one part...nine parts

今日は単語の話題ではなく、割合を示す表現ですが、なるほどこう言う表現法もあるのだと知ったReader's Digest 5月号の記事 'Clean the Things You Never Do' です。

If not, mix one part white vinegar and nine parts water (or two parts lemon juice and eight parts water), fill the reservoir with the mixture, and run a drip cycle.
...

Mix equal parts baking soda and hydrogen peroxide with a splash of degreasing dish soap.

"part" と "parts" の使い分けも注意しないとね。

Latinx

Reader's Digest 5月号の記事 'The Hole in the Fence' からの引用です。

This part of New Orleans is called Hollygrove--what Lil Wayne, who grew up here, refers to as "the Holy Mecca," I've also heard it called Pigeon Town, Leonidas, or, in faintly ominous tones, "the fruit streets"--a modest subset of what locals call Uptown, with its grand columned house and clothing boutiques. It's working-class, mostly, with middle-class fringes: White, Black, and Latinx.

"Latinx" は初めて見ますが、どうも "Latin-American" とか "Hispanic" と同じ意味の様ですが、辞書で確認します。
・Merriam-Webster: of, relating to, or marked by Latin American heritage —used as a gender-neutral alternative to Latino or Latina: … the oldest of three girls in a tightknit Latinx family
・Wiktionary: A Latin person (of any gender); a Latino or Latina.
Usage notes: Latinx is used as a gender-neutral alternative to Latino and Latina, including in the plural (where Latinxs can replace long phrases like Latinos and Latinas, or the use of Latinos alone to refer to mixed-gender group, which some feminists object to), by a small number of Hispanic people and others, mostly younger people, women, and non-binary people. Some Hispanic people object to Latinx, considering it nontraditional or "politically correct". A 2019 poll of 508 Hispanic people found that only 2% chose the term as the one term that best described them; a 2020 poll found that only 3% of US adults who identified as Hispanic or Latino also described themselves as Latinx, and only 23% had heard of Latinx (of whom 10% preferred it). A 2021 poll asked Hispanic Americans about their preference among the terms Hispanic, Latino and Latinx; 57% said it did not matter, and 4% chose Latinx; in a follow-up question about which term they lean toward, 5% chose Latinx.

"Latino" あるいは "Latina" は男女差別している言葉なので "Latinx" が使われるようになった様ですが、もともと "Hispanic" とか "Latin-American" もあったので、わざわざ "Latinx" を作らなくても良さそうなきがしますが、色々とうるさい人がいると言うことですね。

e-bike

電動自転車が最近急速に普及していますね。私はあいかわらずギアチェンジもない安い自転車に乗っているので、子供を乗せた若い女性の電動自転車に追い抜かれます。電動自転車にあたる英語の表現をReader's Digest 5月号の記事 'E-Bike Safety Tips' で初めて見ました。その記事からの引用です。
Before you go on your next two-wheeled adventure, make sure you're familiar with the ins and outs of bicycle safety. This holds true whether you're riding a traditional bike or an e-bike--one powered by an electric motor in addition to your pedaling.
この "e-bike" はもちろん "electric bicycle" から来ていることは自明ですね。この後に "electric bicycle" が次の様に出てきました。
"For an e-bike, also make sure your battery is charged," says Ash Lovell, electric bicycle policy director at People for Bikes, a cyclist advocacy organization.

serum

Reader's Digest 5月号の記事 'Skin Care for Warmer Weather' からの引用です。
Antioxidants are particularly important during the summer, when stronger UV rays can damage unprotected skin. "Not only can too much sun lead to direct DNA damage, but it can also break down collagen and elastin, due to UV-induced free radicals," explains Dr. Shainhouse. Apply an antioxidant serum, such as vitamin C, in the morning after cleansing your face and before applying sunscreen to help strengthen the skin barrier.

この "serum" は皮膚に塗る物質なので、血清ではないですね。辞書を見ます。
・Merriam-Webster: a usually lightweight cosmetic preparation especially for use on the face: specifically: a typically water-based, often concentrated preparation that lacks lubricating and thickening agents
・Vocabulary.com: Technically, serum is the part of blood that doesn’t clot, or any kind of “watery animal fluid.” But serum as skincare refers to watery fluid made of almost anything designed to make skin more beautiful. No animals involved.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a substance in beauty products that is designed to improve your hair or skin and make it less dry

スキンケア用の物質・材料ですね。

foci

C. G. Jungの "Modern Man in Search of a Soul" を読んでいます。
第11章 'Psychotherapists or the Clergy' から引用します。
The cause of a neurosis lie in the present as well as in the past; and only a still existing cause can keep a neurosis active. A man is not tubercular because he was infected twenty years ago with bacilli, but because foci of infection are still active today. The question when and how the infection took place are even quite irrelevant to his present condition.

医学用語の様な "foci" を辞書で調べます。 "foci" は良く知っている "focus" の複数形だと分かりましたが、それでも引用文の意味は焦点では合わない。辞書をよく見ると "focus" に次の意味がありました。

・Oxford English Dictionary: Medicine The principal site of an infection or other disease.: Multiple foci of infection, several millimeters in diameter, were seen in many organs.
・Collins Dictionary: pathology the main site of an infection or a localized region of diseased tissue: The most common dental procedures were restorative treatment, preventive treatment and removal of infectious foci.

parlous state

C. G. Jungの "Modern Man in Search of a Soul" を読んでいます。
第11章 'Psychotherapists or the Clergy' から引用します。

I have found that modern man has an ineradicable aversion for traditional opinions and inherited truths. He is a Bolshevist for whom all the spiritual standards and forms of the past have lost their validity, and who therefore wants to experiment in the world of the spirit as the Bolshevist experiments with economics. When confronted with this modern attitude, every ecclesiastical system is in a parlous state, be it Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist or Confucian.

