idea: [16] Etymologically, an idea is the ‘look’ of something – it comes ultimately from the same source as produced the Greek verb ídein ‘see’. Greek idéā itself was used by Plato in the specialized sense ‘archetypal form of something’, which survives in the derived adjective ideal [17], but as far as the modern English noun is concerned, its sense ‘notion, mental conception’ developed (in Greek) via ‘look, appearance’, ‘image’, and ‘mental image’. Ideology [18] is a derivative, coined originally in French at the end of the 18th century. => ideology, idol
idea (n.)
late 14c., "archetype of a thing in the mind of God; Platonic `idea,'" from Latin idea "idea," and in Platonic philosophy "archetype," from Greek idea "ideal prototype," literally "the look of a thing (as opposed to the reality); form; kind, sort, nature," from idein "to see," from PIE *wid-es-ya-, suffixed form of root *weid- "to see" (see vision). Sense of "result of thinking" first recorded 1640s.
Men of one idea, like a hen with one chicken, and that a duckling. [Thoreau, "Walden"]
Idée fixe (1836) is from French, literally "fixed idea."
实用例句
1. I have a fair idea of how difficult things can be.
我大致了解情况会有多困难。
来自柯林斯例句
2. They have only a vague idea of the amount of water available.
他们只是大概知道可用水的总量。
来自柯林斯例句
3. Professor Baker is unacquainted with the idea of representative democracy.
贝克教授并不熟悉“代议制民主”这一思想。
来自柯林斯例句
4. The police told me. It was a bombshell. I had no idea.
是警察告诉我的。我很震惊，完全没想到。
来自柯林斯例句
5. "I told you Preskel had no idea," remarked Kemp with some asperity.
