2023-07-16 ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด M – Medal & meddle & metal

Revision M

 

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Dictionary.com

ออกเสียง Medal & meddle = ‘MED-l’

ออกเสียง metal & mettle = ‘MET-l’

 

NECTEC’s Lexitron-2 Dictionary

ให้คำแปลMedal = N. เหรียญรางวัล 

= Vi. ให้เหรียญรางวัล

ให้คำแปล meddle = Vi. ก้าวก่าย

ให้คำแปลmetal = N. ธาตุโลหะ/เพลงแนว เฮฟวี่ 

= Adj. ทำด้วยโลหะ 

= Vt. ปกคลุมด้วยโลหะ 

ให้คำแปล mettle = N. อุปนิสัย/ความกล้าหาญ

 

Common Errors In English Usage Dictionary

Medal & mettle & meddle & metal

A person who proves his or her mettle 

displays courage or stamina.

 

The word “mettle” is seldom used outside of this expression,

so people constantly confuse it with other similar-sounding words.

 

Abused, Confused, & Misused Words by Mary Embree

medal = a metal decoration; 

= a reward: 

She received a medal for her bravery.

Not to be confused with:

Meddle = intervene; intrude; pry: 

Don’t meddle in other people’s business.

 

Abused, Confused, & Misused Words by Mary Embree

Metal = a hard substance such as gold, silver, or copper

Not to be confused with:

mettle = inherent quality of character; fortitude; courage

 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Choose the Right Synonym for mettle

COURAGE, METTLE, SPIRIT, RESOLUTION, TENACITY

mean mental or moral strength 

to resist opposition, danger, or hardship.

 

COURAGE implies firmness of mind and will in the face of danger 

or extreme difficulty. 

the courage to support unpopular causes

 

METTLE suggests an ingrained capacity for meeting strain or difficulty with fortitude and resilience. 

a challenge that will test your mettle

 

SPIRIT also suggests a quality of temperament enabling one 

to hold one's own or keep up one's morale 

when opposed or threatened. 

her spirit was unbroken by failure

 

RESOLUTION stresses firm determination to achieve one's ends. the resolution of pioneer women

 

TENACITY adds to RESOLUTION implications 

of stubborn persistence and unwillingness to admit defeat. 

held to their beliefs with great tenacity

 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Is mettle Connected to Metal?

Originally,

mettle was simply a variants pelling of the word metal

(which dates to at least the 13th century),

and it was used in all of the same senses as its metallic relative.

 

Over time, however, mettle came to be used 

mainly in figurative senses referring to the quality of someone's character.

It eventually became a distinct English word in its own right,  losing its literal sense altogether.

 

Metal remained a term primarily 

used for those hard, shiny substances 

such as steel or iron, but it also acquired a figurative use.

 

Today, both words can mean 

"vigor and strength of spirit or temperament,"

but only metal is used of metallic substances.

 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Usage Notes

Know Your Metals

And your medals, and mettle, too. (We won't meddle.)

 

In metal, medal, mettle, and meddle,

we have four words that see all kinds of overlap.

 

Their basic meanings, however, are distinct.

 

Their pronunciations, however, are not so distinct.

 

Metal refers to a substance that is often lustrous,

conducts electricity and heat, and can be melted and reshaped. 

Iron, aluminum, lead, and platinum are classified as metals. 

 

There are elements classified as metals 

for the properties they share, 

and other kinds, termed alloys, 

that are formed by combining two or more metals.

 

Medal refers to an object that resembles a large coin,

is often stamped with an image or design,

and that is given as an award for excellence or achievement.

 

The Congressional Medal of Honor rewards meritorious actions involving the risk of life during military combat.

 

The Fields Medal honors 

scholarly achievement in the field of mathematics.

 

It’s understandable for medal to get confused with metal

 

But medal is not related to metal

—the former derives via Middle French, Old Italian, 

and Vulgar Latin from the Latin medius, meaning “middle.”

 

Now let’s get to meddle and mettle.

The verb meddle has seen increased use in popular media 

due accusations of Russian interference 

in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.

 

It means “to interest oneself in what is not one's concern”

or “to interfere without right or propriety.”

 

Some have argued that 

meddle is too benign a term for the actions 

for which the alleged operatives are accused, 

and they are right in that it’s traditionally reserved 

for matters of a more personal nature,

such as butting your nose into your neighbor’s scandalous affair

or asking your teenager annoying questions about her dating life.

 

Mettle might be the most literary of the four words,

referring to a temperament or spirit that is often strong,

 or the ability of a person or thing to last or endure.

 

Mettle implies durability,

so perhaps it’s not surprising 

that the word was at one time simply a variant spelling of metal, 

used even to refer to the substance.

