| 释义 |
detritus Physiogr.|dɪˈtraɪtəs|
[a. L. dētrītus (u-stem) rubbing away.
The proper meaning of the L. word appears in sense 1. The etymologically improper sense 2 may have been taken from French, in which détritus is cited of date 1780 by Hatz.-Darm. Earlier in the century, according to the Dict. de Trévoux, the more correct détritum was used in F.]
†1. Wearing away or down by detrition, disintegration, decomposition. Obs.
1795Hutton Theory of Earth (1797) I. 115 Such materials as might come from the detritus of granite. Ibid. 206, I have nowhere said that all the soil of this earth is made from the decomposition or detritus of these stony substances. 1802Playfair Illustr. Hutton. Th. Wks. 1822 I. 63 The effects of waste and detritus. Ibid. 113 Proofs of a detritus which nothing can resist. Ibid. 123 The waste and detritus to which all things are subject.
2. Matter produced by the detrition or wearing away of exposed surfaces, especially the gravel, sand, clay, or other material eroded and washed away by aqueous agency; a mass or formation of this nature.
1802Playfair Illustr. Hutton. Th. Wks. 1822 I. 409 The quantity of detritus brought down by the rivers. Ibid. 425 The distance to which the detritus from the land is confessedly carried. 1802― in Edin. Rev. I. 207 When the detritus of the land is delivered by the rivers into the sea. 1823W. Buckland Reliq. Diluv. 26 Deposits of diluvial detritus, like the surface gravel beds of England. 1832H. T. De la Beche Geol. Man. (ed. 2) 210 The whole is evidently a detritus of the Alpine rocks, and in it organic remains are by no means common. 1851Mayne Reid Scalp Hunt. xli, We entered the cañon, and galloped over the detritus. 1862Dana Man. Geol. 643 The fine earthy material deposited by streams or their sediment, is called silt or detritus. 1876Page Adv. Text-bk. Geol. xix. 389 That broad valley..covered to an immense depth with an angular detritus.
3. transf. and fig. Waste or disintegrated material of any kind; debris.
1834J. Forbes Laennec's Dis. Chest (ed. 4) 189 The walls of this abscess had..no surface, the pus being observed gradually to pass into a purulent detritus, and this into a firmer tissue. 1849H. Rogers Ess. II. vi. 306 The loose detritus of thought, washed down to us through long ages. 1851Sir F. Palgrave Norm. & Eng. I. 701 The detritus of languages covering the Northern Gauls. 1876tr. Wagner's Gen. Pathol. 192 The red blood-corpuscles and fibrinous detritus..are reabsorbed.
b. An accumulation of debris of any sort.
1851Layard Pop. Acc. Discov. Nineveh vii. 134 We found ourselves at the foot of an almost perpendicular detritus of loose stones. 1866R. Chambers Ess. Ser. i. 185 There is a detritus of ruin in every corner, composed of broken toys, sofa-pillows, foot-stools.
Add:4. spec. in Ecol. Non-living organic material, esp. as a source of nourishment. Freq. attrib., esp. in detritus-feeding.
1925O. D. Hunt in Jrnl. Marine Biol. Assoc. XIII. 567 Those which feed by selecting from the surrounding water the suspended micro-organisms and detritus,..for want of a better term, may be termed Suspension-feeders. 1949New Biol. VI. 17 The appearance of reeds..leads to large increases in the numbers of algæ and in the amount of organic detritus. 1959Ibid. XXIX. 99 Others have used tubs containing water in which algae and small herbivorous and detritus-feeding animals succeeded one another. 1984A. C. & A. Duxbury Introd. World's Oceans xv. 481 (caption) The sea cucumbers feed on detritus suspended in the water. 1990Compl. Angler's Guide Spring 6/1 Nymphs mostly live in or among the silt and bottom detritus. |