| 释义 |
fitness|ˈfɪtnɪs|
[f. fit a. + -ness.]
1. a. The quality or state of being fit or suitable; the quality of being fitted, qualified, or competent. spec. the quality or state of being physically fit. Often attrib. and Comb.
1580Baret Alv. F 604 Ablenesse, fitnesse, handsomnesse, habilitas. 1597Hooker Eccl. Pol. v. vi. (1611) 193 Competent to shew their conueniencie and fitnesse. 1601Shakes. All's Well ii. ii. 31 Haue you, I say, an answere of such fitnesse for all questions? 1748Hartley Observ. Man ii. ii. 158 The Harmonies, and mutual Fitnesses, of visible things. 1783Burke Affairs India Wks. 1842 II. 11 His fitness for the supreme council. 1845–6Trench Huls. Lect. Ser. i. iii. 49 Every other man has..fitnesses for one task rather than another. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) IV. 132 Their fitness as instruments of thought to express facts. a1935T. E. Lawrence Mint (1950) ii. xxii. 158 So I dodge the last weeks of depot training and the orgy of fitness-tests with which it closes. 1939Ann. Reg. 1938 100 The ‘fitness’ campaign which had recently been launched.
b. The state of being morally fit; worthiness.
1647W. Lyford Transl. Sinner (1648) 3 Not because of our works, or fitnesse, or betternesse of disposition in us. 1745Wesley Answ. Ch. 36 No Fitness is required at the Time of communicating. 1858J. Martineau Stud. Chr. 332 To insist..on a mere moral fitness.
2. a. The quality or condition of being fit and proper, conformity with what is demanded by the circumstances; propriety.
1597Hooker Eccl. Pol. v. §7. 13 In things the fitnes whereof is not of it self apparent. 1613Shakes. Hen. VIII ii. iv. 231 The Queene being absent, 'tis a needfull fitnesse That we adiourne this Court till further day. 1784Cowper Task v. 672 Make him hear Of rectitude and fitness. 1820Byron Let. Wks. 1846, 153/1 Their system has its rules, and its fitnesses, and its decorums.
b. the (eternal) fitness of things: a phrase extensively used in the 18th c. with reference to the ethical theory of Clarke, in which the quality of moral rightness is defined as consisting in a ‘fitness’ to the relations inherent in the nature of things. Hence popularly used (at first with playful allusion) for: What is fitting or appropriate.
Clarke's own usual phrase is ‘the eternal reason of things’; but the words fit and fitness are constantly used by him as synonyms of ‘reasonable’ and ‘reason’.
1705Clarke Nat. & Rev. Relig. (1706) 52 They [the Hobbists] have no way to show how Compacts themselves come to be obligatory, but by inconsistently owning an eternal Fitness in the thing itself. 1730M. Tindal Christianity old as Creation 357 His [God's] Commands are to be measured by the antecedent Fitness of Things. 1749Fielding Tom Jones iv. iv, The rule of right, and the eternal fitness of things. 1749Lady Luxborough Let. to Shenstone 29 Nov. (1775) 148 My writing a Postcript after so long a letter is not according to the fitness of things... Note. Be it known, these words thus applied are fashionable. 1885Manch. Exam. 15 Sept. 4/7 Mr. Slagg..showed a characteristic sense of the fitness of things by confining his attention [etc.].
†3. The quality of fitting exactly (cf. fit a. 3); correspondence of size and shape. Obs.
1658A. Fox Wurtz' Surg. ii. xxv. 150 Have a good Knife also about you, in case you have need to cut the splinters to a fitness. 1719De Foe Crusoe (1840) I. xi. 188 If there was any similitude or fitness, that I might be assured it was my own foot. 1793Smeaton Edystone L. §235 Where there was the least want of fitness..either the stone or the rock was cut, till each stone would come into its exact relative position.
†4. Readiness, inclination. (Cf. fit a. 5, 5 b.)
1604Shakes. Ham. v. ii. 209 (Qo 2) I am constant to my purposes, they followe the Kings pleasure: if his fitnes speakes, mine is ready.
Add:[1.] c. Biol. (a) The quality of fulfilling the requirements of a particular environment for survival and reproduction; the capacity of an individual to survive and reproduce.
[1831P. Matthew On Naval Timber & Arboriculture 385 In such immense waste of primary and youthful life, those only come forward to maturity from the strict ordeal by which Nature tests their adaptation to her standard of perfection and fitness to continue their kind by reproduction. 1859Darwin Origin of Species xiv. 472 Nor ought we to marvel if all the contrivances in nature be not..absolutely perfect; and if some of them be abhorrent to our ideas of fitness.] 1865H. Spencer Princ. Biol. I. iii. xii. 455 The survival of the fittest must nearly always further the production of modifications which produce fitness. 1894H. Drummond Ascent of Man vi. 264 The object of the Survival of the Fittest is to produce fitness... It produces fitness by killing off the unfit. 1983J. R. S. Fincham Genetics xviii. 529 Fitness, in the Darwinian sense used in population genetics, means merely the ability to leave fertile progeny.
(b) Any of various numerical measures of this and related concepts; spec. in Genetics (sometimes called Darwinian fitness), the relative number of offspring of an individual having a given genotype which survive to reproduce successfully as compared to the number for an individual of some other genotype. See also inclusive fitness s.v. *inclusive a. 1 e.
[1913L. J. Henderson Fitness of Environment p. v, Darwinian fitness is compounded of a mutual relationship between the organism and the environment. Of this, fitness of environment is quite as essential a component as the fitness which arises in the process of organic evolution. 1930R. A. Fisher Genetical Theory Nat. Selection ii. 46 The vital statistics of an organism in relation to its environment provide a means of determining a measure of the relative growth-rate of the population, which may be termed the Malthusian parameter of population increase... The Malthusian parameter will in general be different for each different genotype, and will measure the fitness to survive of each... The rate of increase of fitness of any species is equal to the genetic variance in fitness.] 1953Symp. Soc. Exper. Biol. VII. 112 Fitness for survival cannot be completely defined except as applied to a ‘unit of evolution’... The fitness of such a unit is its probability of leaving descendants after a given long period of time. 1955T. Dobzhansky Evolution, Genetics & Man vi. 122 Adaptive value, or Darwinian fitness, is not the same thing as bodily strength, vigor, or bravery. 1960D. S. Falconer Introd. Quantitative Genetics ii. 26 Individuals..contribute different numbers of offspring to the next generation. The proportionate contribution of offspring to the next generation is called the fitness of the individual. 1973B. J. Williams Evolution & Human Origins xiv. 257/2 If we remember to stick to our definition of fitness as Darwinian fitness, it becomes apparent that advances in medical genetics have improved the fitness of those who suffer from PKU. 1983J. R. S. Fincham Genetics xviii. 530 AA homozygotes have a fitness of 1 and aa and Aa both have fitnesses of 1—s. |