| 释义 |
ˈsuperpower
Also super power.
[super- 6.]
1. [super- 6 c.] orig. and chiefly U.S. Electrical power produced by the co-ordination and interconnection of existing power plants for greater economy and efficiency. Freq. attrib. Now Hist.
1921W. S. Murray in Prof. Papers U.S. Geol. Survey No. 123. 11 On first presenting the subject considered in this report to the late Secretary of the Interior..I used the word ‘superpower’ to describe a system that would furnish power to the railroads and the industries within the territory between Boston and Washington that has now become more familiarly known as the superpower zone. 1921Independent CVII. 316/2 The problems certain to arise within the circuit of the super-power zone are like those connected with the interstate and intrastate services of the railroads. Ibid. 317/2 The probable issues of super-power seem to make such a body [sc. a Federal control agency] inevitable. 1926Encycl. Brit. (ed. 13) 681/2 The basis for a super-power system lies in the economy effected by the interconnection of electric power systems whose peak loads are reached at different times. 1983T. P. Hughes Networks of Power xi. 297 Only one month after World War I ended, William S. Murray, a consulting electrical engineer, urged the secretary of the interior to prepare the ground for this superpower system.
2. [super- 6 b.] Power of a greater kind or degree than the ordinary.
1922D. H. Lawrence Aaron's Rod xviii. 269 Newly flushed with his own male super-power, he was going to have his reward. 1928G. B. Shaw Intelligent Woman's Guide lxxxiii. 454 The more power the people are given the more urgent becomes the need for some rational and well-informed superpower to dominate them. 1931Times Lit. Suppl. 26 Sept. (Home & Classroom Suppl.) p. iv/2 A super-power amplifier with an undistorted output of 125 watts. 1970New Society 5 Feb. 231/3 This is an entity which has recently escaped from the dominance of Europe: and is now shadowed by the dominance of American superpower. 1975Microwave Jrnl. XVIII. 50/3 The power of conventional microwave generating devices can be increased appreciably only through a matched increase of the..electron beam intensity. It is therefore tempting to use intense Relativistic Electron Beams to generate ‘super power’ microwaves. 1977N.Y. Rev. Bks. 23 June 39/2 We do not, and cannot hope to, have a monopoly of ‘superpower’ in our world, as Rome had in hers.
3. [super- 6 c.] A nation or state having a dominant position in world politics; one which has the power to act decisively in pursuit of interests which embrace the whole world; spec. the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
[1930Economist 12 July 63/2 The most important contributions to the Conference..were descriptions of what has actually taken place in the..control of super-power zones.] 1944W. T. R. Fox Super-Powers ii. 20 There will be ‘world powers’ and ‘regional powers’. These world powers we shall call ‘super-powers’, in order to distinguish them from the other powers..whose interests are great in only a single theater of power conflict. 1957Foreign Affairs XXXV. 177 Britain is no longer a Super-Power. 1967Spectator 30 June 758/2 Almost by definition superpowers do not have to care about face... America will continue to be a superpower whatever it does about Vietnam. 1971Guardian 9 Dec. 12/1 China has..been drawn into a Super Power type of defence of Pakistan. 1977E. Heath Travels viii. 166 What I saw when I arrived was a laudable achievement, possible only to a military commander with the resources of a superpower. 1978J. Updike Coup (1979) ii. 54 Capital investments cleverly pried from the rivalry between the two super⁓powers (and that shadowy third, China, that has the size but not as it were the mass, the substance, to be called super). |