| 释义 |
dolmen|ˈdɒlmɛn|
[a. mod.F. dolmen (dolmin Latour d'Auvergne, 1796, dolmine Le Grand d'Aussy 1798, dolmen, Mémoires de l'Académie Celtique 1807).
Given by Legonidec 1821 as Breton = ‘monument in form of an altar or table’; and usually explained as f. Breton tôl = taol, L. tabula, table + mean, men stone. But the Breton compound of these words would be taolvean or tôlven, and the d and m of dolmen are not thus satisfactorily accounted for. Borlase, Antiq. Cornwall (1754) called these structures cromlêh, but gave tolmên, lit. ‘hole of stone’, as the current Cornish name for those enormous blocks found in Cornwall and Scilly naturally poised upon two supporting points, so as to leave a ‘hole’ or aperture beneath, through which a man or beast may pass. There is reason to think that this is the word inexactly reproduced by Latour d'Auvergne as dolmin, and misapplied by him and succeeding French archæologists to the cromlech.]
The French name, used by some English authors, for a cromlech, a prehistoric structure, consisting of a large flattish stone supported upon two or more smaller upright stones.
1859Jephson Brittany viii. 108 The dolmen appeared to me to consist of a chamber formed by gigantic unhewn granite blocks placed upon smaller ones. 1865Lubbock Preh. Times v. (1869) 104 All over Europe..we find relics of prehistoric times..dolmens or stone chambers. 1871Tylor Prim. Cult. I. 55 Megalithic structures, menhirs, cromlechs, dolmens. 1880Jefferies Gr. Ferne F. 150 He crawled right under the table-stone of the dolmen.
Hence dolˈmenic a. (nonce-wd.), of or belonging to dolmens, or to the race who constructed them.
1882tr. N. Joly's Man bef. Metals i. vi. 158 The ethnological character..of the supposed dolmenic people. |