03.14【每日一词】moral

moral  n.

释义：a practical lesson about what to do or how to behave, which you learn from a story or from something that happens to you

“moral”可以是形容词可以是名词。它作名词时除了表示“道德”（一般用复数 morals，比如“公德”就是 public morals）外，还有一个好用、地道的意思--“寓意、教训”。当我们想表达“从某个故事、案例、经历中学到某某东西”时，就可以用 moral 替换 message 和 lesson。这个词尤其适用于写作中的举例论证，我们在描述完一个例子之后，将例子和观点作关联时就可以使用 moral。

例① 教育小孩子的一种常见方式是给他们阅读各种寓言故事，然后在最后教给他们一个道理。比如《狼来了》的故事就是要告诉小朋友不应该撒谎。

The lesson of The Boy Who Cried Wolf is that children should not lie.

或

The message of The Boy Who Cried Wolf is that children should not lie.

我们可以把里面的 lesson 和 message 换成 moral:

The moral of The Boy Who Cried Wolf is that children should not lie.

例② 深圳特区成功的例子说明了一个城市要想持续发展好必须要不断引入高素质人才。

The moral of Shenzhen's boom is that talent is essential for a city's continuous economic success.

William Zinsser 在 On Writing Well 中教年轻作家写作，他经常会先讲一个故事，然后再说明里面的道理。比如这个句子：

One moral of this story is that you should always collect more material than you will use.

常用句式:  The moral of this story/case/experience is that...

翻译：我们从这个 TED 演讲中可以学到的是，要想获得成功，得学会先帮助别人。

The moral of this TED talk is that one should learn to help others first to achieve success.

（参考翻译：The moral of the TED talk is that to succeed we should learn to help others first. 或 The moral of the TED talk is that to succeed we should learn to pay it forward.）