if: [OE] The Old English version of if was gif, but its initial g was closer to modern English y in pronunciation than to g, and the conjunction gradually evolved through Middle English yif to if. It is not known where it ultimately came from; it is evidently connected with Old High German iba ‘condition’ and Old Norse ef ‘doubt’, but whether it started life as a noun like these or was from the beginning a conjunction is not clear. Its surviving Germanic relatives are German ob ‘whether’ and Dutch of ‘if’.
if (conj.)
Old English gif (initial g- in Old English pronounced with a sound close to Modern English -y-), from Proto-Germanic *ja-ba (cognates: Old Saxon, Old Norse ef, Old Frisian gef, Old High German ibu, German ob, Dutch of "if, whether"), from PIE pronominal stem *i- [Watkins]; Klein, OED suggest probably originally from an oblique case of a noun meaning "doubt" (compare Old High German iba "condition, stipulation, doubt," Old Norse if "doubt, hesitation," Swedish j?f "exception, challenge"). As a noun from 1510s.
雙語例句
1. If you wait, all that happens is that you get older.
如果你等待，發生的只有變老。
來自金山詞霸 每日一句
2. If you love life, life will love you back.
熱愛生活，生活也會厚愛你。
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3. If you're not satisfied with the life you're living, don't just complain. Do something about it.
對于現況的不滿，不能只是抱怨，要有勇氣作出改變。
來自金山詞霸 每日一句
4. If you're lonely when you're alone, you're in bad company.--Jean Paul Sartre
如果你獨處時感到寂寞，說明沒有把自己陪好。
來自金山詞霸 每日一句
5. Friendship means understanding, not agreement. It means forgiveness, not forgetting.It means the memories last, even if contact is lost.