bulb: [16] Bulb can be traced back to Greek bólbos, which was a name for various plants with a rounded swelling underground stem. In its passage via Latin bulbus to English it was often applied specifically to the ‘onion’, and that was its original meaning in English. Its application to the light bulb, dating from the 1850s, is an extension of an earlier 19th-century sense ‘bulbshaped swelling in a glass tube’, used from the 1830s for thermometer bulbs.
bulb (n.)
1560s, "an onion," from Middle French bulbe (15c.), from Latin bulbus "bulb, bulbous root, onion," from Greek bolbos "plant with round swelling on underground stem." Expanded by 1800 to "swelling in a glass tube" (thermometer bulb, light bulb, etc.).
雙語例句
1. A 40 watt bulb would be quite sufficient and would not obtrude.
40瓦的燈泡完全夠亮了，并且不會晃眼。
來自柯林斯例句
2. An efficient bulb may lighten the load of power stations.
一個節(jié)能燈泡也許就能減輕發(fā)電站的負荷。
來自柯林斯例句
3. This makes the total cost of the bulb and energy ￡27.