ausculation

Osam Dazaiの小説 "The Setting Sun" (Donald Keen訳)を読んでいます。

He took three pears from a shelf in the corner of his reception room and offered them to me. He appeared a little after noon in his formal clothes. As usual he spent an interminable time in ausculation and percussion, at last turning to me with the words, "There is nothing to excite alarm. If your mother takes the medicine which I shall prescribe, she will recover."

"ausculation and percussion" は医者がすることを指していますが、まず "ausculation" を調べます。いつも使っている辞書検索のOnelookでは普通の辞書には載っていませんでしたが、次の辞典に説明がありました。

・Collins Discovery Encyclopedia: the diagnostic technique in medicine of listening to the various internal sounds made by the body, usually with the aid of a stethoscope
・McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms: The act of listening to sounds from internal organs, especially the heart and lungs, to aid in diagnosing their physical state.

聴診器で検査することですね。すると "percussion" は医者がよく手と指を使って体を叩いて調べることですね。

・Merriam-Webster: the act or technique of tapping the surface of a body part to learn the condition of the parts beneath by the resultant sound
・Wiktionary: The tapping of the body as an aid to medical diagnosis.

上記小説の引用文の少し後に次の文がありました。

The doctor, his ausculator dangling from his shoulders like a necklace, slouched in a wicker chair.

"ausculator" は "ausculation" をする為の道具なので聴診器ですが、聴診器は普通 "stethoscope" ですよね。 "stethoscope" は大分前に通訳ガイドの資格をとる時に覚えた単語です。

rack

Osam Dazaiの小説 "The Setting Sun" (Donald Keen訳)を読んでいます。

One night she was racked by a terrible cough. When I took her temperature, it was already 102 degrees.

会社で扱っている機器のカタログで "rack mounted" の表現をよく見かけるので "rack" と言うと名詞の棚のような物しか連想しませんが、引用文の動詞用法でどんな意味になるのでしょうか？

・Oxford English Dictionary: to make somebody suffer great physical or mental pain: Her face was racked with pain.
・Collins Dictionary: If someone is racked by something such as illness or anxiety, it causes them great suffering or pain.: His already infirm body was racked by high fever.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to cause physical or mental pain, or trouble, to someone or something: The dog was already racked by/with the pains of old age.

ferreted out

Osam Dazaiの小説 "The Setting Sun" (Donald Keen訳)を読んでいます。

I extracted the bedding from our baggage and helped Mother spread it. Something about her worried me so much that I ferreted out the thermometer to take her temperature.

"ferreted out" は初めてみる表現ではありませんが、今まで取り上げたことが無いようなので今回取り上げます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: to discover information or to find somebody/something by searching carefully and completely, asking a lot of questions, etc.: He is determined to ferret out the truth about what happened.
・Collins Dictionary: If you ferret about for something, you look for it in a lot of different places or in a place where it is hidden.: She nonetheless continued to ferret about for possible jobs.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to search for something by moving things around with your hands, especially in a drawer, bag, or other closed space: I was just ferreting around in my drawer for my passport.

小動物の "ferret" が動詞になると何故上記の意味になるのか不思議で語源辞書をみました。

Online Etymology Dictionary: early 15c., "hunt with a ferret," from ferret (n.) or from Old French verb fureter, in reference to the use of half-tame ferrets to kill rats and flush rabbits from burrows. The extended sense of "search out, discover," especially by perseverance and cunning, usually with out (adv.), is from 1570s.

kerria rose

地元の図書館に、英訳されたOsam Dazaiの小説が "No Longer Human" の他にもう一冊、「斜陽」、英語の題名は "The Setting Sun" があったので読むことにしました。
小説の語り手が昔の事を語っている個所からの引用です。

I was walking by the pond intending to cut flowers for the service. I stopped by a bank of azaleas and suddenly noticed a little snake twined around the tip of an azalea branch. This startled me a little. Then when I went to cut off a bough of kerria roses from the next bush, I saw a snake there too. On the rose of Sharon next to it, on the maple, the broom, the wisteria, the cherry tree--on every bush and tree--there was a snake.

