| 释义 |
epoch|ˈɛpɒk, ˈiːpɒk|
Forms: α. 7–9 epocha. β. epoche. γ. 7– epoch.
[ad. late L. epocha, ad. Gr. ἐποχή stoppage, station, position (of a planet), fixed point of time, f. ἐπέχειν to arrest, stop, take up a position, f. ἐπί + ἔχειν to hold. Cf. Fr. époque, It. epoca.]
I. A fixed point in the reckoning of time.
1. Chron. The initial point assumed in a system of chronology; e.g. the date of the birth of Christ, of the Hegira, of the foundation of Rome, etc.; an era. Also, in wider sense, any date from which succeeding years are numbered. Now rare.
α1614Selden Titles Hon. 6 The residue will fall neer the first yeer of the Chaldæan Epocha. a1638Mede Wks. iii. ix. 599 The Times of the Beast and the Woman's being in the Wilderness have the same Epocha and beginning. 1726tr. Gregory's Astron. I. 252 The Epocha of the Olympiads, of all Profane ones, is the most Ancient.
βa1658Cleveland Inund. of Trent 138 Since we're deliver'd let there be, From this Flood too another Epoche.
γ1658Ussher Ann. Ep. Rdr. (R.), In divers times and ages, divers epochs of time were used, and several forms of years. 1677Hale Prim. Orig. Man. ii. iii. 148 The pretended Epoch of the Babylonians. 1758Swinton in Phil. Trans. L. 801 On the Greek brass coins of Sidon..both these epochs seem to have been used.
2. a. The beginning of a ‘new era’ or distinctive period in the history of mankind, a country, an individual, a science, etc. Phr., to make an epoch.
α1673[R. Leigh] Transp. Reh. 55 Men that mark out Epocha's are not born in many revolutions. 1756Gentl. Mag. XXVI. 415 Botany..from hence boasts a new epocha. 1783Phil. Trans. LXXIII. 360 The congelation of mercury..must be allowed to form a very curious and important epocha in the history of that metal. 1827Sir J. Barrington Own Times (1830) I. 18 note, A circumstance which the..Irish..considered as forming an epocha.
β1824D'Israeli Cur. Lit. (1859) II. 382 Every work which creates an epoch in literature is one of the great monuments of the human mind. 1841–4Emerson Ess. Spir. Laws Wks. (Bohn) I. 68 The epochs of our life are not in the visible facts..but in a silent thought by the wayside. 1864Burton Scot Abr. I. v. 280 Luther's Bible makes an epoch in the formation of the German language.
†b. The date of origin of a state of things, an institution, fashion, etc.; occasionally, an event marking such a date. Obs.
α1659Pearson Creed (1839) 281 Nor need we be ashamed that the Christian religion, which we profess, should have so known an Epocha, and so late an original. 1788Priestley Lect. Hist. v. li. 390 Great fisheries have always been epocha's of a great trade and navigation. 1789Hist. in Ann. Reg. 14 The present crisis would become the epocha of a new splendor to the French monarchy. 1795in Wythes Decis. Virginia 41 Whether the time of the settlement were the epocha of the title will be enquired. 1824E. Nares Heraldic Anom. (ed. 2) II. 307 The year 1629 is reckoned the epocha of long perukes.
β1654L'Estrange Chas. I (1655) 156 The Epoche, the Nativity day from whence all the series of this kings troubles are to be computed.
γa1716South (J.), The year sixty; the grand epoch of falsehood. 1761Hume Hist. Eng. I. xii. 290 This period..the epoch of the house of commons in England.
3. In wider sense: A fixed point of time.
a. The date, or assigned position in chronological sequence, of a historical event.
Now less precise than date, which indicates a particular year or smaller division of time.
β1661Dryden Astræa Redux 108 Such, whose supine felicity but makes In story chasmes, in epoche's [in some later edd. epocha's, epocha] mistakes.
