扩展英语词汇unit 4-1

Unit 4 Roots about “Drawing”, “Cutting”“Parting” and “Dividing”

Lecture 1

Roots about “Dragging” or “Drawing”

1. Warming-up 课程准备

The unit begins with a very popular theme song of a Chinese TV series. One line of the lyrics is actually from one of Li Bai’s poems.

Li Bai was the great poet of the Tang Dynasty. That famous line is “抽刀断水水更流，举杯消愁愁更愁。” It can be translated like this: When you draw your sword to strive to cut the water, it flows more rapidly, and when you drink your wine to try to lessen your grief, you get more grief. The four lectures in this unit will dwell on the roots respectively related to the meanings of drawing, cutting, parting and dividing. And the first one is on the root “tract”, which means “to drag” or “to draw”.

2. Words to Watch 词汇锦囊

Root “tract” an d the words: tractor, attract, distract, contract, extract, abstract, detract, protract, retract and subtract.

1) tractor n. 拖拉机

2) attract v. 吸引

Derivatives:

attractive

attraction

E.g. If you are attractive, then people will say that you are full of attraction.

3) distract v 使分心；使心烦意乱

E.g. Try not to be distracted by other students,

especially, don’t be distracted by your mobile phone.

Derivatives:

distracting adj. 使人分心的

distracted adj. 思想不集中的；心烦意乱的

E.g. If a mobile phone has distracted you, then the phone is distracting, and you are

distracted.

E.g. the distracting boy and the distracted girl

4) contract n. 契约、合同v.签合同；收缩

E.g. I want to make a contract with you, because I want you to ensure that my coat

will not contract.

Derivatives:

contraction n

E.g. We often talk about "the contraction of a gas on cooling".

contractor n.

E.g. When you want to decorate your new house, most probably you will hire a

contractor.

5) extract v. 拔出，抽出；提炼出

E.g. I have to have that tooth extracted.

E.g. extract something from something”

E.g. Oils are extracted from the plants.

Derivatives:

extraction n. 提炼；抽出

extractor n. 排气扇；换气扇

6) abstract adj. 抽象的；抽象派的

n.摘要

vt. 概括，摘录

E.g. I’m working on an abstract of a book which deals with the abstract art of abstract

artists. It’s full of abstract ideas and I think the author of this book has abstracted several lines from earlier books.

Derivatives：

abstractly adv. 抽象地，理论上地；

abstraction n. 抽象；抽象概念；抽象化

7) detract v 降低；贬损

E.g. detract from something

E.g. One mistake is not going to detract from your achievement.

Derivatives:

detraction

detractor

8) protract v 延长，拖延.

E.g. Sometimes students complain, “Oh, our class was protracted for 10 minutes until

12:10. It was so annoying.”