| 释义 |
tropical, a. and n. pl.|ˈtrɒpɪkəl|
[f. as tropic a.1 + -al1. Cf. mod.F. tropical.]
A. adj.
1. Astr. Pertaining or relating to the tropics, or either tropic (in sense A. 1 a or b). Chiefly in tropical year, the interval between two successive passages of the sun through the same ‘tropic’ or solstitial point (or, equivalently, through the same equinoctial point); the natural year of the seasons, as reckoned from one (winter or summer) solstice or (vernal or autumnal) equinox to the next. So tropical month, the time taken by the moon in passing from either tropic (or either equinoctial point) to the same again.
1527R. Thorne in Hakluyt Voy. (1589) 252 The quantitie of the earth vnder the Equinoctiall to both the Tropicall lines. 1594Blundevil Exerc. iii. i. xxxviii. (1636) 353 The Astronomicall yeere is either Tropicall or Syderall. 1662Stanley Hist. Chaldaic Philos. (1701) 17/2 Tropical [signs] are those to which when the Sun cometh he turneth back. 1715tr. Gregory's Astron. (1726) I. 408 The Tropical Year is that space of time wherein the same Seasons of the Year return again. 1812Woodhouse Astron. xxxi. 305 The tropical revolution of the Moon, or the revolution with respect to the equinoxes. 1834Nat. Philos. III. Astron. i. 41/1 (Usef. Knowl. Soc.) The year from equinox to equinox is called the equinoctial year, or sometimes the tropical year. 1868Lockyer Elem. Astron. v. (1879) 203 The tropical month is the revolution of the moon with respect to the moveable equinox.
2. a. Geog. Pertaining to, occurring in, or inhabiting the tropics; belonging to the torrid zone.
1698Froger Voy. 3 At three o'clock in the morning we passed the tropick of Cancer;..and in the afternoon performed the ceremonies of Tropical baptism or duckings, which are commonly us'd by mariners in those places. 1699W. Dampier Voy. II. i. ii. 33 Many reasons..beside the accidental ones from the make of the particular Countries, Tropical Winds, or the like. a1700Salmon (J.), The pine-apple is one of the tropical fruits. 1788Gibbon Decl. & F. l. (1846) V. 2 The face of the desert..is scorched by the direct and intense rays of a tropical sun. 1851Carpenter Man. Phys. (ed. 2) 67 The highest temperature which the soil usually possesses in tropical climates, is about 126°. 1862Dana Man. Geol. 615 Coral formations are most abundant in the tropical Pacific. 1880Haughton Phys. Geog. vi. 272 The second and third of the sub-orders are confined to the tropical forests of South America.
b. Path. Applied to diseases to which one is liable in tropical regions.
1828Webster, Tropical. 2. Incident to the tropics; as, tropical diseases. 1843R. J. Graves Syst. Clin. Med. xi. 118 [Salivation] has been also very extensively recommended by army and navy surgeons, in the treatment of tropical fevers. 1893A. Davidson Hygiene & Dis. Warm Climates xvii. 613 Tropical Liver. 1905Daily Chron. 9 Oct. 5/3 The notorious disease known in Germany as ‘tropencholer’, or tropical frenzy. 1934Discovery July 207/1 The practical certainty of infection from tropical anaemia or ‘hookworm’. 1944Living off Land v. 101 The most insignificant scratch or wound should be tended carefully—it might cause immediate infection and numerous large tropical sores. 1969Edington & Gilles Path. in Tropics x. 435 Tropical splenomegaly syndrome may in some patients end up in lymphosarcoma. 1974Tropical bubo [see lymphogranuloma]. 1980F. A. Nwako Textbk. Paediatric Surg. in Tropics lxv. 368/1 The acute tropical ulcer may be complicated by tetanus and gas-gangrene.
c. fig. Like the climate or growth of the tropics; very hot, ardent, or luxuriant.
