| 释义 |
dryness|ˈdraɪnɛs|
Forms: see dry a.; also 5–6 drines, 6–7 drinesse, 7–8 driness.
[f. dry a. + -ness.]
1. a. The quality or condition of being dry; absence or deficiency of moisture; aridity; drought.
1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. iv. iii. (1495) 83 Dryenesse spoyllyth the heed of the heer and makyth it ballyd. 1483Cath. Angl. 108/2 A Drynes, ariditas. 1530Palsgr. 215/2 Drinesse, sechesse..Drighnesse, chaline. 1543–4Act 35 Hen. VIII, c. 10 For the drines of the earth. 1563W. Fulke Meteors (1640) 19 Windes..some of them bringing raine, some drinesse. 1643Denham Cooper's H. 207 While driness moisture, coldness heat resists. 1770–4A. Hunter in Winter Syst. Husb. (1787) 183 According to the driness or wetness of the season. 1838T. Thomson Chem. Org. Bodies 562 The milky liquid is evaporated to dryness.
†b. concr. A dry place; dry land. Obs. rare.
1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvi. lxix. (1495) 575 Nitrum..is made ryghte as salt in drynesse in alde clyues. c1450Chester Pl. (E.E.T.S.) 21 That drynes earth men shall call; The gathering of the waters all Seas to name.
†c. The condition of being dried up; failure, cessation. Obs.
1625Bacon Ess., Usurie (Arb.) 545 This will preserue Borrowing from any generall Stop or Drinesse.
2. Thirst. Obs. (or only in vulgar use.)
a1535Fisher Serm. Wks. (1876) 400 How in his dryghnesse they would haue filled it with Asell and Gaule. 1559W. Cuningham Cosmogr. Glasse 176 Much sweter then Hony, and most pleasantly aswageth drines.
3. fig.
a. Absence of emotion, feeling, or fervour; lack of cordiality; coldness of feeling; distance of manner.
c1450tr. De Imitatione iii. lx. 142 Lest my soule faile for werynes & drynes of mynde. 1526Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 94 b, Drynesse of spiryte cometh somtyme..whan a persone gyueth hymselfe moche to worldly or bodyly myrth and pleasure. 1669Woodhead St. Teresa i. iv. 12 God changed the driness wherein my soul had formerly been, into an extream tenderness. 1748Smollett Rod. Rand. (1792) I. 278 There was a dryness between the lieutenant and him on my account. 1831Society I. 310 An apparent want of delicacy in his accosting her..made her manner assume a dryness very unlike its usual tone.
b. Absence of embellishment, plainness, baldness; lack of interest, dullness.
a1637B. Jonson Discoveries, Præcipiendi modi, Their new flowers and sweetness do as much corrupt as others dryness and squalor. 1709Tatler No. 43 ⁋5 The Learned have so long laboured under the Imputation of Dryness and Dulness in their Accounts of their Phænomena. a1719Garth (J.), Paraphrase where penury of fancy or dryness of expression ask it. 1853‘C. Bede’ Verdant Green ix. (ed. 4) 78 The dryness and daily routine of lectures.
4. The condition of being ‘dry’ (see dry a. 11 a) or without alcohol; prohibition.
1910‘Mark Twain’ Speeches 430 When the others drink I like to help; otherwise I remain dry. This dryness does not hurt me. 1920Contemp. Rev. July 79 ‘Dryness’ in America is enormously increasing the consumption [of sugar] there. 1927Observer 24 July 9/2 President Coolidge will..run as a staunch champion of ‘dryness’. 1944W. R. Scott Revolt on Mount Sinai xxii. 175 The platform..ordered the drys to stop measuring candidates for Congress..by their degrees of dryness. |