| 释义 |
scenario, n.|sɪˈnɑːrɪəʊ, sɪˈnɛərɪəʊ, older ʃeˈnario|
[It., f. scena scena.]
1. a. A sketch or outline of the plot of a play, ballet, novel, opera, story, etc., giving particulars of the scenes, situations, etc. Also transf. and fig.
1878G. H. Lewes Jrnl. 28–29 Apr. in Geo. Eliot Lett. (1956) VII. 13 Schemed a scenario from Daniel Deronda. 1880Stevenson Let. to Henley Feb. Lett. (1899) I. iv. 167, I shall make you a full scenario as soon as the Emigrant is done. 1883Grove Dict. Music III. 241 Scenario, an Italian term, meaning a sketch of the scenes and main points of an opera libretto, drawn up and settled preliminary to filling in the detail. 1884P. Simpson in Pall Mall G. 19 May 1/2 As the next step, I write an elaborate scenario..minutely setting down, not only the scenes as they follow, the action of the personages engaged, the sense of all they have to say, but even the ‘stage business’. 1903A. M. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise ii. 51 The small card of data which forms the ‘scenario’ from which these stories are being constructed. 1911O. Onions Widdershins 279, I myself have drafted a rough scenario of the form it appeared to me the ‘Life’ might with advantage be cast in. 1923Wodehouse Inimitable Jeeves xviii. 250 ‘Jeeves!’ ‘Sir?’ ‘I'm in the soup.’ ‘Indeed, sir?’ I sketched out the scenario for him. ‘What would you advise?’ 1924― Bill the Conqueror ix. 159 A young man in a vivid check suit came out, a small young man with close-set eyes and the scenario of a moustache. 1929C. K. Scott-Moncrieff tr. Proust's Captive iii. 493 No doubt the scenario [of a series of events in the narrator's life] was not merely different but almost opposite. 1947A. Einstein Music in Romantic Era xvi. 284 He outlined a scenario, and..obtained a completed libretto from Somma. 1953Wodehouse Performing Flea 69 Today I reached page 254 and have a very detailed scenario of the rest. 1955W. Dean in H. Van Thal Fanfare for Ernest Newman 59 Trianon..an inveterate compiler of librettos and ballet scenarios for all three Paris opera houses. 1977Dædalus Summer 73 Thus the dramatic scenario—frequently the enactment of a sacred narrative—now becomes a performative mode sui generis.
b. Cinemat. A film script with all the details of scenes, appearances of characters, stage-directions, etc., necessary for shooting the film.
1911[see picture-play s.v. picture n. 6 a]. 1919F. Hurst Humoresque 184 So many times it comes up in the scenarios and the picture-plots..how money don't always bring happiness. 1922Wodehouse Girl on Boat ix. 144 Fate, thought Sam, had constructed a cheap, mushy..five-reel film scenario. 1926,1930[see continuity 6]. 1934Punch 18 Apr. 426/2 The film is still full of real characters, not the pasteboard subsidiaries we meet so often in modern American scenarios of love and murder. 1937A. Huxley Let. 15 Dec. (1969) 429 Unless in the interval I get any news about a scenario I wrote while out in Hollywood. 1941Spectator 10 Oct. 355/1 Miss Bette Davis..has proved her genius for breathing life into scenarios which have been synthesized from the more extravagant..of ancient theatrical situations. 1950T. S. Eliot Cocktail Party i. i. 14 They did a film But they used a different scenario. 1969M. Steinbeck On Stage 165 Strictly speaking a scenario is a film script. It is not used very much. Usually one hears..film script.
2. A sketch, outline, or description of an imagined situation or sequence of events; esp. (a) a synopsis of the development of a hypothetical future world war, and hence an outline of any possible sequence of future events; (b) an outline of an intended course of action; (c) a scientific model or description intended to account for observable facts. Hence, in weakened senses (not easily distinguishable from sense 1 a transf. and fig.): a circumstance, situation, scene, sequence of events, etc.
The over-use of this word in various loose senses has attracted frequent hostile comment.—R.W.B.
