sphere

来自古法语 sphere,来自拉丁语 sphaera,球，球体，天体，来自希腊语 sphaira,球，球体。引申 词义大气层。

sphere

sphere: [17] Sphere goes back ultimately to Greek sphaira, a word of uncertain origin, which reached English via Latin sphaera or sphēra and Old French espere. Amongst the theories put forward to account for its ancestry are that it was derived from Greek sphurás ‘fall of dung, round pellet of dung, pill’, which has relatives in Lithuanian spira ‘sheep-dung’ and modern Icelandic sperthill ‘goat-dung’; and that it is related to Greek spaírein ‘quiver’ and Sanskrit sphur- ‘spring, quiver, trouble’. It metaphorical use in English for ‘area of activity’ dates from the early 17th century.

sphere (n.)

mid-15c., Latinized spelling of Middle English spere (c. 1300) "cosmos; space, conceived as a hollow globe about the world," from Anglo-French espiere, Old French espere (13c., Modern French sphère), from Latin sphaera "globe, ball, celestial sphere" (Medieval Latin spera), from Greek sphaira "globe, ball, playing ball, terrestrial globe," of unknown origin.

From late 14c. in reference to any of the supposed concentric, transparent, hollow, crystalline globes of the cosmos believed to revolve around the earth and contain the planets and the fixed stars; the supposed harmonious sound they made rubbing against one another was the music of the spheres (late 14c.). Also from late 14c. as "a globe; object of spherical form, a ball," and the geometric sense "solid figure with all points equidistant from the center." Meaning "range of something, place or scene of activity" is first recorded c. 1600 (as in sphere of influence, 1885, originally in reference to Anglo-German colonial rivalry in Africa).

1. This area was formerly within the sphere of influence of the US.

这一地区先前属于美国的势力范围。

2. Some scientists relegate parapsychology to the sphere of quackery.

一些科学家把灵学归类到骗术范围.

3. The sculptor rounded the clay into a sphere.

那位雕塑家把黏土做成了一个球状.

4. Biology is not my sphere.

生物学不是我研究的范围.

5. The Earth is not a perfect sphere.

地球并不是一个完全的球体.