parenthesis

今日の単語もDIPLOMACY Memories & Visions by George Siorisにあったもので、Sioris氏のLATER STAGESの章にありました。
This time in Athens, I found myself dealing with an area generally inexistent in other chancelleries: I became Director of the Department of Religious Affairs.
...
During my time in Athens I was not exclusively charged with ecclesiastical duties. In the spring of 1993, a pleasant B>parenthesis</B> opened: the Crown Prince of Thailand came to Greece on a long formal visit, and as an old Thailand hand, I was "attached to his person".
"<B>parenthesis</B>" は括弧の意味のはずなのに何でこんな所に出てきたのと思いますが、こう言う場合は括弧以外の意味で使われているのに違いありません。
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: interlude, interval: regarded her husband's brief fling with a coworker as no more than a <B>parethesis</B> in an otherwise solid marriage
・American Heritage Dictionary: An interruption of continuity; an interval: "This is one of the things I wasn't prepared for the amount of unfilled time, the long <B>parentheses</B> of nothing"
・Oxford English Dictionary: an interlude or interval: the three months of coalition government were a lamentable political <B>parenthesis</B>
なるほど、大抵の人にこの様な時期はありますね。私も二十代の最後の年に、会社から富士山の裾野にあった貿易研修センターに一年弱送り込まれて仕事から解放された事があります。その期間は括弧の中にいたのですね。