每日一词学英语(41): rout

欧洲议会选举结果揭晓，英国工党遭重创(From The Times, June 8, 2009: Labour routed in European elections as BNP wins first seats)。

Rout与“The far-right party took its first two seats — including one for its leader Nick Griffin — in the European Parliament as Labour endured sharp falls in its vote across the country.”中的“endured sharp falls”意思接近，与“Gordon Brown suffered humiliation in the polls last night as the British National Party achieved its biggest electoral breakthrough.”中的“Gordon Brown suffered humiliation in the polls”相呼应。

上学时英语老师讲过，不认识的单词可以通过上下文猜，确实如此，在一篇文章里，尤其是关键词，作者会翻来覆去地说，近义词、反义词、对照、类比、呼应、影射、修辞比拟，看似繁杂，其实文脉清晰，好的文章尤其如此。不过，我的建议是，如果条件允许，还是多查字典(包括网络搜索)为好(发音、释义、例句、近/反义词、词根/词缀、派生词，等等)，尽量做到脚踏实地，一字一句皆有出处可寻，这样学起来才扎实。毕竟“猜词”是建立在已有一定词汇量的基础之上的。

金山词霸上对几个相关词进行了辨析：defeat，conquer，vanquish，beat，rout，subdue，subjugate，overcome，不妨找来看看，或用别的词典查一下。