来自中古英语Pandare,英国中世纪文学之父乔叟根据古希腊荷马史诗改编的作品《Troylus and Cryseyde》中的人物,其原型为古希腊特洛伊王子Pandaros,促成了特洛伊战争时期青年男女Troylus and Cryseyder的美好爱情,后词义过渡到媒人,皮条客,性交易中介,并最终引申词义逢迎,投其所好等。
英文词源
pander
pander: [16] Pandaro was a character in Boccaccio’s Filostrato. He was the cousin of Cressida, and acted as go-between in her affair with Troilus. Chaucer took him over in his Troilus and Criseyde as Pandarus, changing him from cousin to uncle but retaining his role. His name came to be used as a generic term for an ‘arranger of sexual liaisons’ (‘If ever you prove false to one another, since I have taken such pains to bring you together, let all pitiful goersbetween be call’d to the world’s end after my name: call them all Panders’, says Pandarus in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida 1606), and by the mid-16th century was already well on the downward slope to ‘pimp, procurer’.
Its modern use as a verb, meaning ‘indulge’, dates from the 19th century.
pander (n.)
"arranger of sexual liaisons, one who supplies another with the means of gratifying lust," 1520s, "procurer, pimp," from Middle English Pandare (late 14c.), used by Chaucer ("Troylus and Cryseyde"), who borrowed it from Boccaccio (who had it in Italian form Pandaro in "Filostrato") as name of the prince (Greek Pandaros), who procured the love of Cressida (his niece in Chaucer, his cousin in Boccaccio) for Troilus. The story and the name are medieval inventions. Spelling influenced by agent suffix -er.
pander (v.)
"to indulge (another), to minister to base passions," c. 1600, from pander (n.). Related: Pandered; pandering.
双语例句
1. Tabloid newspapers pander to the lowest common denominator.
小报都竭力迎合大众口味。
来自柯林斯例句
2. He was forced to pander to her every whim .
她每次心血来潮他都不得不依随她。
来自《权威词典》
3. Don't pander to such people.
不要迎合这样的人.
来自《简明英汉词典》
4. Those novels pander to people's liking for stories about crime.
那些小说迎合读者对犯罪故事的爱好.
来自辞典例句
5. Our goal should be neither to pander to beginners nor to rush intermediates into expertise.