释义 |
golem|ˈgəʊləm, ˈgɔɪləm| Also Golem. [ad. Yiddish goylem, f. Heb. gōlem shapeless mass.] In Jewish legend, a human figure made of clay, etc., and supernaturally brought to life; in extended use, an automaton, a robot.
1897H. Iliowizi In Pale 171 The Baal-Shem smiled when he was told that the official version of the Golem's work proclaimed, that ‘the accident was caused by a red bolt of lightning, which killed the people and destroyed the building’. 1925H. Schneiderman tr. Bloch's Golem 67 They formed out of clay the figure of a person,.. And the Golem lay before them. 1928Funk's Stand. Dict., Golem, a homunculus or figure made to represent a man: said to have been made and endowed with life by Reb Löw of Prague in the middle ages; hence, any one who acts like an automaton. 1942B. Berenson One Year's Reading 12 Feb. (1960) 24 What a belief that the great masses are pails into which you can pour any kind of slop.., and make them act like your golems! 1958Times 5 Dec. 16/6 The ungainly bronze golems that stand around the Hanover Gallery. 1964N. Wiener God & Golem (1965) (front jacket-flap), The ability of machines to learn, and their potential ability to reproduce themselves, lead to the question: ‘Can we say that God is to Golem as man is to machine?’ (In Jewish legend Golem is an embryo Adam, shapeless and not fully created, hence an automaton). Ibid. v. 55 Rabbi Löw of Prague, who claimed that his incantations blew breath of life into the Golem of clay. 1969Listener 10 July 33/1 So let us forget about robots as serfs, which is the way they were originally proposed in Capek's RUR (robotnik, in Czech, means a serf). Such robots are essentially in the ‘Golem’ image and have no further interest except as ingenious dolls for grown-ups. |