amphibious: [17] The Greek prefix amphimeant ‘both, on both sides’ (hence an amphitheatre [14]: Greek and Roman theatres were semicircular, so two joined together, completely surrounding the arena, formed an amphitheatre). Combination with bios ‘life’ (as in biology) produced the Greek adjective amphibios, literally ‘leading a double life’. From the beginning of its career as an English word it was used in a very wide, general sense of ‘combining two completely distinct or opposite conditions or qualities’ (Joseph Addison, for example, used it as an 18th-century equivalent of modern unisex), but that meaning has now almost entirely given way to the word’s zoological application.
At first, amphibious meant broadly ‘living on both land and water’, and so was applied by some scientists to, for example, seals; but around 1819 the zoologist William Macleay proposed the more precise application, since generally accepted, to frogs, newts, and other members of the class Amphibia whose larvae have gills but whose adults breathe with lungs. => biology
amphibious (adj.)
1640s, from Greek amphibios "having a double life" (see amphibian). Of motor vehicles, from 1915.
实用例句
1. A third brigade is at sea, ready for an amphibious assault.
还有一个旅已在海上待命，准备两栖进攻。
来自柯林斯例句
2. At home both in water and on land, the platypus is amphibious.
鸭嘴兽的家可以在水中,也可以在陆上.它是两栖动物.
来自英语晨读30分（高一）
3. The British Army used these amphibious crafts in military operations in Borneo.
英国军队曾用这种水陆两用交通工具在婆罗州作过军事演习.
来自辞典例句
4. They proposed a heavy and concentrated amphibious assault.
