| 释义 |
elemental, a. and n.|ɛlɪˈmɛntəl|
[f. prec. + -al1.]
A. adj.
1. Of or pertaining to the ‘four elements’, earth, air, fire, and water, or to any one of them.
1519Interl. Four Elements in Hazl. Dodsley I. 11 The lower region, called the elemental. 1561Eden Art Nauig. i. iv, The worlde is deuided into two regions: Celestiall, and Elementall. 1635Swan Spec. M. (1670) 465 The..purifying both of the Elements and Heavens in their Elemental qualities. 1732Pope Ess. Man i. 169 All subsists by elemental strife. 1824Miss Mitford Village Ser. i. (1863) 73 Mixing the deep note of love with the elemental music. 1831Carlyle Sart. Res. ii. vi. 98 With no prospect of breakfast beyond elemental liquor. 1851― Sterling iii. ii. (1872) 174 Elemental tumults, and blustering wars of sea and sky.
†2.
a. Composed of, or produced by, the elements; material as opposed to spiritual; inorganic as opposed to vital; ‘material’ as opposed to ‘formal’; also, in the condition of raw material. Obs.
1574Whitgift Def. Aunsw. ii. Wks. 1851 I. 255 An external thing and elemental, but not indifferent. 1577Dee Relat. Spir. i. (1659) 391 All Elemental Creatures. 1602W. Fulbecke 1st Pt. Parall. 80 The Law considereth not bare and elementall bodies, but bodies apparelled. 1605Timme Quersit. Ded. 2 Without the which [the spirit] the elemental and material character..profiteth not. 1610Histrio-m. vi. 131 This elementall bodie (thus compact) Is but a scattred Chaos of revenge. 1644Milton Areop. (Arb.) 35 A kind of massacre whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elementall life. 1646Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. 121 Nor is onely an animall heate required hereto [for hatching eggs], but an elementall and artificiall warmth will suffice.
†b. absol. (quasi-n. in pl.) The bread and wine of the Eucharist considered apart from their consecration. Obs.
a1655Vines Lord's Supp. (1677) 298 The elementals of bread and wine.
†3. Applied to fire, in two different senses (cf. elementary 3).
a. Material, physical, literal, as opposed to ‘spiritual’ or figurative; also, such as exists in this lower world.
b. In its (hypothetical) pure condition, as opposed to the impure form in which it is actually known. Obs.
1533Hylton's Scala Perf., God is not fyre elementall [1494 elementare]. 1627F. E. Hist. Edw. II, (1680) 6 Majestick thoughts, like Elemental fire, should tend still upwards. 1751Johnson Rambl. No. 99 ⁋4 Vanish like elemental fire. 1755Young Centaur i. Wks. 1757 IV. 129 A fire elemental is diffused through all nature.
4. a. Pertaining to the powers or agencies of physical nature. elemental spirits, elemental gods, etc.: those which are personifications of natural phenomena, or are associated with particular departments of nature. So elemental worship, elemental religion.
1821Shelley Prometh. Unb. iv. i, Elemental Genii..From Heaven's star-fretted domes. 1850Merivale Rom. Emp. (1865) I. v. 231 Elemental worship of the grossest kind. 1865Lecky Ration. (1878) I. 42 To rise to intercourse with these elemental spirits of nature was the highest aim of the philosopher. 1875Merivale Gen. Hist. Rome lxviii. (1877) 554 He continued to serve his elemental fetiche, and introduced the rude black stone which represented the Sun. 1876Gladstone Homeric Synchr. 109 Amphitrite appears in the Odyssey only as an elemental power.
b. fig. Comparable to the great forces of nature.
1820L. Hunt Indicator No. 42 (1822) I. 336 A bold elemental imagination. 1860Emerson Cond. Life i. 21 All great force is real and elemental. There is no manufacturing a strong will. 1873Lowell Among my Bks. Ser. ii. 287 With an elemental movement like the shifting of mighty winds. 1878Morley Carlyle 175 The freedom and elemental grandeur of Byron.
†5. Pertaining to the sky; also, governed by celestial influences. (Cf. element n. 10.) Obs.
1527Andrew Brunswyke's Distyl. Waters A j, Dystyllacyon is an elementall thyng. 1583Stubbes Anat. Abus. ii. 57 They observed..the elemental signes and tokens in the firmament. 1627Feltham Resolves i. xlvii, An elemental and ascentive soul.
6. Of the nature of an ultimate constituent, whether of material or non-material things; esp. of physical substances, simple, uncompounded.
1555Eden Decades W. Ind. (Arb.) 362 Elementall substances. 1651Biggs New Disp. 113 Without the elementall, true..entity. 1773Ld. Monboddo Language (1774) I. iii. v. 482 The division of elemental sounds into Vowels and Consonants. 1821Shelley Epipsych. 437 As clear as elemental diamond. 1851G. Brimley Ess. 115 Elemental passions and affections. 1859Darwin Orig. Spec. xiv. (1878) 364 Minerals and the elemental substances. 1863E. Neale Anal. Th. & Nat. 207 The primitive elemental operations of thought.
7. That is an essential or integrant part of any unity; constituent.
1639Fuller Holy War i. xiii. (1840) 21 The four elemental nations whereof this army was compounded. 1805Ann. Rev. III. 254 Mere seasonings in the cauldron of public opinion, not its elemental ingredients. 1874Motley Barneveld I. vii. 311 The few simple but elemental fibers which make up the tissue of most human destinies.
8. Relating to the beginnings or first principles of learning; rudimentary; = elementary 6. rare in mod. use.
1577Hanmer Anc. Eccl. Hist. 30 Them [Epistles] that haue need of an elemental introduction. 1589Greene Menaph. (Arb.) 68 Everie elementall worde of arte. 1624Wotton Archit. in Reliq. (1672) 5 Some..Method..shortest and most Elemental. 1790Burke Fr. Rev. Wks. V. 353 Elemental training to those higher and more large regards. 1841Hor. Smith Moneyed Man II. x. 328 An elemental work upon astronomy. 1855H. Reed Lect. Eng. Lit. x. (1878) 334 Elemental truths, which have been assailed by some of the heresies of the day.
B. n. An entity or a force which is regarded by occultists as capable of producing physical manifestations.
1877H. P. Blavatsky Isis p. xxx, These elementals are the principal agents of disembodied but never visible spirits. 1894H. Nisbet Bush Girl's Rom. 235 So that we may not be horrified or shy aside at the sight of the strange beings and elementals that surround us. 1923Westm. Gaz. 7 Apr., Did they suppose that God Almighty would permit a Pharaoh..thousands of years after his own death..to loose what spiritualists called an Elemental? 1965Listener 27 May 792/2 He said gently..‘there is an Elemental out there.’..I said, ‘No, there isn't.’ His reaction was..something between disappointment in me and extreme elation that I should have denied the apparition.
Hence † eleˈmentalish a. (Alchemy.) Pure, uncompounded, lying at the base of other substances. Obs. rare—1.
1671J. Webster Metallogr. viii. 120 The Elementalish Gold..lies hid in many Earths. |