questions were on the test?".

dial

RD９月号の記事 Hello Goodbye (Celebrities and politicians have always schmoozed. Here are three unforettable meetings)出てきた "dials" はどう見ても私が知っている意味では使われていません。
その記事のMarilyn & Nikita（マリリンモンローとフルシチョフ）の項から抜粋します。
"It's Khrush, Khrushy, Khrushchev!" writes a New York Daily News columnist. "The fellow's all over the dials ... smiling, laughing, scowling, shaking his forefinger or clenching his iron fist."
早速辞書で調べます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: British informal a person’s face: he must be one of the new batch?I haven’t seen his dial before
・Wiktionary: (UK, dated) A person's face.
・English slang and colloquialisms used in the United Kingdom: A person's face.
イギリスのスラングのようです。

hold sway

Hopes Prospectsのイスラエルの話はまだまだ続きます。
The World Bank "cited Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints hindering trade and travel, as well as restrictions on Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas holds sway."
"sway" は知っている単語ですが、"holds sway" は慣用句のようなので調べます。・Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms:
1. to control Each group that held sway over a particular strip of the Mississippi River controlled who used it.
2. to have great influence Ten years after she correctly predicted the crash, she still holds sway among stock
brokers.
・Collins Dictionary: to be master; reign: Bondholders now hold sway in a way they never did before in Europe.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to have power or a very strong influence: Fundamentalist beliefs hold sway over whole districts, ensuring the popularity of religious leaders.
何で "holds sway" にこの様な意味があるのか疑問になったので "sway" を辞書で見直すと、
・Cambridge English Dictionary: control or influence: In the 1980s, the organization came under the sway of (= became strongly influenced by) Christian fundamentalism.: Her parents no longer seem to have much sway over her. The party could hold sway (= have an important influence) on some crucial votes.
・Online Etymology Dictionary: The noun meaning "controlling influence" (to be under the sway of) is 1510s, from a transitive sense of the verb in Dutch and other languages. The verb in this sense is recorded in English from 1590s.
という説明があり、"holds sway" は特に慣用句ではなく、 "sway" に元々（１６世紀から） "controlling influence" の意味があったのでした。

wake

Noam Chomsky著のHopes Prospectsのイスラエルの話は続きます。
Peter Beaumont reports from Gaza that "on its coastal littoral, Gaza's limitations are marked by a different fence where the bars are Israeli gunboats with their huge wakes, scurrying beyond the Palestinian fishing boats and preventing them from going outside a zone imposed by the warships."
"wake" というと "wake up" の他に、寝ずの番とか、それから発生した通夜 ("A safety slogan: Awake or a Wake"）を思い浮かべますが、上に引用した文中の "wake" の意味は別の意味があるようです。　辞書を見ます。
・Cambridge English Dictionary: the waves that a moving ship or object leaves behind: The wake spread out in a v-shape behind the ship.
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: the track left by a moving body (as a ship) in a fluid (as water); broadly: a track or path left
・Vocabulary.com: In the wake, or aftermath, of a death, it's traditional in many cultures to hold a wake, a vigil for the dead. There's a third meaning of wake, too, you know: it's the waves that a boat leaves behind as it slices through the water. And that's not all...
Wake has three meanings as a noun, and, yes, just about as many meanings as a verb! So get set. To wake is come out of sleep, a verb you'll recognize from "Wake up! You're asleep at the wheel!" You can wake feelings, as well as the people who are having them. The wake before the funeral caused Mike to wake from his depression and decide to live life to the fullest. His first act was to water ski; he eventually mastered staying upright while crossing the wake of the boat that was towing him.
この意味は前にも調べたことがありますね。忘れていました。

self-immolation

Noam Chomsky著のHopes Prospectsを読んでいます。
The alleged Iranian military threat can hardly be taken seriously for other reasons. One is that any potential threat could be overcome by Western agreement to pursue efforts to establish a Middle East MWFZ. Beyond that, unless Iranian leaders are dedicated to instant self-immolation, the chances of Iran even arming a missile, let against Iran, as claimed, then it can only be intended to neutralize a possible deterrent to a U.S. first strike.
"self-immolation" が分からないので "immolation" を辞書で調べます。
・Collins Dictionary: the act of killing or offering as a sacrifice, esp by fire: Ibrahim Zadh, who was at the Ottawa protest, witnessed the immolation attempt.
・Oxford English Dictionary: kill or offer as a sacrifice, especially by burning: Chinese kings would immolate vast numbers of animals
・Vocabulary.com: Immolation is what happens when something is killed or offered as a sacrifice. In some ancient societies immolation of animals was a common ritual used to gain favor with the gods.
Immolation comes from the Latin word immolat-, meaning “sprinkled with sacrificial meal.” Immolation always involves a sacrifice or offering of some sort. The word often invokes burning, a common method of sacrifice. You might read about the immolation of a group who set themselves on fire to protest political oppression. You can also use it figuratively to describe anything that’s sacrificed, like the immolation of your Hollywood dreams for the good of the family farm.