1834Tait's Mag. I. 383/1 Home he came, after an absence of fifty years, in a hissing hot fit of tropical rage. 1850S. Dobell Roman vi. Poet. Wks. (1875) 85 My fierce and tropical fancy, Hot with swift pulses. 1880‘Ouida’ Moths I. 174 We Russians have a passion for tropical houses. Mod. The heat was perfectly tropical.
d. Of clothing, fabric, etc.: suitable for wearing or using in hot climates; lightweight and porous; also more fully tropical weight. Of a (weight of) fabric freq. in attrib. use.
1792W. Bligh Voy. to South Sea ii. 26, I gave orders for their light tropical clothing to be put by, and made them dress in a manner more suited to a cold climate. 1920W. J. Locke House of Baltazar x. 121 The tropical drill material which had clothed the troops in Hong Kong. 1924R. Macaulay Orphan Island ii. 31 [We] can be ready in a fortnight. It will take us about that to get our tropical outfit. 1925in C. Allen Tales from Dark Continent (1979) iii. 43 Tropical weight dress coat. 1931E. Waugh Remote People 150 They dried themselves, combed their hair, put on smart tropical suits, and called for dinner. 1938― Scoop i. iii. 57 William had acquired..six suits of tropical linen. 1942R. Chandler High Window iii. 24 A tropical worsted suit. 1945E. Waugh Brideshead Revisited ii. i. 200, I discarded the experiences of those two years with my tropical kit. 1966P. O'Donnell Sabre-Tooth i. 8 He wore the tropical uniform of the United States Army. 1971‘J. Mayo’ Asking for It v. 18, I unpacked a cream shirt, my tropical-weight brown suit and put them on. 1972‘W. Haggard’ Protectors viii. 93 He wore a tropical suit and a spotted bow tie. 1978L. Block Burglar in Closet i. 4 My suit was a tropical worsted. 1981G. MacBeth Kind of Treason xviii. 178 Mountbatten..was..in immaculate tropical kit.
3. Zool. (transf. from 1 or 2.) Used to describe the position of certain spines in the skeleton of some radiolarians: see quot.
1888Rolleston & Jackson Anim. Life 874 note, Imagine a globe with an axis of rotation, and five circles inscribed on it, an equatorial, two tropical and two polar. The twenty spines lie four in each of these circles, the equatorial and polar spines in the same meridian lines,..the tropical in meridian lines exactly intermediate.
4. Pertaining to, involving, or of the nature of a trope or tropes; metaphorical, figurative.
1567J. Maplet Gr. Forest 97 To sende ouer Owles to Athens. In Tropicall sense, ment of such as bestow largely vpon them that haue no neede. 1620T. Granger Div. Logike 19 Whether the words bee plaine, and proper, or tropicall, and figuratiue. 1646Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. iii. iii. 111 A strict and literall acception of a loose and tropicall expression. 1725Watts Logic i. iv. §7 They are used in a figurative or tropical Sense, when they are made to signify some things, which only bear either a Reference or a Resemblance to the primary Ideas of them. 1819G. S. Faber Dispensations (1823) II. ii. v. 190 The great sheet let down from heaven was as perfect a tropical hieroglyphic as any invented by the ingenuity of Moses. 1862H. Spencer First Princ. xv. (1875) 349 These [writings] had been partially differentiated into the kuriological or imitative, and the tropical or symbolic.
5. Math. ? Relating to the number of values of a function corresponding to one value of the variable.
1887Cayley Math. Papers XII. 433 We wish to know whether u is a monotropic function of z. It will not be so if we have a tropical point,..such that [etc.].
B. n. pl. Tropical clothes (see sense A. 2 d above).
1934G. B. Shaw Too True to be Good iii. 85 Aubrey, in white tropicals, comes strolling along the beach. 1980J. Hone Flowers of Forest iii. i. 221 Dressed in immaculate linen tropicals and some kind of old boy's tie. |