| 释义 |
elective, a. and n.|ɪˈlɛktɪv|
Also 6–7 electif.
[a. Fr. électif (cf. It. elettivo, Sp. electivo), on L. type *ēlectīvus: see elect v. and -ive.
In English, as app. in Romanic, the active sense (normally belonging to words similarly formed) is of later origin than the passive sense.]
A. adj.
I. Connected with election to office or dignity.
1. a. In passive sense. Of the holder of an office, dignity, etc.: Appointed by election. Of an office, etc.: Filled up by election. Of authority: Derived from election.
1530–1Act 22 Hen. VIII, c. 12 Every..baylye electif and elected. 1563Foxe A. & M. (1596) 3/2 Abbasies, priories conuentuall, and other benefices electiue. 1614Raleigh Hist. World ii. 325 It may be that those Kings were elective, as the Edumæans anciently were. 1641Milton Prel. Episc. (1851) 82 A Temporary, and elective sway. 1735–8Bolingbroke On Parties 167 The Gothick Kings were at first elective, and always limited. 1772–84Cook Voy. (1790) I. 78 A regent being necessary, that office, though elective, generally falls upon the father. 1867Freeman Norm. Conq. (1876) I. iii. 81 The hereditary prince may be exchanged for an elective chief magistrate.
†b. Subject to election (at specified intervals).
1659J. Harrington Lawgiving i. iv. (1700) 394 Annually elective of the People, as in the..Archons of Athens. 1759B. Martin Nat. Hist. Eng. II. 86 He is elective every three years.
2. In active sense: Having the power of electing officers or representatives by vote.
1632Star Chamb. Cases (1886) 155 At the reading of the said letters he had the greater number of elective voices. 1844Ld. Brougham Brit. Const. iv. (1862) 61 Elective body, a body whose functions are confined to the choice of representatives. 1862Ansted Channel Isl. iv. xxiii. 527 The business of the Elective States [in Guernsey] is limited to the election of the jurats and the sheriff.
3. a. Pertaining to the election of officers or representatives; (of a system of government, etc.) based upon the principle of election.
1642Bridge Wound. Consc. Cured iv. 27 When the government is elective and pactionall, are not the Princes the Ministers? 1791Mackintosh Vind. Gallicæ Wks. 1846 III. 68 The elective constitution of the new clergy of France. 1831Carlyle Sart. Res. (1858) 152 He appears to make little even of the Elective Franchise. 1862Merivale Rom. Emp. (1865) IV. xxxix. 373 A preference of the elective to the hereditary principle in every department of government.
b. Of college or high-school studies: subject to the student's choice; optional. So elective system. orig. U.S.
1847in Ann. Rep. Harvard Coll. 1883–4 14 The elective system is now given up in this department. 1868C. W. Dilke Greater Brit. i. vii. 89 The system of elective studies pursued at Michigan [University] is one to which we are year by year tending in the English universities. 1880Harper's Mag. July 254/1 In the German Universities the studies are all elective and optional; in the colleges of the United States compulsory. 1890J. G. Fitch Notes Amer. Schools 59 In the high schools and universities the practice of prescribing ‘elective’ subjects is very common. 1957G. G. Reader in R. K. Merton Student-Physician 84 Two months of elective work. 1969Brit. Jrnl. Med. Educ. III. 102 There should be an elective period of, say, 10 weeks, in which the student should be able to choose from a wide variety of elective topics.
II. Pertaining to choice in general.
4. Pertaining to the action of choosing. Of actions: Proceeding from free choice, optional, voluntary. Formerly Obs., but now revived in medical use: optional, not urgent (see quot. 1941).
