- laconic
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[laconic 词源字典] - laconic: [16] The Greek term for an inhabitant of the ancient region of Laconia, in the southern Peloponnese, and of its capital Sparta, was Lákōn. The Spartans were renowned for not using two words where one would do (there is a story that when Philip of Macedon threatened invasion with ‘If I enter Laconia, I will raze Sparta to the ground’, the Spartans’ only reply was ‘If’), and so English used the adjective laconic (from Greek Lakōnikós) for ‘sparing of speech’.
[laconic etymology, laconic origin, 英语词源] - laconic (adj.)
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- "concise, abrupt," 1580s, probably via Latin Laconicus, from Greek Lakonikos, from Lakon "person from Lakonia," the district around Sparta in southern Greece in ancient times, whose inhabitants were famously proud of their brevity of speech. When Philip of Macedon threatened them with, "If I enter Laconia, I will raze Sparta to the ground," the Spartans' reply was, "If." An earlier form was laconical (1570s). Related: Laconically.