| 释义 |
ept, a.|ɛpt|
[Back-formation f. inept a.]
Used as a deliberate antonym of ‘inept’: adroit, appropriate, effective.
1938E. B. White Let. Oct. (1976) 183, I am much obliged..to you for your warm, courteous, and ept treatment of a rather weak, skinny subject. 1966Time 30 Sept. 7/1 With the exception of one or two semantic twisters, I think it is a first-rate job—definitely ept, ane and ert. 1976N.Y. Times Mag. 6 June 15 The obvious answer is summed up by a White House official's sardonic crack: ‘Politically, we're not very ept.’
Hence ˈeptitude; ˈeptly adv.
1967New Yorker 11 Mar. 133/1 At the start of a season, the custom milliners are always full of ertia and eptitude—an attitude that I parage. 1970Guardian 3 Nov. 11/1 The Foreign Secretary has a deserved reputation for being an accident prone speechmaker, and his eptitude—if that is a word—is sometimes questionable. 1974New Yorker 29 Apr. 129/1 Five masked instrumentalists visit, play a sort of march, exchange instruments and play it again, necessarily rather less eptly. 1978Observer 29 Jan. 4/8 The affair..has contributed to what has been called his ‘eptitude problem’: his ability, when he is wrong-footed, to extricate himself cleanly from the resulting mess. |