not hold a candle

桐野 夏生の "Grotesque" を読んでいます。Yurikoを殺した容疑者Zhang Zhe-Zhongの手記からの引用です。
He'd struck a nerve. I finished red with embarrassment. Yes, I was ashamed to admit it, but I was very fond of my sister. When I worked at the straw hat factory, there were ten female employees in addition to the men. They were all teenagers. They'd call out to me and follow me around, but they didn't interest me in the slightest. Not one of them could hold a candle to Mei-kun.

"hold a candle to" （Mei-kunはZhangの妹です。）は慣用句のようです。意味を調べます。"hold a candle to" ではどの辞書にも記載が見当たりませんでしたが、否定形の"not hold a candle" で次の説明がありました。上の引用文もよく見ると否定形でした。

・Collins Dictionary: to be inferior or contemptible in comparison with: the remake doesn't hold a candle to the original film
・Farlex Dictionary of Idioms: To not be nearly as good, desirable, or impressive as someone or something else.
The sequel isn't too bad, but it doesn't hold a candle to the original.

The Word Detective (http://www.word-detective.com/)に由来の記述がありました。その抜粋を引用します。
"To hold a candle to," a phrase which first appeared around 1550, meant "to assist in a subordinate position," and if you were "not able to hold a candle to," it meant you were too incompetent to be trusted with even a simple task. Eventually, "can't hold a candle to" became a generalized way to say that something is so inferior that it cannot be fairly compared to its betters.

wet behind the ears

桐野 夏生の "Grotesque" を読んでいます。

KazueからKijimaへの手紙の一節を引用します。
I belong to the ice-skating club. I'm still too wet behind the ears to compete. (Or wet behind the toes, as the case may be.)

"wet behind the ears" は「青二才の」とか「世間しらず」の意味でよく使われる慣用句ですが、カッコ書きで "wet behind the toes" とあるのはアイススケートだから言葉の遊びとして加えたのでしょうが、日本語の原文ではどんな表現だったのか気になります。翻訳者が工夫した個所に違いありません。　その内に原書を借りて調べたいと思います。

ところで、"wet behind the ears" の語源が気になったので調べると、Wiktionaryに次の説明がありました。

From the drying of amniotic fluid on a baby after birth, specifically a new-born farm animal, which last dries behind the ears (partly because licked dry by mother everywhere else).

そういえば動物母親が出産直後に生まれたての子供を下で舐めている画像は何度も見たことがあります。今度見かけたら、耳の後ろを舐めているか確かめましょう。

subject

桐野 夏生の "Grotesque" を読んでいます。
I also noticed that Kazue had begun subjecting her teachers to as intense litany of questions during class. The teachers would soon grow impatient. "Okay, let's move on to the next question," they'd say, glancing at their watches, only to have Kazue complain, in a tear-choked voice. "But professor, I still don't understand."

"subjecting" の意味を "subject" の動詞の項で調べます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Cause or force to undergo (a particular experience of form of treatment): ‘he'd subjected her to a terrifying ordeal’
・Collins Dictionary: If you subject someone to something unpleasant, you make them experience it.: They subjected me to endless threats to sabotage my business.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to have or experience a particular thing, especially something unpleasant: In recent years, she has been subject to attacks of depression.

そう言えば "subject" には「支配する・服従させる」の意味もありますね。

you are dense

昨日江戸川マラソン（10kmラン）に参加しました。目標の1時間切りは果たせず1時間51秒でした。あと1分速ければ達成できたのに、残念。来月は世田谷でのランがあるので、再挑戦します。
さて、もし "You are dense." と言われたらどう思いますか？　桐野 夏生の "Grotesque" にこんな描写がありました。
When my parents argued it was unbearable. But Yuriko would just sit there nonchalantly watching TV. When my father and I fought she would sneak out of the room, but when our parents fought she didn't seem to care. Was she really that dense? Or couldn't she bear to watch my father and me fight?

ここの "dense" の意味が分からないので辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: informal (of a person) stupid; Even a relatively dense dad like myself could sense that something was wrong.
・Collins Dictionary: If you say that someone is dense, you mean that you think they are stupid and that they take a long time to understand simple things. [informal] He's not a bad man, just a bit dense.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: stupid: There are some really dense people in our class.

"dense" が人に対して使われると "stupid" の意味になるのが不思議に思えたので、何か説明は無いかと他の辞書もいろいろ見るとVocaburaly.comに次の記述がありました。
And if someone calls you dense, they think nothing can get into your thick skull.
頭蓋骨が厚過ぎるせいですか！

as dumb as a doornail

桐野 夏生の "Grotesque" を読んでいます。
What the hell was happening? I'd studied my butt off in the hopes of finally getting away from Yuriko, and now here she was seeping back into my life some kind of poison gas! I sighed in despair. Yuriko was as dumb as a doornail, but her beauty would forever entitle her to special treatment. On that score, the Q School system was no different.

"as dumb as a doornail" は昔学校で習った "as cool as a cucumber" と同様に形容詞を強調する常套句・慣用句に違いありません。ただこの表現を載せている辞書は余りありませんでした。
・Wiktionary: (simile) irrefutably or unquestionably dumb
・Farlex Dictionary of Idioms: Exceptionally foolish, dimwitted, or unintelligent.