 

Occasionally, the figurative sense of mettle 

would be couched in phrasings 

that treated it as though it were a material:

 

Over time, however, 

mettle came to be its own distinct word,

referring to the character trait 

and losing its literal sense altogether.

Metal sometimes sees occasional use in this way. 

 

And let’s of course not forget metal 

as the adjective for something impressive

that alludes to the musical genre known as heavy metal.

 

So to summarize:

1. Medals are often made of metal;

2. You can meddle in the affairs of another;

3. But you won’t win a medal for doing so;

4. Resisting the urge to do so shows mettle, somewhat.

 

The American Heritage® Student Science Dictionary

Met·al (mĕt′l)

1. Any of a large group of elements, 

including iron, gold, copper, lead, and magnesium, 

that conduct heat and electricity well.

 

Metals can be hammered into thin sheets or drawn into wires. 

They are usually shiny and opaque. 

All metals except mercury are solid at room temperature.

 

2. An alloy, such as steel or bronze, 

made of two or more metals.

 

Usage

We think of metals as hard, shiny materials 

used to make things like paper clips and cars.

 

But for chemists, 

a metal is a chemical element 

that loses electrons in a chemical reaction. 

 

Metal atoms do this 

because of the structure of their electron shells

—the layers in which electrons are arranged 

around an atom's nucleus. 

 

If an element's outermost electron shell is filled, 

the element is stable and does not react easily. 

 

But if the shell contains only a few electrons, 

the atom will try to share them with another atom 

in a chemical reaction, thereby becoming stable. 

 

Elements having only one electron 

in their outermost shell are the most reactive; 

all they have to do to become stable is lose this electron. 

 

Such elements are 

alkali metals like sodium and potassium, 

and they are listed in the left-hand column 

of the Periodic Table at Periodic Table. 

 

The metals farther toward the right side of the Periodic Table, 

such as tin and lead, 

have more electrons in their outermost shell 

and are not as reactive 

because sharing or losing all these electrons 

would require more energy. 

 

The elements that fall between these extremes 

are somewhat reactive and are called transition elements. 

They include elements like iron, copper, tungsten, and silver.

 

THE AMERICAN HERITAGE® SCIENCE DICTIONAR

Metal

USAGE

Most metallic elements are lustrous or colorful solids 

that are good conductors of heat and electricity, 

and readily form ionic bonds with other elements. 

 

Many of their properties are due to the fact that 

their outermost electrons, called valence electrons, 

are not tightly bound to the nucleus.

 

For instance, 

most metals form ionic bonds easily 

because they readily give up valence electrons to other atoms, 

thereby becoming positive ions (cations).

 

The electrical conductivity of metals 

also stems from the relative freedom of valence electrons.

 

In a substance composed of metals, 

the atoms are in a virtual ”sea“ of valence electrons 

that readily jump from atom to atom 

in the presence of an electric potential, 

creating electric current.

 

With the exception of hydrogen, 

which behaves like a metal only at very high pressures,

the elements that appear in the left-hand column 

of the Periodic Table are called alkali metals.

 

Alkali metals, such as sodium and potassium, 

have only one electron in their outermost shell, 

and are chemically very reactive. 

(Hydrogen is exceptional in that, 

although it is highly reactive, 

its other metallic properties 

are manifest only at very high pressures.)

 

Metals farther toward the right side of the Periodic Table, 

such as tin and lead, 

have more electrons in their outermost shell, 

and are not as reactive.

 

The somewhat reactive elements 

that fall between the two extremes 

are the transition elements, 

such as iron, copper, tungsten, and silver.

 

In most atoms, 

inner electron shells must be maximally occupied 

by electrons before an outer shell will accept electrons, 

but many transition elements have electron gaps 

in the shell just inside the valence shell.

 

This configuration 

leads to a wide variety of available energy levels 

for electrons to move about in, 

so in the presence of electromagnetic radiation 

such as light, 

a variety of frequencies are readily emitted or absorbed.

 

Thus transition metals tend to be very colorful, 

and each contributes different colors to different compounds.

 

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language

Metal

Word History:

Not only do metal and mettle have exactly the same pronunciation,

the two terms are—etymologically, at least—exactly the same word.

 

Middle English borrowed metal from Old French in the 1200s; 

Old French metal, metail, came from Latin metallum, 

from Greek metallon, "mine, quarry, ore, metal."

 

By the 1500s, English metal had also come to mean 

"the stuff one is made of, one's character," 

but there was no difference in spelling 

between the literal and figurative senses until about 1700, 

when the spelling mettle, originally just a variant of metal, 

was fixed for the sense "strength of character." 

English has numerous examples of similar word pairs 

that are (historically speaking) spelling variants of the same word,

including flour/flower and lightening/lightning.