| 释义 |
Germanic, a.1 and n.|dʒəˈmænɪk|
[ad. L. Germānic-us, f. Germānus German a.2 Cf. F. germanique.]
A. adj.
1. a. Of or pertaining to Germany or to the Germans, German. Now chiefly Hist. in Germanic Confederation, Germanic Empire.
1633in Crt. & Times Chas. I (1848) II. 214 Setting up the Germanic liberty, and levelling of the House of Austria. 1652Benlowes Theoph. v. xlix, Fifty milions of Germanick leagues. 1756–7tr. Keysler's Trav. (1760) IV. 217 The association of the Germanic states would not be a sufficient security to the empire against a foreign enemy. 1777Watson Philip II (1839) 13 He laboured..to establish concord among the several princes of the Germanic body. 1845S. Austin Ranke's Hist. Ref. III. 251 Least of all could the German nation boast that the Germanic empire had recovered its ancient character and powers.
b. Marked by German characteristics. Germanic region (see quot.).
1851–6Woodward Mollusca 383 Germanic Region. The whole of Northern Europe and Asia, bounded by the Pyrenees, Alps, Carpathians, Caucasus, and Altai.
2. Of or pertaining to the Teutonic race, or any of the Teutonic peoples. With reference to language, often used by philologists as = ‘Primitive Germanic’. Also with limiting word, in the designations of the subordinate groups into which the Germanic family of langs. is divided: the East Germanic, including Gothic (and some langs. of which only traces remain, as Burgundian, Vandal), the North Germanic = ‘Scandinavian’ (by some treated as a subdivision of East Germanic), and the West Germanic, including High and Low German, English, Frisian, Dutch, etc.
Now tending to supersede Teutonic in scholarly work.
a1773A. Butler Moveable Feasts Cath. Ch. (1839) iii. 80 Roman conquerors often took names..from countries which they had subdued,..as the African,..the Germanic,..&c. 1774R. Henry Hist. Gt. Brit. ii. iii. 215 But though these Germanic nations differed very much from one another..yet they appear to have sprung from the same origin. 1841W. Spalding Italy & It. Isl. II. 26 The Roman empire during the Germanic invasions. 1842B. Thorpe Codex Exoniensis 513 To suppose it a translation from another Germanic dialect, would be giving..credit for a kind of knowledge hardly..in existence among our simple fore⁓fathers. 1879Sir G. Scott Lect. Archit. I. 6 [Gothic] is the architecture of the Germanic nations. 1888J. Wright Old High-Ger. Primer §70 The Germanic combination kw was represented in Franconian by qu, and in Upper German by chu. 1894Trans. Philol. Soc. 1891–4 383 Germanic verse occasionally allows the freedom that syllables which in the spoken language are short, are, for the purposes of versification, treated as long. 1909F. B. Gummere Oldest Eng. Epic p. viii, These two poems [sc. Deor and Widsith]..contain many references to persons and stories of Germanic heroic legends. 1928W. W. Lawrence Beowulf & Epic Trad. 4 Anglo-Saxon verse..was..rooted in the traditions of professional singers, the main features of whose craft were shared by the poets of the other peoples of Germanic stock. 1948Mod. Philol. XLVI. 73, I shall not try to relate this meter to that of other Anglo-Saxon poetry or of the poetry in the other early Germanic dialects. 1963R. W. V. Elliott in S. B. Greenfield Stud. in Honor of A. G. Brodeur 64 Originality of invention was not the Germanic scop's aim.
B. n. The language of the Germanic people; Teutonic: see A. 2.
1892J. Wright Primer Gothic Lang. §108 From an Indo-Germanic point of view the series I–V belong to one and the same series which underwent in Germanic various modifications upon clearly defined lines. |