bicycle

英 ['ba?s?kl] 美['ba?s?kl]

TEM4CET6CET4考研中低頻詞核心詞匯

復數:?bicycles;第三人稱單數:?bicycles;過去式:?bicycled;過去分詞:?bicycled;現在分詞:?bicycling;

1. bi-: two. 表示兩個輪子的車。而bike則是由bicycle縮略、簡化而來。
2. 舉一反三、依此類推：unicycle, tricycle, quadricycle.

bicycle 自行車

前綴bi-, 二。cycle, 圓，圈。

bicycle: bicycle: [19] The word bicycle, literally ‘twowheeled’ (from Greek kúklos ‘circle, wheel’), was originally coined in French, and first appeared in English in 1868, in the 7 September edition of the Daily News: ‘bysicles and trysicles which we saw in the Champs élysées and the Bois de Boulogne this summer’. This reflects the fact that it was in the 1860s that the bicycle first assumed the form we know it in today, with pedals and cranks driving the front wheel. (Slightly earlier was the now obsolete velocipede, literally ‘swift foot’, first applied to pedal bicycles and tricycles around 1850.

Until the introduction of pneumatic tyres in the 1880s, the new cycles were known as bone-shakers – a term first encountered in 1874.)
=> cycle, wheel
bicycle (n.): 1868, coined from bi- "two" + Greek kyklos "circle, wheel" (see cycle (n.)), on the pattern of tricycle; both the word and the vehicle superseding earlier velocipede. The English word probably is not from French, though often said to be (many French sources say the French word is from English). The assumption apparently is because Pierre Lallement, employee of a French carriage works, improved Macmillan's 1839 pedal velocipede in 1865 and took the invention to America. See also pennyfarthing. As a verb, from 1869.
That ne plus ultra of snobbishness -- bicyclism. [1876]

2. The bicycle reigned supreme as Britain's most popular mode of transport.: 當時自行車是英國最流行的交通工具。

3. Each year they compete in a prominent statewide bicycle race.: 每年他們都要參加著名的全州自行車大賽。