"doornail" は "dumb" と言うより、むしろ機能しない、死んでいるとの意味で "as dead as a doornail" の方が使われている様だ。
・Merriam-Webster: used to stress that someone or something is dead: The old captain was dead as a doornail.
・The Phrase Finder: To be 'as dead as a doornail' is to be utterly dead, devoid of life (when applied to people, plants or animals) or finished with, unusable (when applied to inanimate objects).

loll

桐野 夏生の "Grotesque" を読んでいます。

And those students who, like me, didn't want to get lumped in with the benches group would loaf around outside the chain-link fence, making it seem as if we were simply awaiting our turn to play. What about Kazue, you ask? She'd hit the balls back and forth on one of the side courts with other outsiders. She hated losing and would chase after the balls with dogged determination, letting go with strange grunts and groans in the process. The students lolling about on the benches entertained themselves with derisive comments about her.

"loll" は11/29/2019に取り上げていますが忘れていたので復習です。

skimpy

予約していた桐野 夏生の "Grotesque" がやっと借りれて、読み始めました。

Those of us who were entering for the first time--each and every one of us--having successfully passed the entrance exams. had skirts that fell just to the center of our knees, in exact accordance with official school regulations. However, the half who had been in the system since elementary or middle school had skirts that rode up high on their thighs. Now, I'm not talking about the kind of skirts that the girls wear today, skirts that are so skimpy they're hardly there at all. No, these skirts were just the right length to provide a perfect balance with the girls' highquality navy-blue knee socks.

スカートがとても "skimpy" とあります。 "skimp"　に「けちけちする」の意味があるし、スカートの長さを話題にしているので、 "skimpy" は布をケチケチして、結局は露出度の高いスカートを意味している様です。辞書で確認します。

・Oxford English Dictionary: (of clothes) short and revealing.: ‘a skimpy dress’
・Collins Dictionary: Something that is skimpy is too small in size or quantity.: What do the dancers make of the clothes they are modelling, which are skimpy and slinky?
・Cambridge English Dictionary: not large enough: Skimpy clothing shows a lot of your body.
Collins Dictionaryの例文に出てきた "slinky" の意味もついでに調べます。
Slinky clothes fit very closely to a woman's body in a way that makes her look sexually attractive.: She's wearing a slinky black mini-skirt.

日本の女子高生のスカートは確かに短過ぎる気がする時がありますね。

sylvan

O. Henryの短編小説 "THE RANSOM OF RED CHIEF" を読んでいます。

I went up on the peak of the little mountain and ran my eye over the contiguous vicinity. Over toward Summit I expected to see the sturdy yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforks beating the countryside for the dastardly kidnappers. But what I saw was a peaceful landscape dotted with one man ploughing with a dun mule. Nobody was dragging the creek; no couries dashed hither and yon, bringing tidings of no news to the distracted parents. There was a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading that section of the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view.

少年を誘拐した二人の犯人は少年の親に身代金を要求するのですが、少年はインディアンごっこが好きで、山中で暮らすのも気に入っているような非常に腕白な子で、家に帰りたがらず、誘拐犯達はてこずっています。さて、引用文中の "sylvan" の意味を調べます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: connected with forests and trees: sylvan surroundings
・Collins Dictionary: Sylvan is used to describe things that have an association with woods and trees.: a shady, sylvan glade
・Vocabulary.com: The adjective sylvan refers to a shady, wooded area. The word suggests a peaceful, pleasant feeling, as though you were far away from the noise of modern life.

誘拐犯の足にしがみつき家に帰りたがらない少年を父親に引き取ってもらうのに、犯人達は身代金どころか、父親にお金を払って、父親が少年を押さえている間に懸命に逃げたという話。何か落語の世界の話を連想しました。

dun

O. Henryの短編小説 "GIRL" を読んでいます。

Hertley pressed the "McComus" button. The door latch clicked spasmodically--now hospitably, now doubtfully, as though in anxiety whether it might be admitting friends or duns. Hertley enterd and began to climb the stairs after the manner of those who seek their friends in city flat-housed--which is the manner of a boy who climbs an apple-tree, stopping when he comes upon what he wants.

"duns" はO. Henryの短編小説ではこれで二度目なので覚えたいと思います。

・Collins Dictionary: a person, esp a hired agent, who importunes another for the payment of a debt: If someone duns you for money you owe them, they ask you again and again for payment.
・Wiktionary: A collector of debts, especially one who is insistent and demanding.: Melancholy duns came looking for him at all hours.

小説内ならいいですが、実生活では付き合うことの無い様にしたいですね。
"dun" は灰茶色の（Collins Dictionary: a dull grey-brown colour）意味もあり、O. Henryの短編小説では馬とかロバの毛色を示すのにやはり時々出てきます。

The Law of the Jungle

O. Henryの短編小説 "GIRL" を読んでいます。

"Go back," repeated Hartley, inflexibly. "The Law of the Jungle. Do you want the Pack to tear you in pieces? The kill is mine."

"The Law of the Jungle" とは弱肉強食の世界を意味している様ですが、辞書に説明が載っているか調べます。

・Collins Dictionary: If you refer to the law of the jungle, you are referring to a situation in which there are no laws or rules to govern the way that people behave and people use force to get what they want.: If you make aggression pay, this becomes the law of the jungle.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: the idea that people who care only about themselves will be most likely to succeed in a society or organization: We hope for a world where the rule of law, not the law of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations.