Bear?and bare

?Bear and bare are often confused when used as verbs. While bare means ‘to uncover (a part of the body or other thing) and expose it to view’, the verb bear relates to carrying or supporting, both literally and figuratively. Bear can, of course, be a noun – denoting the furry animal. Bare, on the other hand, can also be used as an adjective, meaning ‘not clothed or covered’. So it does make quite a difference whether someone has bear feet or bare feet.

Bear和bare用作動(dòng)詞時(shí)常常容易混淆。Bare的意思是“裸露、身體的一部分或其他物體無覆蓋物”, Bear作名詞時(shí)表示“熊”。另一方面，bear也可以用作形容詞，表示“沒有穿衣服或無遮蓋物的”。因此bear feet 和?bare feet并沒有較大差別，均可表示“赤腳”。

stationary and stationery

Another very common mistake is to confuse stationary and stationery. The two have the same pronunciation and their spelling is very similar, but while stationary is an adjective meaning ‘not moving’, stationery is a noun referring to writing materials.

stationary 和stationery也是一組常見的易混詞匯。這兩個(gè)有相同的發(fā)音并且拼寫很相似。但stationary是形容詞，表示“靜止的”，stationery則是名詞，指“文具、信紙”。

Dessert?and desert

?While the prospect of stranding on a dessert island may sound quite appealing to some, you’d probably be more likely to end up on a desert island after having survived a shipwreck. Similarly to the stationary and stationery confusion, a single letter can make a big difference here. Desert can be used both as a noun and a verb, meaning ‘a(chǎn) waterless, empty area’ and ‘to abandon someone’, respectively. A dessert, on the other hand, is the sweet course of a meal.

停留在甜食小島上聽起來很吸引人，但實(shí)際上，你可能會(huì)在海難后最終在一個(gè)荒島上后海難中幸存下來。類似于stationary 和 stationery，一個(gè)字母之差可能導(dǎo)致一個(gè)很大的區(qū)別。Desert（沙漠）可以作為名詞和動(dòng)詞使用，意思分別為“n.沙漠/荒涼之地”和“v.遺棄某人”。Dessert，意為“一餐中的甜點(diǎn)”。

isle and aisle

The homophones isle and aisle are both nouns, with the former referring to an island, and the latter to a passage between rows of seats. Thus, you’d perhaps come across an aisle rather than an isle while doing your grocery shopping.

同音異形異義詞isle和aisle都是名詞，前者指的是一個(gè)島嶼，而后者的座位之間的過道。因此，當(dāng)在你的雜貨店購物時(shí)，你遇到的是一個(gè)aisle（通道），而不是一個(gè)isle（島）。

gorilla and?guerrilla

Gorillas are not necessarily known for their combative, militant nature, but guerrillas certainly are. Although gorilla can be informally used to describe a person, or more specifically, ‘a(chǎn) heavily built aggressive-looking man’, in a military context, speaking of guerrilla soldiers makes more sense, as it refers to ‘a(chǎn) member of a small independent group taking part in irregular fighting’.

Gorillas（大猩猩）不一定以好斗，激進(jìn)的本性著稱，但guerrillas（游擊隊(duì)）肯定是以好斗，激進(jìn)的本性著稱。盡管gorilla（大猩猩）可以在非正式表達(dá)中用來描述一個(gè)人，更確切地描述“一個(gè)身強(qiáng)力壯的男人”。但在一個(gè)軍事背景下，用到guerrilla（游擊隊(duì)士兵）則更有意義，guerrilla指的是“游擊隊(duì)員，參與不規(guī)則的戰(zhàn)斗的小獨(dú)立團(tuán)體中的成員”。

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