| 释义 |
ferocious, a.|fəˈrəʊʃəs|
[f. L. ferōci-, ferox fierce, ferocious + -ous.]
1. Of animals or persons, their dispositions or actions: Fierce, savage; savagely cruel or destructive.
1646Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. iii. xvi. 144 The Lyon a..ferocious animall hath young ones but seldome. 1791Boswell Johnson (1816) III. 87 He was by no means of that ferocious..character. 1794Sullivan View Nat. I. 188 The most..ferocious beasts are alarmed by it. 1828Scott F.M. Perth xxiii, One whom they had been taught to consider as a ferocious..libertine. a1853Robertson Lect. ii. (1858) 76, I cannot see anything manly in that ferocious struggle. 1886Sheldon tr. Flaubert's Salammbo 1 And pits for ferocious animals.
Comb.1849James Woodman ii, Is he a ferocious-looking man?
2. Indicating or characterized by ferocity.
1728Pope Dunc. ii. 328 Slow rose a form..shaking..And each ferocious feature grim with ooze. 1826Kirby & Sp. Entomol. xlvii. (1828) IV. 418 Their prominent or ferocious eyes.
Hence feˈrociously adv. feˈrociousness.
1766Fordyce Serm. Yng. Wom. (1767) II. xiii. 223 Roughness, and even ferociousness, in a man, we often overlook. 1775Mrs. Harris in Priv. Lett. Ld. Malmesbury I. 303 He [Dr. Johnson] feeds nastily and ferociously. 1818Hallam Mid. Ages (1872) I. 52 The respect which was felt..mitigated in all the rancour and ferociousness of hostility. 1856Kane Arct. Expl. I. xxix. 394 They [rats] gnawed her feet and nails so ferociously that we drew her up yelping. 1867M. E. Braddon Aurora Floyd i. 10 They hate me so ferociously.
Add:3. As an intensive: very great, extreme; esp. very unpleasant. colloq. (orig. U.S.).
1877H. James American xii. 191 You and I belong to the same camp. I am a ferocious democrat. 1907Conrad Secret Agent ii. 47 The most alarming display of ferocious imbecility. 1914G. B. Shaw Dark Lady of Sonnets Pref. 116 The conventional theatrical assumption that female religion means inhumanly ferocious chastity. 1925F. Scott Fitzgerald Great Gatsby (1926) vi. 119 He stayed there [at the college] two weeks, dismayed at its ferocious indifference to the drums of his destiny. 1959S. Raven in H. Thomas Establishment 69 The authorities..had..provided the ferocious accommodation deemed apposite. 1986Guardian 27 Dec. 7/3 The problem was the ferocious Kremlin central heating.
ferociously adv. (examples in sense *3 of the adj.).
1869‘Mark Twain’ Innoc. Abr. xxxiv. 375 Men sometimes print a vast edition of a paper, with a ferociously seditious article in it. 1896Conrad Outcast of Islands i. i. 4 His successes..ended..by making him ferociously conceited. 1988J. Neel Death's Bright Angel xi. 112 She was both ferociously capable and utterly unwilling..to carry that sort of responsibility again. |