| 释义 |
entity|ˈɛntɪtɪ|
Forms: 7 entitie, -ye, (entite), 7– entity.
[ad. late L. entitāt-em, f. ēns, enti-s: see ens. Cf. Fr. entité, It. entità, Sp. entitad.
The orig. sense was abstr., but, in accordance with the usual tendency of such words, it early acquired a concr. sense (= ens), which predominates in mod. use.]
1. Being, existence, as opposed to non-existence; the existence, as distinguished from the qualities or relations, of anything.
1596Bell Surv. Popery iii. ix. 372 God..is the principall agent of the real and positive entities thereof. 1647H. More Song of Soul, Antipsychopannychia iii. xxix, Both Night and Coldnesse..have reall entitie. 1656Hobbes Liberty, Necess. & C. (1841) 135 Entity is better than nonentity. 1710Berkeley Princ. Hum. Knowl. §81 The positive abstract idea of quiddity, entity, or existence. 1830Herschell Stud. Nat. Phil. 108 In the το ὀν and the το µη ὀν, that is to say, in entity and nonentity. 1837–9Hallam Hist. Lit. (1847) III. iii. §9. 305 Entity or real being.
2. That which constitutes the being of a thing; essence, essential nature.
1643R. O. Man's Mort. vii. 54 He, that is, his Entite, person, even all that went to make him man. 1648Crashaw Steps to Temple 81 Dear hope!.. The entity of things that are not yet. a1688Cudworth Immut. Morality (1731) 16 It is impossible any Thing should Be..without a Nature or Entity. 1785Reid Int. Powers 399 For the entity of all theoretical truth is nothing else but clear intelligibility.
3. concr. Something that has a real existence; an ens, as distinguished from a mere function, attribute, relation, etc. † rational entity: = L. ens rationis, a thing which has an existence only as an object of reason.
1628T. Spencer Logick 209 The specificall difference is a rationall entitie and no more. 1685Boyle Enq. Notion Nat. 22 This Death..is neither a Substance, nor a Positive Entity, but a meer Privation. 1735–8Bolingbroke On Parties 139 'Till it becomes an ideal Entity, like the Utopia. 1855H. Spencer Princ. Psychol. (1872) I. v. x. 626 No effort of imagination enables us to think of a shock, however minute, except as undergone by an entity. 1871Darwin Desc. Man I. vii. 228 Those..must look at species either as separate creations or..distinct entities.
†b. An actual quantity (however small). Obs.
1626Bacon Sylva §123 Eruptions of Aire, though small and slight, give an Entitie of Sound.
c. (See quot.)
1881Spottiswoode in Nature No. 624. 572 In some tubes, the exhaustion of which is very moderate..the blocks of light termed entities by Mr. De La Rue are formed.
4. indefinitely. What exists; ‘being’ generally.
1604Edmonds Observ. Cæsar's Comm. 39 Our knowledge were equall to vniuersall entitie. 1670Eachard Cont. Clergy 56 We be but mites of entity, and crumbs of something. 1699Garth Dispens. 3 How the dim Speck of Entity began T'extend its recent Form, and stretch to Man. 1829I. Taylor Enthus. ii. (1867) 31 He has become..infinitely less than an atom..an incalculable fraction of positive entity! |