rather: [OE] Rather originated as the comparative form of the now obsolete adjective rathe ‘quick’, and so to begin with meant ‘more quickly’, hence ‘earlier, sooner’. Its most frequent modern meaning, ‘more willingly’, emerged as recently as the 16th century. Rathe itself went back to a prehistoric Germanic *khrathaz, which may have been derived from the same base as produced English rash ‘impetuous’. => rash
rather (adv.)
Old English hrator "more quickly, earlier, sooner," also "more readily," comparative of hrate, hr?te "quickly, hastily, promptly, readily, immediately," which is related to hr?e "quick, nimble, prompt, ready," from Proto-Germanic *khratha- (cognates: Old Norse hraer, Old High German hrad), from PIE *kret- "to shake." The base form rathe was obsolete by 18c. except in poetry (Tennyson); superlative rathest fell from use by 17c. Meaning "more willingly" is recorded from c. 1300; sense of "more truly" is attested from late 14c.
The rather lambes bene starved with cold
[Spenser, "The Shepheardes Calender" (Februarie), 1579]
雙語(yǔ)例句
1. Rather taken aback by such forwardness, I slammed down the phone.
如此無(wú)禮的言語(yǔ)讓我火冒三丈，我砰的一下把電話掛了。
來(lái)自柯林斯例句
2. The process is not a circle but rather a spiral.
這個(gè)過(guò)程不是一個(gè)圓周運(yùn)動(dòng)而是螺旋上升型的。
來(lái)自柯林斯例句
3. I gradually got rather disillusioned with the whole setup of the university.
漸漸地，我對(duì)大學(xué)的整個(gè)體制感到相當(dāng)失望。
來(lái)自柯林斯例句
4. She was in rather a bad film about the Mau Mau.