BY now, you must have guessed just how far Artemis Fowl1 was prepared to go in order to achieve his goal. But what exactly was this goal? What outlandish scheme would involve the blackmailing2 of an alcohol-addicted sprite? The answer was gold.
Artemis's search had begun two years previously3 when he first became interested in surfing the Internet. He quickly found the more arcane4 sites: alien abduction, UFO sightings and the supernatural. But most specifically the existence of the People.
Trawling through gigabytes of data, he found hundreds of references to fairies from nearly every country in the world. Each civilization had its own term for the People, but they were undoubtedly5 members of the same hidden family. Several stories mentioned a Book carried by each fairy. It was their Bible, containing, as it allegedly did, the history of their race and the commandments that governed their extended lives. Of course, this Book was written in Gnommish, the fairy text, and would be of no use to any human.
Artemis believed that with today's technology the Book could be translated. And with this translation you could begin to exploit a whole new group of creatures.
Know thine enemy was Artemis's motto, so he immersed himself in the lore6 of the People until he had compiled a huge database on their characteristics. But it wasn't enough. So Artemis put out a call on the Web: Irish businessman will pay large amount of US dollars to meet a fairy, sprite, leprechaun, pixie. The responses had been mostly fraudulent, but Ho Chi Minh City had paid off.
Artemis was perhaps the only person alive who could take full advantage of his recent acquisition. He still retained a childlike belief in magic, tempered by an adult determination to exploit it. If there was anybody capable of relieving the fairies of some of their magical gold, it was Artemis Fowl the Second.
It was early morning before they reached Fowl Manor7. Artemis was anxious to bring up the file on his computer, but first he decided8 to call in on Mother.
Angeline Fowl was bedridden. She had been since her husband's disappearance10. Nervous tension, the physicians said. Nothing for it but rest and sleeping pills. That was almost a year ago.
Butler's little sister, Juliet, was sitting at the foot of the stairs. Her gaze was boring a hole in the wall. Even the glitter mascara couldn't soften11 her expression. Artemis had seen that look already, just before Juliet had suplexed a particularly cheeky pizza boy. The suplex, Artemis gathered, was a wrestling move. An unusual obsession12 for a teenage girl. But then again she was, after all, a Butler.
'Problems, Juliet?'
Juliet straightened hurriedly. 'My own fault, Artemis. Apparently13 I left a gap in the curtains. Mrs Fowl couldn't sleep.'
'Hmm,' muttered Artemis, scaling the oak staircase slowly.
He worried about his mother's condition. She hadn't seen the light of day in a long time now. Then again, should she miraculously14 recover, emerging revitalized from her bedchamber, it would signal the end of Artemis's own extraordinary freedom. It would be back off to school, and no more spearheading criminal enterprises for you, my lad.
He knocked gently on the arched double doors.
'Mother? Are you awake?'
Something smashed against the other side of the door. It sounded expensive.
'Of course I'm awake! How can I sleep in this blinding glare?'
Artemis ventured inside. An antique four-poster bed threw shadowy spires15 in the darkness, and a pale sliver16 of light poked17 through a gap in the velvet18 curtains. Angeline Fowl sat hunched19 on the bed, her pale limbs glowing white in the gloom.
'Artemis, darling, where have you been?'
Artemis sighed. She recognized him. That was a good sign.
'School trip, Mother. Skiing in Austria.'
'Ah, skiing,' crooned Angeline. 'How I miss it. Maybe when your father returns.'
Artemis felt a lump in his throat. Most uncharacteristic.
'Yes. Perhaps when Father returns.'
'Darling, could you close those wretched curtains. The light is intolerable.'
'Of course, Mother.'
Artemis felt his way across the room, wary20 of the low-level clothes chests scattered21 about the floor. Finally his fingers curled around the velvet drapes. For a moment he was tempted22 to throw them wide open, then he sighed and closed the gap.
'Thank you, darling. By the way, we really have to get rid of that maid. She is good for absolutely nothing.'
