| 释义 |
▪ I. discrete, a. (n.)|dɪˈskriːt|
Also 6 discreet.
[ad. L. discrēt-us ‘separate, distinct’, pa. pple. of discernĕre to separate, divide, discern: cf. later sense of F. discret, discrète ‘divided, separate’.
In the sense of cl. L. discrētus, discrete was used by Trevisa (translating from L.), but app. was not in general use till late in 16th c. But in another sense, ‘discerning, prudent’ (derived through French), discret, discrete was well-known in popular use from the 14th c.; this, even in late ME., was occasionally spelt discreet, which spelling was appropriated to it about the time that discrete in the L. sense began to be common; so that thenceforth discrete and discreet were differentiated in spelling as well as in meaning: see discreet. Before this, while discrete was the prevalent form for the later discreet, it is only rarely (see 1 β below) that discreet appears for the present discrete.]
A. adj.
1. a. Separate, detached from others, individually distinct. Opposed to continuous.
1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xix. cxvi. (1495) 919 One is the begynnynge of alle thynges that is contynual and dyscrete. 1570Dee Math. Pref. 13 Of distinct and discrete Vnits. 1594Blundevil Exerc. iii. i. xxxi. (ed. 7) 339 Of which Arkes some are called continuall, and some discrete or divided. Ibid., That Arke is called discrete or broken, which doth not take his beginning from the first point of Aries. 1634Peacham Gentl. Exerc. iii. 137 Raine or water..being divided by the cold ayre, in the falling downe, into discreet parts. 1775Harris Philos. Arrangem. (1841) 308 The motion of all animals..by being alternate, is of the discrete kind. 1851Nichol Archit. Heav. 47 Any telescope capable of resolving these various masses into discrete stars. 1883A. Barratt Phys. Metempiric 59 To hold together, and keep discrete, simultaneous phenomena.
† (β) spelt discreet.
1590Spenser F.Q. ii. xii. 71 The waters fall with difference discreet, Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call.
†b. Music. Applied to tones separated by fixed or obvious steps or intervals of pitch, as the notes of a piano; also to a movement of the voice from one pitch to another, as distinguished from a concrete movement or slide. Cf. concrete 1 b.
1864Webster cites Rush.
c. Pathol. Separate, not coalescent or confluent: applied to stains, spots, or pustules, when scattered separately from each other over a surface, as in discrete small-pox [F. variole discrète].
1854–67C. A. Harris Dict. Med. Terminol. 218. 1882 Carpenter in 19th Cent. Apr. 531 The discrete, ‘distinct’, or ‘benign’ form being by no means a severe disease, even among the unvaccinated. 1893Daily News 4 Mar. 5/4 A woman..whose children had been removed for discrete small-pox.
d. Logic. Individually distinct, but not different in kind.
1837–8Sir W. Hamilton Logic xi. (1866) I. 209 In so far as Conspecies are considered to be different but not contradictory, they are properly called Discrete or Disjunct Notions. Ibid. xii.(1860) I. 224 Notions co-ordinated in the quantity or whole of extension..are only relatively different (or diverse); and in logical language are properly called Disjunct or Discrete Notions. 1864Bowen Logic iv. 66.
e. discrete degrees: applied by Swedenborg to the various degrees or levels of spiritual existence, conceived as so distinct and separate from each other, as to render it impossible for any subject to pass out of that one for which he is constituted.
1788tr. Swedenborg's Wisd. Angels iii. §236 In every Man from his Birth there are three Degrees of Altitude, or discrete Degrees, one above or within another. 1856Grindon Life (1863) 319 Where things are differentiated by a discrete degree, the commencement of the new one is..on a distinct and higher level.
2. a. Consisting of distinct or individual parts; discontinuous.
discrete quantity, quantity composed of distinct units, as the rational numbers; number. Distinguished from continuous quantity = magnitude.
1570Billingsley Euclid ii. i. 62 Two contrary kynds of quantity, quantity discrete or number, and quantity continual or magnitude. 1687H. More Answ. Psychop. (1689) 123 Inseperability, continued Amplitude, belongs to Spirits as well as discrete Quantity. 1785Reid Int. Powers iii. iii. 311 Duration and extension are not discrete, but continued quantity. Ibid. 342 Number is called discrete quantity, because it is compounded of units. 1837–9Hallam Hist. Lit. II. viii. ii. 322 note, They were dealing with continuous or geometrical, not merely with descrete or arithmetical quantity. 1876H. Spencer Princ. Sociol. (1877) I. 475 The parts of an animal form a concrete whole; but the parts of a society form a whole that is discrete. 1893Forsyth Th. Functions 584 If there be no infinitesimal substitution, then the group is said to be discontinuous, or discrete. 1893Harkness & Morley Th. Functions 50 To Hankel we owe the idea of a discrete mass of points.
b. Belonging to, pertaining to, or dealing with, distinct or disconnected parts.
discrete proportion = discontinued proportion.
1660R. Coke Justice Vind. 23 All Geometrical proportion is either discrete, or continued. Discrete is, when the similitudo rationum is only between the 1. and the 2. and the 3. and 4. term. 1706Phillips (ed. Kersey), Discrete or Disjunct Proportion. 1856Dove Logic Chr. Faith 422 note, Scepticism is discrete and proceeds in detail.
†3. Gram. & Logic. Of conjunctions: adversative. Of propositions: discretive. Applied also to the two members of such a proposition, separated by the adversative conjunction. Obs.
1628T. Spencer Logick 237 That Axiome is discrete, that hath a discrete Coniunction for the band thereof. Ibid. 239 The coniunction which tyes the parts together, is called discrete: and in this place it imports no more but a thing that keepes two asunder, for the present. a1638Mede Apost. latter Times i. Wks. 1672 iii. 623 The Words..of my Text [Nevertheless, the Spirit, etc. 1 Tim. iv. 1] depend upon the last of the former Chapter, as the second part of a Discrete proposition. 1654Z. Coke Logick (1657) 119 A discrete sentence, is, which hath a discrete conjunction; as, although, yet, notwithstanding, etc. 1664H. More Myst. Iniq. Apol. 538 [It will] run in this form of a Discrete Axiome, I will have you wait on me at such a meeting, though your cloaths be old or out of the mode.
4. Metaph. Not concrete; detached from the material, abstract.
1854Fraser's Mag. L. 343 The mental march from concrete or real notions to discrete or abstract truths. 1862H. Spencer First Princ. (1870) 27 This formation of symbolic Conceptions, which inevitably arises as we pass from small and concrete objects, to large and to discrete ones.
B. n. A separate part.
1890J. H. Stirling Gifford Lect. xviii. 353 Break it up into an endless number of points..an endless number of discretes. 1967Electronics 6 Mar. 116 Integrated circuits will be turning up routinely in new products throughout 1967. The big switch from discretes is on.
▪ II. discrete
early form of discreet.
▪ III. † diˈscrete, v. Obs.
[f. L. discrēt- ppl. stem of discernĕre to separate: see discern.]
trans. To divide into discrete or distinct parts; to separate distinctly, dissever.
1646Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. ii. i. 55 The reason thereof is its continuity, as..its body is left imporous and not discreted by atomicall terminations. 1656Blount Glossogr., Discreted, severed, parted, discerned. 1857–8Sears Athan. vii. 316 This essential dualism discretes for ever the two worlds of spirit and matter. |