| 释义 |
tenuous, a.|ˈtɛnjuːəs|
[A syncopated formation from L. tenuis thin + -ous; the etymologically regular form, preserving the L. stem tenui-, being tenuious, now obs. or rare.]
1. Thin or slender in form; of small transverse measure or calibre; slim.
1656[see tenuious 1]. 1664Power Exp. Philos. ii. 134 The uppermost surface of the Quicksilver..is dilated into a tenuous Column, or Funicle. 1666J. Smith Old Age (1752) 77 A most tenuous vestment for the humours. 1822Blackw. Mag. XII. 411 The spider..touches his tenuous line.
2. Thin in physical consistency; sparse; rare, rarified, subtile; unsubstantial.
1597Lowe Chirurg. (1634) 147 When the vaines are repleat with a tenous blood. 1635J. Swan Spec. M. v. §2 (1643) 171 Their [wind and air] substances being too tenuous to be perceived. 1794Sullivan View Nat. I. xvi. 192 Air..is too subtile, too tenuous a substance. 1864Sir F. Palgrave Norm. & Eng. IV. 456 Just as a tenuous film of breath, imperceptible to our senses, prevents the globules of mercury from coalescing. 1892Leisure Hour Aug. 706/1 A very tenuous medium called the ether exists everywhere. 1909Eng. Rev. Apr. 70 Your dress brushed the shrubs: it was grey and tenuous.
3. fig. Slender, of slight importance or significance; meagre, weak; flimsy, vague, unsubstantial.
a1817T. Dwight Theol. (1830) I. xv. 254 A subject perhaps as tenuous, and difficult to be fastened upon. 1858Bushnell Serm. New Life 312 The tenuous and fickle impulse. 1881Standard 7 May, A more tenuous or unsatisfactory claim could hardly exist. 1903Speaker 9 May 145/1 The poems of the three somewhat tenuous singers. 1905Athenæum 5 Aug. 166/1 [They] are sure to live as letters apart from..the tenuous story in which they are set.
Hence ˈtenuously adv., thinly, sparsely; ˈtenuousness, thinness, tenuity.
1892Zangwill Bow Mystery i, When King Fog masses his molecules of carbon in serried squadrons in the City, while he scatters them tenuously in the suburbs. 1901Yorksh. Post. 28 Nov. 6/6 The bubble..is better pricked than left to burst of its own tenuousness. |