"I rested for a few days and now I'm as right as rain."
上記の会話で、as right as rainの意味は？
In the dialogue above, what does "as right as rain" mean?
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解答
意味：英辞郎によると、完全［完璧］に正しい、全く申し分なくて［問題がなくて］、とても［全く］正常［良好・順調・健康・元気・快適］で、絶好調で、健康そのもので
Answer
Dictionary.com: "In good order or good health, satisfactory"
Etymology/語源
According to World Wide Words:Right as rain is a latecomer to this illustrious collection of curious similes. It may have first appeared at the very end of the nineteenth century, but the first example I can find is from Max Beerbohm’s book Yet Again of 1909: “He looked, as himself would undoubtedly have said, ‘fit as a fiddle,’ or ‘right as rain.’ His cheeks were rosy, his eyes sparkling”. Since then it has almost completely taken over from the others. It makes no more sense than the variants it has usurped and is clearly just a play on words (though perhaps there’s a lurking idea that rain often comes straight down, in a right line, to use the old sense). But the alliteration was undoubtedly why it was created and has helped its survival. As right as ninepence has had a good run, too, but that has vanished even in Britain since we decimalised the coinage and since ninepence stopped being worth very much.There is actually a lot more that comes before the above, but it is mostly about the other idioms using "right as" that predate "right as rain."
However, according to Dictionary.com:
The allusion in this simile is unclear, but it originated in Britain, where rainy weather is a normal fact of life, and indeed W.L. Phelps wrote, “The expression 'right as rain' must have been invented by an Englishman.” It was first recorded in 1894.So, I guess that the only thing that we can say with certainty is that this simile originated in Britain.
英辞郎によると、
《1》雨は、天気予報に関係なく、降るときは降る。だから雨は正しい。《2》雨が真っすぐ［直線状］に降り注ぐ様子から。《3》right と rain で韻を踏ませているのかもしれない。とあるが、はっきり言って、上記１と３は怪しいと思う。１は、意味不明、そして３は韻を踏んでいない。２の説明を一番よく見かけるが、それが本当に正しいのか定かではない。
上記英語の語源の説明でわかるように、right as ~という表現はかなり昔からあるが、今ではright as rain しか残っていない。Right as rainは、１９世紀の後半から使われ始めたかもしれないが、印刷物に残っている最も古い例は、1909年のMax BeerbohmのYet Againにある、“He looked, as himself would undoubtedly have said, ‘fit as a fiddle,’ or ‘right as rain.’ His cheeks were rosy, his eyes sparkling”.
しかし、Dictionary.comによると、right as rainが初めて印刷物に使われたのが1894年となっている。
Examples
- Lily has sprained her ankle, but after a few weeks of rest she should be as right as rain.
- All we need to do is tidy the house up; then it will be right as rain.
- I took some aspirin, went to bed, and in the morning I was right as rain.
- If she'd only worked on it another week everythingwould have been as right as rain.
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