| 释义 |
sterility|stəˈrɪlɪtɪ|
[ad. L. sterilitās, f. sterili-s sterile a. Cf. F. stérilité, It. sterilità.]
The quality of being sterile, barrenness.
1. Unproductiveness of the earth.
1426Lydg. De Guil. Pilgr. 23780 Afterward..Vij yeres of Sterylite folwed on,..wherof Ioseph took good hed long a-forn. 1483Caxton Golden Leg. 283/2 There by his merytes he chaced awey the Sterylyte and barrynes that was in that Countre. 1580Reg. Privy Council Scot. III. 294 The barrennes and sterilitie of the ground. 1653Ramesey Astrol. Restored 216 From whence you are to inquire of the fertility and sterility of the Earth. 1676Hale Prim. Orig. Man. (1677) 225 There have been great Devastations and Decrements of Mankind by..Plagues and Epidemical Diseases, Famines, and Sterilities of great parts of the World. 1750Johnson Rambler No. 33 ⁋5, I will teach you to remedy the sterility of the earth. 1813Sir H. Davy Agric. Chem. viii. (1814) 359 Sicily was the granary of Italy and the quantity of corn carried off from it by the Romans is probably a chief cause of its present sterility. 1841Elphinstone Hist. India II. 149 Máldeó, rája of that country,..derived additional strength from the sterility of his territory. 1865Geikie Scen. & Geol. Scot. viii. 211 One looks in vain for a tree or field or patch of green, to relieve the sterility of these lonely shores.
2. Incapacity for producing offspring (chiefly said of the female).
1535Stewart Cron. Scot. II. 250 His wyffe ay in sterilitie, All his dais scho wes withoutin cheild. 1568Grafton Chron. II. 837 He complayned..of the infortunate sterylitie and barennesse of hys wyfe. 1605Shakes. Lear i. iv. 300 Heare Nature,..Into her Wombe conuey stirrility. 1708W. King Cookery Let. ix. 149 Varro, the great Roman Antiquary, tells us how to do it by burning of their Spurs; which occasioning their Sterility, makes them Capons in effect. 1876Gross Dis. Urin. Bladder 271 Impotence and Sterility..are very rare after lateral lithotomy. 1883H. Drummond Nat. Law in Spir. W. (ed. 2) Pref. p. xiii, Inappropriate Hybridism is checked by the Law of Sterility.
†b. Of water: Unproductiveness of anything living. Obs.
1707Curios. Husb. & Gard. 171 The horrible Sterility of the Sea of Sodom... No Animal can live in it.
c. Of plants: Incapacity of reproduction.
1837P. Keith Bot. Lex. 205 The cause of the sterility of hybrids is not well known. 1866Treas. Bot. 1098/2 Far more frequently, however, sterility arises from outward agents, from the effect of long-continued drought or moisture, [etc.].
3. fig. Mental or spiritual barrenness; unproductiveness of results.
1665Glanvill Scepsis Sci. xxi. 133 Its experienced sterility through so many hundred years, drives hope to desperation. a1678Woodhead Holy Living (1688) 194 Yet where is a sterility in thinking on any subject, there is a necessity to change it. 1716Pope Iliad II. Ess. Homer's Battles 323 Yet one cannot ascribe this to any Sterility of Expression, but to the Genius of his Times, that delighted in those reiterated Verses. 1782V. Knox Ess. lx. (1819) II. 16 Such has been the sterility of epigrammatic genius in our country. 1846Grote Greece (1862) II. 13 Sterility of intellect. 1891Speaker 11 July 36/2 The fear is..that public life may be stricken with sterility in consequence of this veto.
4. The state of being free from micro-organisms.
1877Tyndall Ess. Floating Matter Air (1881) 133 The observed sterility was not due to any lack of nutritive power in the infusion. 1899Allbutt's Syst. Med. VII. 550 The sterility in this case was probably due to the fact that death occurred nearly four months after the onset of the disease. |