1962H. Kahn Thinking about Unthinkable v. 143 A scenario results from an attempt to describe..some hypothetical sequence of events... Scenarios may explore and emphasize an element of a larger problem such as..the process of ‘escalation’ of a small war. Ibid., The scenario is an aid to the imagination. Ibid. 146 The scenario begins by assuming a crisis; everybody is on edge. A Soviet missile is accidentally fired. 1965‘R. L. Pike’ Police Blotter xi. 185 If you hadn't tried to build up a big scenario with that self-defense crap, if you had just kept your big mouth shut, it might have held us up. 1966‘W. Cooper’ Memoirs of New Man i. viii. 103, I admired the beauty and simplicity of his plan—or ‘scenario’, as the case might be. 1968Guardian 21 Feb. 7/1 Germany then plans to produce a so-called ‘scenario’ for arriving at an arrangement with Britain. 1968Listener 20 June 791/1 The Hudson Institute..is an organisation largely devoted to preparing what it likes to call ‘scenarios of the future’. 1969M. Crichton Andromeda Strain viii. 87 The President would face four circumstances (scenarios) in which he might have to issue the Cautery order. 1971Observer 27 June 1/3 Several of the computer ‘scenarios’ include a catastrophic and sudden collapse of population. 1974Nature 15 Feb. 445/2 As a possible scenario we assume the previously reported pulses to be the chance superposition of more frequent, randomly occurring subpulses. 1975Sci. Amer. Jan. 29/2 Some meteoriticists boldly construct multistage scenarios of condensation, agglomeration, accretion, heating, metamorphism and differentiation to explain the accumulated facts. 1975N.Y. Times 29 Mar. 11/1 There is a certain narrative element in this whacky art, but it would be a brave man who tried to extract a single coherent scenario from any single picture or construction. 1976Daily Tel. 13 Feb. 1/8 Speculation..about the likely scenario when the Cuban-armoured units reach the point..when they will encounter South African forces. 1976Sci. Amer. Oct. 79A/2 Many of the models we have mentioned here are better characterized by the term scenario... There is so little detailed information that the proposals should not be dignified by the term model. Nevertheless, a good scenario can sometimes lead to a good model. 1977C. McCarry Secret Lovers ix. 112 I'll give you the scenario... You're free to modify it..in the light of conditions in the field. 1977Time 18 Apr. 46/2 By escaping from the lab and multiplying, their scenario goes, it could find its way into human intestines. 1978J. Irving World According to Garp viii. 157 The good-byes that Garp imagined conducting with Alice were violent scenarios. 1980Jrnl. R. Soc. Arts July 474/2 The best scenario..that we can envisage is one in which all those who want to do formal work will have an opportunity of doing two or three days a week.
3. attrib. and Comb. in sense 1, as scenario department, scenario editor, scenario picture, scenario production, scenario sketch, scenario writer, scenario writing.
1921B. Tarkington Let. 2 July in On Plays (1959) 65 About your scenario dep't [sic] friend's suggestion. 1959W. S. Sharps Dict. Cinematogr. 127/1 Scenario Editor... The title usually applied to the person in charge of the story department of a film producing company.
1929W. S. Churchill World Crisis V. vii. 122 Mr. Baker detracts from the vindication of his hero by the absurd scenario picture which he has chosen to paint. 1945Amer. Cinematographer Mar. 122 (heading) Trials of making a scenario production.
1921B. Tarkington Let. 30 Mar. in On Plays (1959) 50, I am sending you the scenario sketch for a picture of ‘Beaucaire’.
1914R. Grau Theatre of Science 224 We have seen the last of the amateur scenario writer. 1939C. Isherwood Goodbye to Berlin 101, I thought you took an interest in the cinema? He's miles the best young scenario writer. 1976Botham & Donnelly Valentino xi. 82 The woman considered to be the best scenario writer of the day, June Mathis.
1928H. Crane Let. 27 Mar. (1965) 321 Maybe scenario writing eventually.
Hence sceˈnario v. trans., to make a scenario of (a story, book, or idea); to sketch out; also sceˈnarioˌize, ˈscenarize, vbs.
1918Dialect Notes V. 13 ‘The scenarioizing of a drama.’ Moving Picture advertisement. 1922A. Bennett Let. 17 Jan. (1966) I. 300, I had attempted to scenario-ize the story and had failed to do it properly. 1922Moving Picture Stories 14 July 26/3 ‘Clarence’..is already scenarioized and requires only the producer's final approval. 1927Sunday Express 21 Aug. 4 The films were scenarioised, directed, cut, edited, distributed, and exploited by him. 1946Amer. Speech XXI. 304/2, 1946 Press-sheet of RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. Geoffrey Homes is now at the RKO studios scenarizing his best seller, ‘Build My Gallows High’. 1953Wodehouse Performing Flea 23 So far I have scenarioed it out to about the 40,000 word mark. 1974Daily Tel. (Colour Suppl.) 6 Dec. 42/1 Tonight's entertainment is a fashion show. ‘I hear they've got it all scenarioed out,’ says Bernie. |