- spectre (of something)
something unpleasant that people are afraid might happen in the future 恐惧；恐慌；忧虑 The country is haunted by the spectre of civil war. 内战仿佛一触即发，举国上下一片恐慌。 These weeks of drought have once again raised the spectre of widespread famine. 几星期来的干旱再次引起了群众对大饥荒的恐慌。
Extra ExamplesThe terrible spectre of civil war hung over the country once again. 内战可怕的阴云再一次笼罩这个国家。 Wall Street's collapse raised spectres of the 1987 stock market crash. 华尔街股市暴跌引发了 1987 年股市崩盘时的那种恐慌。 an attempt to exorcize the spectre of poverty 驱逐贫困这个幽灵的努力 the looming spectre of a financial crisis 金融危机步步逼近的恐慌 the twin spectres of addiction and violence 成瘾和暴力这一对孪生魔鬼
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- grim
- ominous
- old
- …
- evoke
- invoke
- raise
- …
- hang over somebody/something
- haunt somebody/something
- hover over somebody/something
- …
- spectre of
- (literary)
a ghost 鬼；幽灵
Word Originearly 17th cent.: from French spectre or Latin spectrum ‘image, apparition’, from specere ‘to look’.