Artemis held his tongue. Juliet had been a hardworking and loyal member of the Fowl household for the past three years. Time to use Mother's absent-mindedness to his advantage.
'You're right of course, Mother. I've been meaning to do it for some time. Butler has a sister I believe would be perfect for the position. I think I've mentioned her. Juliet?'
Angeline frowned. 'Juliet? Yes, the name does seem familiar. Well, anyone would be better than that silly girl we have now. When can she start?'
'Straight away. I'll have Butler fetch her from the lodge23.'
'You're a good boy, Artemis. Now give Mummy a hug.'
Artemis stepped into the shadowy folds of his mother's robe. She smelled perfumed, like petals24 in water. But her arms were cold and weak.
'Oh, darling,' she whispered, and the sound sent goosebumps popping down Artemis's neck. 'I hear things. At night. They crawl along the pillows and into my ears.'
Artemis felt that lump in his throat again.
'Perhaps we should open the curtains, Mother.'
'No,' his mother sobbed25, releasing him from her grasp. 'No. Because then I could see them too.'
'Mother, please.'
But it was no use. Angeline was gone. She crawled to the far corner of the bed, pulling the quilt under her chin.
'Send the new girl.'
'Yes, Mother.'
'Send her with cucumber slices and water.'
'Yes, Mother.'
Angeline glared at him with crafty26 eyes. 'And stop calling me Mother. I don't know who you are, but you're certainly not my little Arty.'
Artemis blinked back a few rebellious27 tears. 'Of course. Sorry, Moth9 - Sorry.'
'Hmm. Don't come back here again, or I'll have my husband take care of you. He's a very important man, you know.'
'Very well, Mrs Fowl. This is the last you'll see of me.'
'It had better be.' Angeline froze suddenly. 'Do you hear them?'
Artemis shook his head. 'No. I don't hear any -'
'They're coming for me. They're everywhere.' Angeline dived for cover beneath the bedclothes.
Artemis could still hear her terrified sobs28 as he descended29 the marble staircase.
The Book was proving far more stubborn than Artemis had anticipated. It seemed to be almost actively30 resisting him. No matter which program he ran it through, the computer came up blank.
Artemis hard-copied every page, tacking31 them to the walls of his study. Sometimes it helped to have things on paper. The script was like nothing he'd seen before, and yet it was strangely familiar. Obviously a mixture of symbolic32 and character-based language, the text meandered33 around the page in no apparent order.
What the program needed was some frame of reference, some central point on which to build. He separated all the characters and ran comparisons with English, Chinese, Greek, Arabic and Cyrillic texts, even with Ogham. Nothing.
Moody34 with frustration35, Artemis sent Juliet scurrying36 when she interrupted with sandwiches, and moved on to symbols. The most frequently recurring37 pictogram was a small male figure. Male, he presumed, though with the limited knowledge of the fairy anatomy38 he supposed it could be female. A thought struck him. Artemis opened the ancient languages file on his Power Translator and selected Egyptian.
At last. A hit. The male symbol was remarkably39 similar to the Anubis god representation on Tutankhamen's inner-chamber hieroglyphics40. This was consistent with his other findings. The first written human stories were about fairies, suggesting that their civilization predated man's own. It would seem that the Egyptians had simply adapted an existing scripture41 to suit their needs.
There were other resemblances. But the characters were just dissimilar enough to slip through the computer's net. This would have to be done manually. Each Gnommish figure had to be enlarged, printed and then compared with the hieroglyphs42.
Artemis felt the excitement of success thumping43 inside his ribcage. Almost every fairy pictogram or letter had an Egyptian counterpart. Most were universal, such as the sun or birds. But some seemed exclusively supernatural and had to be tailored to fit. The Anubis figure, for example, would make no sense as a dog god, so Artemis altered it to read king of the fairies.
By midnight, Artemis had successfully fed his findings into the Macintosh. All he had to do now was press 'Decode45'. He did so. What emerged was a long, intricate string of meaningless gibberish.
A normal child would have abandoned the task long since. The average adult would probably have been reduced to slapping the keyboard. But not Artemis. This book was testing him and he would not allow it to win.
