if: [OE] The Old English version of if was gif, but its initial g was closer to modern English y in pronunciation than to g, and the conjunction gradually evolved through Middle English yif to if. It is not known where it ultimately came from; it is evidently connected with Old High German iba ‘condition’ and Old Norse ef ‘doubt’, but whether it started life as a noun like these or was from the beginning a conjunction is not clear. Its surviving Germanic relatives are German ob ‘whether’ and Dutch of ‘if’.
if (conj.)
Old English gif (initial g- in Old English pronounced with a sound close to Modern English -y-), from Proto-Germanic *ja-ba (cognates: Old Saxon, Old Norse ef, Old Frisian gef, Old High German ibu, German ob, Dutch of "if, whether"), from PIE pronominal stem *i- [Watkins]; Klein, OED suggest probably originally from an oblique case of a noun meaning "doubt" (compare Old High German iba "condition, stipulation, doubt," Old Norse if "doubt, hesitation," Swedish jäf "exception, challenge"). As a noun from 1510s.
雙語例句
1. If you wait, all that happens is that you get older.
如果你等待，發生的隻有變老。
來自金山詞霸 每日一句
2. If you love life, life will love you back.
熱愛生活，生活也會厚愛你。
來自金山詞霸 每日一句
3. If you're not satisfied with the life you're living, don't just complain. Do something about it.
對於現況的不滿，不能隻是抱怨，要有勇氣作出改變。
來自金山詞霸 每日一句
4. If you're lonely when you're alone, you're in bad company.--Jean Paul Sartre
如果你獨處時感到寂寞，說明沒有把自己陪好。
來自金山詞霸 每日一句
5. Friendship means understanding, not agreement. It means forgiveness, not forgetting.It means the memories last, even if contact is lost.