γ1697Evelyn Numism. v. 186 Epochs are sometimes noted in words at length. 1841Elphinstone Hist. Ind. I. 209 The date of his appearance..the middle of the sixth century before Christ..an epoch which, etc.
b. [= Fr. époque.] A precise date; the exact time at which an event takes place or is appointed to take place. Formerly gen.; now only with reference to natural phenomena (cf. 4 a).
α1761State Papers in Ann. Reg. 258/2 An offer to treat about these epochas.
γ1786T. Jefferson Wks. (1859) I. 570 To inform him what other numbers [of arms] you expect to deliver, with the epochs of delivery. 1794Burke Pref. Brissot's Addr. Wks. VII. 312 To foresee them [the designs of the court] so well, as to mark the precise epoch on which they were to be executed. 1838De Morgan Ess. Probab. (Cabinet Cycl.) 123 When once the notion is obtained that a change of weather will follow that of the moon, the epoch is watched.
c. A point of time defined by the occurrence of particular events or the existence of a particular state of things; a ‘moment’ in the history of anything.
It is often uncertain whether a writer meant the word to be taken in this sense or in 5, since a given portion of time may be regarded either as a mere date or as a period.
α1728Morgan Algiers I. iii. 73 Not long before this Epocha so calamitous to that unhappy Country. 1777G. Forster Voy. round World II. 103 In a warm climate..the epocha of maturity seems to happen at a much earlier age than in colder countries. 1791Burke Let. Member Nat. Assembly Wks. VI. 9, I well remember, at every epocha of this wonderful history. 1801Helen Williams Sk. Fr. Rep. I. viii. 76 At the epocha of the [French] revolution. 1807Southey Espriella's Lett. (1814) III. 74 The invention of the steam-engine, almost as great an epocha as the invention of printing. 1824Hist. Gaming 26 At one of those epochas the Earl married a Countess in her own right. 1830Godwin Cloudesley I. xiii. 213 From this epocha there was a perpetual struggle in Cloudesley's mind.
γ1823J. Badcock Dom. Amusem. Introd. 5 Davey and Brewster..sustain that character at the present epoch of Science. 1838Carlyle Chartism (1858) 3 At an epoch of history when the ‘National Petition’ carts itself in waggons along the streets. 1841–71T. R. Jones Anim. Kingd. (ed. 4) 510 At this epoch..the polyp presents two cavities distinct from each other. 1845McCulloch Taxation ii. v. (1852) 220 After the last-mentioned epoch..the production of beet-root sugar began rapidly to increase. 1875Scrivener Lect. Text N.T. 7 Those noted up to the present epoch. 1882Mrs. Pitman Mission L. Greece & Pal. 190 It was an epoch never to be forgotten in her life, when she commenced labouring in Joppa.
4. Astron. The point of time at which any phenomenon takes place; an arbitrarily fixed date (often the first day of a century or half-century) for which the elements necessary for computing the place of a heavenly body are tabulated. Also, the heliocentric longitude of a planet at such a date (more fully, the longitude of the epoch).
α1726tr. Gregory's Astron. I. 466 Their Mean Motions made between the said Epocha and the Time propos'd, being equated. 1789Herschel in Phil. Trans. LXXX 20 I followed the shadow of the satellite..up to the center, in order to secure a valuable epocha. 1795–8T. Maurice Hindostan (1820) I. i. iv. 128 By astronomers the word epocha is used to denote that particular point of the orbit of a planet, wherein that planet is, at some known moment of mean time, in a given meridian.
γ1790Herschel in Phil. Trans. LXXX. 488 Epochs of the mean longitude of the satellites. 1834Nat. Philos. Astron. ix. 191/2 (Usef. Knowl. Soc.), The longitude of the sun, at some one time, which is called the epoch. 1858Herschel Outlines Astron. iv. (ed. 5) 168 They would be found..to differ by the exact difference of their local epochs.
II. A period of time. (Cf. similar use of era, term).
5. a. In early use, a chronological period dated from an ‘epoch’ in sense 1. In later use, a period of history defined by the prevalence of some particular state of things, by a connected series of events, or by the influence of some eminent person or group of persons.
