| 释义 |
forefather|ˈfɔəfɑːðə(r)|
For forms see father.
[f. fore- prefix + father. ON. had forfaðir. Cf. form-, forn-, forth-father.]
An ancestor, a progenitor. Chiefly pl. forefathers' day (U.S.): the anniversary of the day on which the first settlers landed at Plymouth, Mass.
a1300Cursor M. 5464 (Cott.) Jacob..went out of þis wreched werld, And til his forfaders fard. 1377Langl. P. Pl. B. v. 501 Feddest with thi fresche blode owre forfadres in derknesse. c1450Chester Pl. xii. 163 Our forfather ouer⁓comen was..to doe evill. 1526Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 14 b, Theyr forefathers were baptysed in the reed see. a1682Sir T. Browne Tracts (1684) 17 Our Forefathers before the Floud. 1750Gray Elegy 16 The rude Fore⁓fathers of the Hamlet. 1821J. Q. Adams in C. Davies Metr. Syst. iii. (1871) 120 Measures which they and their fore-fathers, time out of mind had employed. 1848Lowell Lett. (1894) I. 147 It is Fore-fathers' Day, you remember.
transf. and fig.1593Shakes. Rich. II, ii. ii. 35 Conceit is still deriu'd From some fore-father greefe. 1834H. Martineau Moral i. 6 It is a great thing to possess improved breeds of animals in the place of their forefathers.
Hence ˈforeˌfatherly a., of or pertaining to one's forefathers, ancestral.
1855in Clarke Dict. 1873Contemp. Rev. XXI. 213 Abstruse Englisc, forefatherly and foremotherly as we are assured it is. 1880G. Meredith Trag. Com. vi, The clever assortment of our forefatherly heaps of bones. |