dead wood

英 [ˌded ˈwʊd]

美 [ˌded ˈwʊd]

n.  冗员; 废物

牛津词典

noun

• 冗员；废物
  people or things that have become useless or unnecessary in an organization

柯林斯词典

• N-UNCOUNT 不再有用的人(或事物);累赘;冗余
  People or things that have been used for a very long time and that are no longer considered to be useful can be referred to asdead wood.
  1. ...the idea that historical linguistics is so much dead wood.
     认为历史语言学完全冗赘无用的观点

双语例句

• Two, while the CEOs might claim otherwise, often it's not the so-called dead wood who are chopped during layoffs.
  第二，在裁员的过程中，公司砍掉的，往往不是所谓的枯枝。
• The new manager wants to cut out the dead wood and streamline production.
  新经理想精简机构以提高生产效率。
• The management decided to economize by cutting the dead wood from the workforce, thus reducing the wages bill.
  资方决定节省开支，裁减劳动力中的冗员，这样可以减少工资支出。
• So I wrote him a letter, said: Once, I had the pleasure to visit your farm and found that there are many vector species of chrysanthemum trees, some already dead, wood has become soft.
  于是我给他写了一封信，说：有一次，我有幸参观您的农场，发现那里长着许多矢菊树，有些已经死掉，木质已变得松软。
• I was dead tired, as you may fancy; and when I got to sleep which was not till after a great deal of tossing, I slept like log of wood.
  我死累死累的，你可以想像得到，在经历了这样一番折腾后，我一倒下便睡得像根木头了。
• Opportunity was taken to get rid of a great deal of inefficient material in the lower ranks, but in the higher ranks much dead wood was left untouched.
  下面已利用时机解除了大批无用的人，而上面许多无用的人却碰都未碰过。
• He spent all day sawing up the dead wood.
  他花了一天工夫把枯木锯成板材。
• They are like clear-cutting a forest, not removing dead wood.
  这样做就好比夷平整座森林，而不是砍掉几棵枯树。
• In stark contrast to developed economies, where the printing of words on dead wood is a sunset industry and print journalists are a dying breed, the Chinese newspaper industry is in rude health.
  在发达经济体，平面媒体已是夕阳产业，报刊记者成为一个没落的职业；但与之形成鲜明对比的是，中国的报业却极富活力。
• Low profits gave the company an excuse to clean out the dead wood.
  盈利低微给了公司裁减冗员的借口。