α1628Earle Microcosm, Sordid Rich Man (Arb.) 99 His clothes were neuer young in our memory: you might make long Epocha's from them. 1662Stillingfl. Orig. Sacr. ii. vii. §8 They make three Epocha's, before the Law, under the Law, and the coming of the Messias. c1720Prior Solomon on Van. World iii. 758 Scenes of war, and epochas of woe. 1794Sullivan View Nat. II. 201 Chronologers have divided the age of the world into six different epochas. 1824L. Stanhope Greece 4 The most shining epocha of her history.
γc1800K. White Time 385 Ages and epochs that destroy our pride. 1875Stubbs Const. Hist. II. xvi. 486 A period of eight years of peace between two epochs of terrible civil discord. 1883Harper's Mag. Feb. 467/2 ‘Ah, that indeed is a letter,’ sighs the lover of the Addisonian epoch.
b. A period in an individual's life, or in the history of any continuous process.
α1768Sterne Sent. Journ. (1775) II. 132 There are three epochas in the empire of a Frenchwoman. She is coquette—then deist—then devote. 1771Goldsm. Hist. Eng. III. 372 This is one of the most extraordinary epochas in English history. 1788Holcroft Life & Adv. Baron Trench I. xiv, The second great and still more gloomy epocha of my life.
γ1853Robertson Serm. Ser. iii. xx. 256 God's treatment of the penitent divides itself in this parable into three distinct epochs. 1865Draper Intell. Devel. Europe i. 9 We express our surprise when we witness actions unsuitable to the epoch of life.
c. Geol. A period or division of the history of the formation of the earth's crust.
Chiefly used indiscriminately for any distinct portion of geological time. The International Congress of 1881 proposed to use the terms era, period, epoch, age to denote successively smaller divisions; but this has not been generally followed.
α1802Playfair Illustr. Hutton. Th. 123 The most ancient epocha of which any memorial exists in the records of the fossil kingdom.
γ1850Lyell 2nd Visit U.S. II. 247 The language of those who talk of ‘the epoch of existing continents’. 1871Tyndall Fragm. Sc. (ed. 6) I. viii. 268 But this would not produce a glacial epoch.
6. Physics. (See quots.)
1879Thomson & Tait Nat. Phil. I. i. §54 The Epoch in a simple harmonic motion is the interval of time which elapses from the era of reckoning till the moving point first comes to its greatest elongation in the direction reckoned as positive, from its mean position or the middle of its range. 1882Minchin Unipl. Kinemat. 9 The maximum excursion of the harmonic vibration x = a cos ⎜ 2πt / T + α⎟ is a... The angle α is called the epoch angle, or simply the epoch.
7. Comb. [Perhaps after the equivalent compounds in German.] epoch-forming adj.; epoch-making a., orig. said chiefly of scientific discoveries or treatises; now extended to designate any remarkable or sensational event, publication, etc.; epoch-marking a., journalistic alteration of epoch-making.
1816Coleridge Lay Serm. 313 All the epoch-forming revolutions of the Christian world. 1863Athenæum July 9/1 He has produced what the Germans call an epoch-making book. 1874H. Reynolds John Bapt. ii. 64 Epoch-making men..of human history. 1881W. R. Smith Old Test. in Jew. Ch. iii. 56 This work of Ezra, and the covenant..were of epoch-making importance. 1895Westm. Gaz. 15 Jan. 2/2 Every author of an epoch-making or epoch-marking book is liable to pass through two stages. 1919J. L. Garvin Econ. Found. Peace 272 Consent by the United States to administer Constantinople and the Straits, Armenia and Palestine, would be an epoch-marking step in itself. 1923Daily Mail 16 Jan. 7 This epoch-marking experiment. 1928R. Campbell Wayzgoose ii. 59 He produced an epoch-making article. 1940Graves & Hodge Long Week-End vi. 93 Most of these inventions, all described as ‘epoch-making’, were never heard of again after the first news-thrill. 1963Times Lit. Suppl. 4 Jan. 6/2 The evil of the Fulton speech..was not that it was ‘epoch-making’ but that it was ‘epoch-marking’. |