The letters were right, he was certain of it. It was just the order that was wrong. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Artemis glared at the pages again. Each segment was bordered by a solid line. This could represent paragraphs or chapters, but they were not meant to be read in the usual left to right, top to bottom fashion.
Artemis experimented. He tried the Arabic right to left and the Chinese columns. Nothing worked. Then he noticed that each page had one thing in common - a central section. The other pictograms were arranged around this pivotal area. So a central starting point perhaps. But where to go from there? Artemis scanned the pages for some other common factor. After several minutes he found it. There was on each page a tiny spearhead in the corner of one section. Could this be an arrow? A direction? Go this way? So the theory would be start in the middle, then follow the arrow, reading in spirals.
The computer program wasn't built to handle something like this, so Artemis had to improvise46. With a craft knife and ruler, he dissected47 the first page of the Book and reassembled it in the traditional Western languages order - left to right, parallel rows. Then he rescanned the page and fed it through the modified Egyptian translator.
The computer hummed and whirred, converting all the information to binary48. Several times it stopped to ask for confirmation49 of a character or symbol. This happened less and less as the machine learned the new language. Eventually two words flashed on the screen: File converted.
Fingers shaking from exhaustion50 and excitement, Artemis clicked 'Print'. A single page scrolled51 from the LaserWriter. It was in English now. Yes, there were mistakes, some fine-tuning needed, but it was perfectly52 legible and, more importantly, perfectly understandable.
Fully44 aware that he was probably the first human in several thousand years to decode the magical words, Artemis switched on his desk light and began to read.
The Booke of the People.
Being instructions to our magicks
and life rules
Carry me always, carry me well.
I am thy teacher of herb and spell.
I am thy link to power arcane.
Forget me and thy magick shall wane53.
Ten times ten commandments there be.
They will answer every mystery.
Cures, curses, alchemy.
These secrets shall be thine, through me.
But, Fairy, remember this above all.
I am not for those in mud that crawl.
And forever doomed54 shall be the one,
Who betrays my secrets one by one.
Artemis could hear the blood pumping in his ears. He had them. They would be as ants beneath his feet. Their every secret would be laid bare by technology. Suddenly the exhaustion claimed him and he sank back in his chair. There was so much yet to complete. Forty-three pages to be translated for a start.
He pressed the intercom button that linked him to speakers all over the house. 'Butler. Get Juliet and come up here. There are some jigsaws55 I need you to assemble.'
Perhaps a little family history would be useful at this point.
The Fowls56 were, indeed, legendary57 criminals. For generations they had skirmished on the wrong side of the law, hoarding58 enough funds to become legitimate59. Of course, once they were legitimate they found it not to their liking60 and returned almost immediately to crime.
It was Artemis the First, our subject's father, who had thrown the family fortune into jeopardy61. With the break-up of communist Russia, Artemis Senior had decided to invest a huge chunk62 of the Fowl fortune in establishing new shipping63 lines to the vast continent. New consumers, he reasoned, would need new consumer goods. The Russian Mafia did not take too kindly64 to a Westerner muscling in on their market and so decided to send a little message. This message took the form of a stolen Stinger missile launched at the Fowl Star on her way past Murmansk. Artemis Senior was on board the ship, along with Butler's uncle and 250,000 cans of cola. It was quite an explosion.
The Fowls were not left destitute65, far from it. But billionaire status was no longer theirs. Artemis the Second vowed66 to remedy this. He would restore the family fortune. And he would do it in his own unique fashion.
Once the Book was translated, Artemis could begin planning in earnest. He already knew what the ultimate goal was, now he could figure out how to achieve it.
Gold, of course, was the objective. The acquisition of gold. It seemed that the People were almost as fond of the precious metal as humans. Each fairy had its own cache, but not for much longer if Artemis had his way. There would be at least one of the fairy folk wandering around with empty pockets by the time he'd finished.
