| 释义 |
another country, n.
Brit. |əˌnʌðə ˈkʌntri|, U.S. |əˌnəðər ˈkəntri|
[‹ another adj. and pron. + country n.]
1. Chiefly literary and poet. The realm of the dead, or of the souls of the dead (cf. other world n.), esp. regarded as a haven after life on earth; the state of death.
a1641Dicke of Devonshire iv. ii, in A. H. Bullen Coll. Old Eng. Plays (1883) II. 70 1: You must dye to morrow. Pi.: Welcome, to morrow shall I be in another Country, where there are no Examiners,..nor barres nor Irons. 1773H. Mackenzie Man of World II. xix. 186 If in another country the soul liveth, this witness shall live with it. 1878J. H. Stirling Burns in Drama v. i. 64 All my interest in this earth is gone, all my yearning is for another country. 1930E. A. Robinson Glory of Nightingale in Coll. Poems (1937) 1028 Death was another country where new light Or darkness would inevitably prevail. 1985B. Moore Black Robe viii. 165, I will die and go to another country where our dead have gone.
2. A situation, condition, or state of affairs very different in nature or character from one's usual experience; something which is unfamiliar, unknown, or not understood.
The phrase the past is another country is perh. influenced by the use of a similar phrase in L. P. Hartley's novel The Go-between, and the 1970 film of the same name (see quot. 1953).
1952A. C. Rich Diamond Cutters 111 Summer was another country, where the birds woke us at dawn. [1953L. P. Hartley Go-between Prol. 9 The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.] 1985Amer. Ethnologist 12 523 The past is another country. One must respect its customs, strive to appreciate its culture. 1988P. Armstrong Risings 18 The street is another country. 1991E. R. Taylor Tomorrow 77 The fourteenth century is another country to the young but in any case I don't like to make specific parallels with events in more recent times. 1995M. Amis Information (1996) 11 The young sleep in another country, at once very dangerous and out of harm's way. 2000F. Keane Stranger's Eye 211 The man..who lives without a job, whose neighbours are drug addicts or alcoholics, is as foreign to my middle-class world as a Bosnian or a Somali. He is a citizen of another country, an undercountry where the horizon hits you smack in the face the moment you walk out of the flat. |