"parlous state" が分かりません。"parlous" を辞書で調べます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: Full of danger or uncertainty; precarious.: ‘the parlous state of the economy’
・Collins Dictionary: If something is in a parlous state, it is in a bad or dangerous condition.: Frankly, it's this lazy thinking that has got us into the current parlous policy position.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: very bad, dangerous, or uncertain: Relations between the two countries have been in a parlous state for some time.

"parlous" の項目で見たのですが、多くの例文が "parlous" の後に "state" を伴っていました。

medicament

C. G. Jungの "Modern Man in Search of a Soul" を読んでいます。
今日取り上げる単語も第5章 'The Stages of Life' からの引用です。

Before the nineteenth century the thyroid was regarded as a meaningless organ, merely because it was not understood. It would be equally short-sighted of us today to call the primordial images senseless. For me these images are something like psychic organs, and I treat them with the very greatest care. It happens sometimes that I must say to an older patient: "Your picture of God or your idea of immortality is atrophied; consequently your psychic metabolism is out of gear." The ancient athanasias pharmakon, the medicament of immortality, is more profound and meaningful than we supposed.

medicament of immortalityは不老不死の薬もしくは治療と推測できますが、"medicine" の親戚のような "medicament" の意味を辞書で確認します。

・Oxford English Dictionary: A substance used for medical treatment.: Yet some rather toxic metals, albeit in insoluble form, have been used as medicaments: Bismuth, for example, as an antacid.
・Collins Dictionary: a medicine or remedy in a specified formulation: He registered 321 licences for the application of human peptides as medicaments for rare diseases.
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: a substance used in therapy: in the 19th century a physician's bag of medicaments most likely included powerful opiates

"medicine" と同義語ですね。
A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease.（Wikipediaからの抜粋）

stultification

C. G. Jungの "Modern Man in Search of a Soul" を読んでいます。第5章 'The Stages of Life' から引用します。

The serious problems of life, however, are never fully solved. If it should for once appear that they are, this is the sign that something has been lost. The meaning and design of a problem seem not to lie in its solution, but in our working at it incessantly. This alone preserves us from stultification and petrifaction.

"stultification and petrifaction" の "petrifaction" は昔米国アリゾナ州にある国立公園の "Petrified Forest"（化石の森）に行った時に覚えた単語ですが、"stultification" あるいはその基になる動詞 "stultify" は知らない単語なので辞書を見ます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: Cause to lose enthusiasm and initiative, especially as a result of a tedious or restrictive routine.: For many of us, such a subdued, small town, near communitarian environment would feel repressive, stultifying.
・Collins Dictionary: If something stultifies you, it makes you feel empty or dull in your mind, because it is so boring.: This attitude stultifies scientific progress.
・Dictionary.com: to become ineffectual or impaired, especially through frustrating, stifling, or deadening conditions: Without novelty the mind can stultify.

日本では余り知られていませんが、"Petrified Forest" 国立公園は大きな木の化石があちらこちらに散在していて一見の価値があり、お勧めです。

psychasthenic/psychasthenia/nervous breakdown

読む本が切れたのに借りる本を予約するのを忘れました。家に最も近い図書館にある英語の本は多読用の本がほとんどでしたが、ほんの少し原書も置いてあったのでそこからC. G. Jungの "Modern Man in Search of a Soul" を借りて読むことにしました。精神分析学者としてFreudと同じ様に著名な人だとと知っているだけで、Freudの著作と同様に日本語でもこれまで読んだ本はありません。

第2章 'Problem of Psychotherapy' からの引用です。
It is probable that one form of neurosis is conditioned by the predominance of secrets, and another by the predominance of restrained emotions. At any rate the hysterical subject, who is very free with his emotions, is most often the possessor of a secret, while the hardened psychasthenic suffers from inability to digest his emotions.

"psychasthenic" は精神疾患の一種（の状態）だと思いますが、辞書で名詞形の "psychasthenia" を見ると、

・Collins Dictionary: Obsolete a group of neuroses characterized by phobias, obsessions, undue anxiety, etc.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: (dated) A psychological disorder characterized by phobias, obsessions, compulsions, or excessive anxiety.

どうも現在は余り使われない言葉のようなので、同意語を調べると "psychological breakdown" 又は "nervous breakdown" などが普通は使われている様です。

is couched in

５月２５日のThe Japan Times Onlineの 'Understanding the extent of Chinese public support for Russia' の記事から引用します。

A full 75% of the surveyed respondents indicated that supporting Russia in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict is in China’s national interest. What is worth noting here, however, is that the survey question is couched in terms of interest, as opposed to asking whether the war was right or justifiable. Respondents were not invited to reflect upon the most morally upright course of action, but what they deem the most prudential and instrumental course of action for China to take. One cannot help but ponder if a slightly reworded question (with greater emphasis placed upon how China should act, all things considered) would yield different results.

"is couched" の個所が分からないので、"couch" を辞書で見ます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: (usually be couched in) Express (something) in language of a specified style.: ‘many false claims are couched in scientific jargon’
・Collins Dictionary: If a statement is couched in a particular style of language, it is expressed in that style of language.: This time the proposal was couched as an ultimatum.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to express something in a particular way: I don't understand this form - it's all couched in legal terminology.

これは憶えておくべき表現ですね。