After eighteen solid hours of sleep and a light continental67 breakfast, Artemis climbed to the study that he had inherited from his father. It was a traditional enough room - dark oak and floor-to-ceiling shelving - but Artemis had jammed it with the latest computer technology. A series of networked AppleMacs whirred from various corners of the room. One was running CNN's web site through a DAT projector68, throwing oversized current-affairs images against the back wall.
Butler was there already, firing up the hard drives.
'Shut them all down, except the Book. I need quiet for this.'
The manservant started. The CNN site had been running for almost a year. Artemis was convinced that news of his father's rescue would come from there. Shutting it down meant that he was finally letting go.
'All of them?'
Artemis glanced at the back wall for a moment. 'Yes,' he said finally. 'All of them.'
Butler took the liberty of patting his employer gently on the shoulder, just once, before returning to work. Artemis cracked his knuckles69. Time to do what he did best - plot dastardly acts.
收听单词发音 |
1
fowl
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| n.家禽，鸡，禽肉 | |
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blackmailing
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| 胁迫，尤指以透露他人不体面行为相威胁以勒索钱财( blackmail的现在分词 ) | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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arcane
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| adj.神秘的，秘密的 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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lore
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| n.传说；学问，经验，知识 | |
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manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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moth
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| n.蛾，蛀虫 | |
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disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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obsession
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| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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miraculously
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| ad.奇迹般地 | |
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spires
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| n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 ) | |
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sliver
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| n.裂片，细片，梳毛；v.纵切，切成长片，剖开 | |
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poked
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| v.伸出( poke的过去式和过去分词 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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hunched
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| （常指因寒冷、生病或愁苦）耸肩弓身的，伏首前倾的 | |
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wary
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| adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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petals
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| n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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sobbed
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| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
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crafty
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| adj.狡猾的，诡诈的 | |
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rebellious
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| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
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sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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tacking
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| （帆船）抢风行驶，定位焊[铆]紧钉 | |
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symbolic
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| adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的 | |
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meandered
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| （指溪流、河流等）蜿蜒而流( meander的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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moody
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| adj.心情不稳的，易怒的，喜怒无常的 | |
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frustration
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| n.挫折，失败，失效，落空 | |
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scurrying
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的现在分词 ) | |
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recurring
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| adj.往复的，再次发生的 | |
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anatomy
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| n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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hieroglyphics
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| n.pl.象形文字 | |
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scripture
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| n.经文，圣书，手稿；Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》，《圣经》中的一段 | |
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hieroglyphs
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| n.象形字（如古埃及等所用的）( hieroglyph的名词复数 )；秘密的或另有含意的书写符号 | |
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43
thumping
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| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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decode
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| vt.译（码），解（码） | |
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improvise
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| v.即兴创作；临时准备，临时凑成 | |
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dissected
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| adj.切开的，分割的，（叶子）多裂的v.解剖（动物等）( dissect的过去式和过去分词 )；仔细分析或研究 | |
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48
binary
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| adj.二，双；二进制的；n.双(体)；联星 | |
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confirmation
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| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
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50
exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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51
scrolled
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| adj.具有涡卷装饰的v.（电脑屏幕上）从上到下移动（资料等），卷页( scroll的过去式和过去分词 )；（似卷轴般）卷起；（像展开卷轴般地）将文字显示于屏幕 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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wane
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| n.衰微，亏缺，变弱；v.变小，亏缺，呈下弦 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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jigsaws
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| n.线索( jigsaw的名词复数 )；拼图；拼板玩具；神秘莫测的事物 | |
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fowls
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| 鸟( fowl的名词复数 )； 禽肉； 既不是这； 非驴非马 | |
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legendary
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| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
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hoarding
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| n.贮藏；积蓄；临时围墙；囤积v.积蓄并储藏（某物）( hoard的现在分词 ) | |
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legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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jeopardy
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| n.危险；危难 | |
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chunk
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| n.厚片，大块，相当大的部分（数量） | |
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shipping
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| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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destitute
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| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
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vowed
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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projector
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| n.投影机，放映机，幻灯机 | |
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knuckles
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| n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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