truculent

帰省中、アパートのインターネット料金の支払いができず、インターネットを止められてしまっていました。そのため、ネット環境になく、ブログ記事を送付できませんでした。先ほど復旧したため、送付できずにいた記事をお送りします。（←言い訳）

先日の水爆実験を受け、The Japan Newsでは北朝鮮を分析した記事が掲載されています。

Analysis / N-tests, purges mark 4 years of Kim’s rule of North Korea

SEOUL (Reuters) — Four years into his tenure, North Korea’s young leader Kim Jong Un has proven unpredictable and truculent, not only for the United States and South Korea but for his closest ally, China, defying it by conducting nuclear tests, the latest this week.

Mocked early on in his rule for his youth and girth, the third-generation dictator has thwarted the direst predictions of chaos and even collapse.

While many North Koreans remain desperately poor, a flourishing gray-market economy is improving the lives of ordinary people, delivering on one of Kim’s main policy pledges, even as the country is more isolated than ever.

North Korea said this week it successfully conducted a hydrogen bomb test, although the United States and other governments doubt the device was as advanced as claimed. Still, the test will help Kim further consolidate his power by burnishing his image as a powerful leader and satisfying the government’s hard-line military constituency, at the beginning of a big year for North Korea.

以下省略

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002670089

“truculent” /trʌ'kjulənt/を拾い上げます。LDOCEには“bad-tempered and always willing to argue with people”、『ジーニアス第三版』では「1.残酷な、獰猛な　2.好戦的な、戦闘的な 3.痛烈な、辛辣な」と確認できました。

LDOCEの定義から考えると、「喧嘩腰な」いったニュアンスを持っているようです。なお、名詞は”truculence”「1.狂暴性、残酷、野蛮 2.好戦性、けんか好き」、副詞 "truculently”(いずれも『G3』より)となります。

あえてこの単語を選んだ記者の批判的な態度が見て取れます。(あいづ)