1643Milton Divorce Wks. 1738 I. 208 God delights not to make a drudge of Virtue, whose Actions must be all elective and unconstrained. 1656Hobbes Liberty, Necess. & Ch. (1841) 409 All elective actions are free from absolute necessity. 1668Howe Bless. Righteous (1825) 4 To apply at last his intellectual and elective powers. 1775Johnson Tax. no Tyr. 14 A duty temporary, occasional, and elective. 1941Dorland's Med. Dict. (ed. 19) 476/2 Elective, subject to the choice or decision of the patient or physician.., applied to procedures that are only advantageous to the patient but not necessary to save his life. 1963Lancet 19 Jan. 132/1 A self-contained, thirty-bed hospital which catered solely for elective surgical cases. Ibid., The theatre was used twice weekly for elective operating sessions. 1964G. L. Cohen What's Wrong with Hospitals? iv. 65 An elective operation such as tonsillectomy. 1966Lancet 24 Dec. 1394/1 A reversed intestinal segment was inserted as an elective procedure after massive resection for a mesenteric embolus.
†5. Preferentially selected according to circumstances. Obs. rare.
1643T. Goodwin Child of Light 117 There are to be peculiar elective plaisters to heale these wounds, because these wounds are often differing.
†6. Proper according to astrological election. Obs. rare.
1681J. Chetham Angler's Vade-m. ix. §21 (1689) 96 Elective Times most propitious to Anglers.
†7. = eclectic. Obs. rare.
1681H. More Exp. Dan. Pref. 20 Like a Philosopher of the Elective Sect, addicting my self to no persons.
8. a. Of physical forces and agencies: Having a tendency to operate on certain objects in preference to others. elective affinity (Chem.): the tendency of a substance to combine with certain particular substances in preference to others; formerly elective attraction, which is still used, but chiefly in a wider sense.
1766Phil. Trans. LVI. 100 There seems..to have been a double elective attraction in the fourteenth Experiment. 1794J. Hutton Philos. Light 50 The elective affections of this irradiated influence. 1800Henry Epit. Chem. (1808) 18 Tables of elective affinity have been formed. 1802Paley Nat. Theol. xxi. (1819) 330 It is owing to this original elective power in the air that we can effect the separation which we wish. 1869Tyndall Light §257 Light..which has been sifted..by elective absorption. 1876tr. Schutzenberger's Ferment. 32 Dubrunfant has given this phenomenon the name of elective fermentation.
b. fig.
1796Burke Regic. Peace iii. Wks. VIII. 285 Sympathetick attraction discovers..our elective affections. 1827Carlyle Germ. Rom. IV. 12 In the Romance department, Goethe has written..Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, and Die Wahlverwandtschaften (The Elective Affinities). 1853De Quincey Autobiog. Sk. Wks. I. 203 The effect of the music is to place the mind in a state of elective attraction for everything in harmony with its own prevailing key. 1860Harper's Mag. July 205/1 We hear much of passional attraction, of elective affinity, etc. 1872O. W. Holmes Poet Breakf. T. v. 151 A chance for the elective affinities. 1926M. Baring Daphne Adeane xvii. 212 These things happen: ‘elective affinities’, you know.
B. n.
†1. An elected representative. Obs. rare.
1701Answ. to Black-List i, The Just and Prudent Proceedings of their Electives.
2. A subject of study specially selected by the student in a college or university; an optional subject or course of study. orig. U.S.
1850Docs. City Boston (Mass.) Doc. No. 38, 45 Making some studies electives and giving to the members of the first class some liberty of choice. 1876J. D. Whitney in E. T. Brewster Life J.D.W. (1909) 330, I shall have an elective this winter in economical geology. 1901Westm. Gaz. 30 May 12/1 At Yale, where the study of this language had been neglected for many years, more than a hundred students have chosen it as one of their ‘electives’. 1902J. Corbin American at Oxford 167 The idea of grouping electives is the fundamental difference between English and American education. 1926Amer. Oxonian July 100 Oxford is a school for specialists. There are no minors, no electives, nothing but majors. 1930Lambeth Conference Rep. 174 For the Priesthood he [sc. a candidate] must pass a further examination in..The Bible..Pastoral Care and one of a long list of Electives. 1957G. G. Reader in R. K. Merton Student-Physician 84 The student..would divide his time between pediatric and psychiatric clinics and part-time electives. 1962B. Lennox Rep. Visit to U.S.A. & Canada ix. 25 Once we have broken ground with the new curriculum [at Glasgow], I think we should next consider the introduction of electives. 1969Brit. Jrnl. Med. Educ. III. 182 An exciting range of electives in community medicine. |