花や植物が好きなので "kerria roses" がどんな植物か調べます。

・Collins Dictionary: any of a genus (Kerria) of Chinese plants of the rose family, esp. an ornamental species ( K. japonica) with slender, green twigs and bright yellow, often double flowers
・Merriam-Webster:　a shrub (Kerria japonica) of the rose family that is native to China and Japan and has solitary yellow and often double flowers

Wikipedia にはKerria japanicaの項があり、そこには写真も載っています。
"rose of Sharon" は大分前に二度（12/17/2007と7/7/2007）もとり上げた植物で、韓国の国花になっているムクゲです。

spell

The Japan Times Online, August 29の記事タイトル・サブタイトルから引用します。

Hyogo governor's scandal could spell more trouble for Nippon Ishin
The party, still reeling from a mayoral election loss, gave its backing to Hyogo Gov. Motohiko Saito in his 2021 gubernatorial bid.

上記の "spell" の意味・用法を辞書で調べます。

・Collins Dictionary: If something spells a particular result, often an unpleasant one, it suggests that this will be the result.: A report has just arrived on government desks which spells more trouble.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to cause something bad to happen in the future: The new regulations could spell disaster for small businesses.

この意味の "spell" の場合、後に "disaster" や "trouble" などの良くないことが続くのですね。

eviscerate

Donald Keen氏訳の人間失格, "No Longer Human" から最後の引用です。

The news of my father's death eviscerated me. He was dead, that familiar, frightening presence who had never left my heart for a split second. I felt as though the vessel of my suffering had become empty, as if nothing could interest me now. I had lost even the ability to suffer.

難し単語 "eviscerate" を調べます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: eviscerate something to remove the inner organs of a body
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to remove one or all of the organs from the inside of a body
怖い意味ですね。これが比喩的にも使われると、
・Collins Dictionary: If you say that something will eviscerate an organization or system, you are emphasizing that it will make the organization or system much weaker or much less powerful.: Democrats say the petition will eviscerate state government.
・American Heritage Dictionary: To take away a vital or essential part of; weaken, damage, or destroy: a compromise that eviscerated the proposed bill.

then-and-there decision

Donald Keen氏訳の人間失格, "No Longer Human" を読んでいます。

I had always imagined that the beaty of virginity was nothing more than the sweet, sentimental illusion of stupid poets, but it really is alive and present in this world. We would get married. In the spring we'd go together on bicycles to see waterfalls framed in geen leaves.
I made up my mind on the spot: it was a then-and-there decision, and I did not hesitate to steal the flower.
Not long afterwards, we were married.

"then-and-there decision" はその前の "made up my mind on the spot" の言い換えの様ですが、辞書で確認します。

・Merriam-Webster: immediately: wanted the money right then and there
・Collins Dictionary: at that precise time and place; at once; on the spot: I started to pack my things right then and there: Also: there and then
・Cambridge English Dictionary: immediately: I suggested he call his mother and he did it there and then.

parsimoniousness

Donald Keen氏訳の人間失格, "No Longer Human" を読んでいます。

(At the time I didn't think that the jelly tasted bad, and I was really grateful for the old woman's kindness. It is true that I dread poverty, but I do not believe I ever have despised it.) The jelly and the way Horiki rejoiced over it taught me a lesson in the parsimoniousness of the city-dweller, and in what it is really like in a Tokyo household where the members divide their lives so sharply between what they do at home and what they do on the outside.

"parsimoniousness" は以前7/14/2014に "parsimonious" を、2/15/2013に "parsimony" を取り上げました。渋柿も捨てないで食べるような倹約家を連想して覚えましたが、柿は "persimmon" なので、関係はないですね。

hawking cough

Donald Keen氏訳の人間失格, "No Longer Human" を読んでいます。

That morning I had an odd hawking cough, and every time I coughed I covered my mouth with my handkerchief. The handkerchief was spattered with blood, but it was not blood from my throat. The night before I had been picking at a pimple under my ear, and the blood was from that pimple. Realizing at once that it would be to my advantage on to reveal the truth, I lowered my eyes and sanctimoniously murmured, "Yes."

"hawking cough" とはどんな咳でしょうか？　鷹の咳は聞いたことがないし。"hawking" の項には該当するような意味は見つからないので "hawk" をよく見ると次の意味を載せている辞書がありました。

・Collins Dictionary: If someone hawks, they noisily clear mucus from their throat and spit it out.: [old-fashioned] He hawked and spat.
・Merriam-Webster: to raise by trying to clear the throat: hawk up phlegm

やはり鷹の鳴き声がこの様に聞こえるのでしょうね。