忙しいときに夜遅くまで働くことがあります。夜に石油ランプを使っていた17世紀では夜中まで働くときは「深夜の石油を燃やす」必要がありました。今は電気を使いますが、それでも遅くまで残業するときなどに「burn the midnight oil」という表現を使います。
Sometimes when you are very busy, you have to work late into the night. In the 1600s, when people used oil lamps for light at night, they had to “burn the midnight oil” in order to see their work late at night. Now we usually use electricity, but we still say things like, “We’ll have to burn the midnight oil,” if we have to work a lot of overtime.
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