at loggerheads over

The Japan Times Online 5/31/2023の記事 "LDP looks to repair Komeito ties with electoral olive branch" から引用します。

While still at loggerheads over the candidate for Tokyo’s 28th district, the LDP and Komeito have reiterated their commitment to further discussion on nationwide electoral cooperation, with the former no longer intending to field contenders in Saitama’s 14th district and Aichi's 16.

慣用句の様な "at loggerheads over" の意味を調べます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: in strong disagreement: The two governments are still at loggerheads over the island.
・Collins Dictionary: If two or more people or groups are at loggerheads, they disagree very strongly with each other.: For months dentists and the health department have been at loggerheads over fees.
・Farlex Dictionary of Idioms: To be in conflict or disagreement with someone for some particular reason. A "logger" is a 16th-century term for a block of wood, so a "loggerhead" is a blockhead or fool.: They are at loggerheads over the best way to lead the committee.

ward

Vladimir Nabokovの "Lolita" を読んでいます。

She by now was preening herself, between him and me, rouging her pursed lips, tripling her chin to pick at her blouse-bosom and so forth, and he spoke of her as if she were absent, and also as if she were a kind of little ward that was in the act of being transferred, for her own good, from one wise guardian to another even wiser one; and although my helpless wrath may have exaggerated and disfigured certain impressions, I can swear that he actually consulted me on such things as her diet, her periods, her wardrobe and the books she had read or should read. “I think,”—he said, “She will like Jean Christophe? ” Oh, he was quite a scholar, Mr. Taxovich.

"ward" は東京の区の様な行政区画とか病棟、病室などの意味があるのは知っていますが、引用文ではLoritaの事を指しているのでその様な意味ではありません。辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: (law) a person, especially a child, who is under the legal protection of a court or another person (called a guardian): The child was made a ward of court.
・Collins Dictionary: A ward or a ward of court is a child who is the responsibility of a person called a guardian, or of a court of law, because their parents are dead or because they are believed to be in need of protection.: Alex was made a ward of court.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a person, especially a child, who is legally put under the protection of a law court or a guardian: The girl was made a ward of court to stop her father taking her out of the country.

guardianは知っていましたが、対語の "ward" を知らないと片手落ちですね。

hopscotch

Vladimir Nabokovの "Lolita" を読んでいます。

“Rope-skipping, hopscotch. That old woman in black who sat down next to me on my bench, on my rack of joy (a nymphet was groping under me for a lost marble), and asked if I had stomachache, the insolent hag. Ah, leave me alone in my pubescent park, in my mossy garden. Let them play around me forever. Never grow up.”

"hopscotch" は子供の遊びの一種の様です。　辞書の説明を見ます。

・Cambridge English Dictionary: a game played by children, who throw a stone onto a set of joined squares drawn on the ground and jump on one leg and then on two legs into each square to get the stone：The girls marked out the hopscotch squares in the dust.
・Vocabulary.com: Hopscotch is a game in which players hop on one foot between numbered squares on the ground. Playgrounds and driveways are common places to see hopscotch being played.
To set up a game of hopscotch, you need a grid of numbered boxes, often drawn on the sidewalk with chalk. Each player takes turns tossing a small rock or other object into one of the boxes, hopping on one foot, picking up the rock, and hopping back. The object is for the rock to land inside each box without touching a line, and for the hopper to also avoid landing on a line or losing balance.

昔の事なので記憶が定かではありませんが、日本でも同様な遊びがあった気がします。　最近日本では道路上で遊ぶ子供を見ないので（特に都会では）今では子供がその様な遊びをしないのではと思います。　最近はゲーム機で遊んでいる子供しか見かけません。

beetle-browed

Vladimir Nabokovの "Lolita" を読み始めました。 この小説の内容は全く知りませんが、たしか昔聞いたことのある言葉ロリコンの由来となった小説と聞いたころがあるので、Wikipediaを見ると、次の説明が冒頭にありました。

In Japanese popular culture, lolicon (ロリコン, also romanized as rorikon or lolicom) is a genre of fictional media in which young (or young-looking) girl characters appear in romantic or sexual contexts. The term, a portmanteau of the English words "Lolita" and "complex", also refers to desire and affection for such characters (ロリ, "loli"), and fans of such characters and works.
やはりロリコンの基となった小説ですね。　"Lolita" の中から今日取り上げる単語は "beetle-browed" です。

Among some treasures I lost during the wanderings of my adult years, there was a snapshot taken by my aunt which showed Annabel, her parents and the staid, elderly, lame gentleman, a Dr. Cooper, who that same summer courted my aunt, grouped around a table in a sidewalk cafe. Annabel did not come out well, caught as she was in the act of bending over her chocolat glace, and her thin bare shoulders and the parting in her hair were about all that could be identified (as I remember that picture) amid the sunny blur into which her lost loveliness graded; but I, sitting somewhat apart from the rest, came out with a kind of dramatic conspicuousness: a moody, beetle-browed boy in a dark sport shirt and well-tailored white shorts, his legs crossed, sitting in profile, looking away.

"beetle-browed" とはどんな意味でしょう？　辞書を見ます。

・Wiktionary: Making an unfriendly, sullen, or scowling face.: Calling this beetle-browed disdainful young person, hair hanging in her face, jaws chewing pecan pie with mechanical precision, honey!
・Dictionary.com: sullen in appearance; scowling: It was a signal, though, for a thick-set beetle-browed young fellow to bounce in from the next room and curtly demand my business.
・Vocabulary.com: sullen or unfriendly in appearance: He was a beetle-browed, scowling, ill-conditioned-looking gent of about fifty, who had a trick of coughing a hard dry cough between every word he uttered.