escalate

英 ['esk?le?t] 美['?sk?let]

CET6+TEM8IELTSGRE考研TOEFL中低頻詞常用詞匯

第三人稱單數:?escalates;過去式:?escalated;過去分詞:?escalated;現在分詞:?escalating;名詞:?escalation;

escalate 加劇，惡化

e-, 緩音字母。-scala, 梯子，詞源同ascend, echelon.比喻義加劇，惡化。

escalate: escalate: [20] Escalate is a back-formation from escalator [20], which was originally a tradename for a moving staircase first made in the USA around 1900 by the Otis Elevator Company. This in turn seems to have been coined (probably on the model of elevator) from escalade [16], a term in medieval warfare signifying the scaling of a fortified wall, which came via French and Spanish from medieval Latin scalāre, source of English scale ‘climb’. Escalate originally meant simply ‘ascend on an escalator’; the metaphorical sense ‘increase’ developed at the end of the 1950s.
escalate (v.): 1922, "to use an escalator," back-formation from escalator, replacing earlier verb escalade (1801), from the noun escalade. Escalate came into general use with a figurative sense of "raise" from 1959 (intrans.), originally in reference to scenarios for possible nuclear war. Related: Escalated; escalating. Transitive figurative sense is by 1962.

3. Conditions are still very tense and the fighting could escalate at any time.: 局勢仍然非常緊張，戰斗隨時可能升級。

4. Both unions and management fear the dispute could escalate.: 工會和管理層都擔心爭端會惡化。

5. Defeat could cause one side or other to escalate the conflict.: 失敗可能會導致其中一方將沖突升級。