(sing. graffito /-təʊ/)[treated as sing. or pl.]
- writing or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place(墙壁, 公共场所的其他表面上非法的)涂写; 涂画; 喷涂:
the walls were covered with graffiti
墙上布满了涂鸦
as modifier a graffiti artist.一位涂鸦艺术家。
with obj.
1- write or draw graffiti on (something)在(某物)上涂写(或涂画):
he and another artist graffitied an entire train.
他和另一位艺术家在一整列火车上涂画。
1.1
- write (words or drawings) as graffiti涂鸦般写字或画画。
USAGE
In Italian the word graffiti is a plural noun and its singular form is graffito. Traditionally, the same distinction has been maintained in English, so that graffiti, being plural, would require a plural verb: the graffiti were all over the wall. By the same token, the singular would require a singular verb: there was a graffito on the wall. Today, these distinctions survive in some specialist fields such as Archaeology but sound odd to most native speakers. The most common modern use is to treat graffiti as if it were a mass noun, similar to a word like writing, and not to use graffito at all. In this case, graffiti takes a singular verb, as in the graffiti wasall over the wall. Such uses are now widely accepted as standard, and may be regarded as part of the natural development of the language, rather than as mistakes. A similar process is going on with other words such as agenda, data, and media.
派生词
graffitist
noun词源
mid 19th cent.: from Italian (plural), from graffio 'a scratch'.