| 释义 |
gorilla|gəˈrɪlə|
[An alleged African name for a wild or hairy man (strictly for the female only), preserved (in acc. pl. γορίλλας) in the Greek account of the voyage undertaken by the Carthaginian Hanno in the 5th or 6th c. b.c.; hence adopted in 1847 as the specific name of the ape Troglodytes gorilla, first described by Dr. T. S. Savage, an American missionary in Western Africa.]
The largest of anthropoid apes, a native of western equatorial Africa; it closely resembles man in its structure, is very powerful and ferocious, and arboreal in its habits.
[1799Naval Chron. I. 451 Another island full of savage people..whose bodies were hairy, and whom our interpreters called Gorillæ. 1847P. Savage in Jrnl. Boston Nat. Hist. Soc. (title) A description of the external characters and habits of Troglodytes Gorilla.] 1853R. Owen in Trans. Zool. Soc. (title) Description of Cranium of an adult male gorilla. 1861P. B. Du Chaillu Equat. Afr. i. 1 The fierce untameable gorilla, which approaches nearest, in physical conformation and in certain habits, to man. 1874Lubbock Orig. & Met. Ins. i. 6 The chimpanzee and the gorilla must certainly give place to the bee and the ant.
b. transf. A person who resembles a gorilla.
1884S. St. John Hayti iv. 144 Others [of the Haytian negroes] are the meanest-looking gorillas imaginable.
c. attrib. and Comb., as gorilla-land, gorilla-skin; gorilla-built adj.
1887F. Francis Jr. Saddle & Mocassin xvii. 293, I saw one deep-chested, gorilla-built fellow. 1897M. Kingsley W. Africa 264 He had a splendid gun, with a gorilla skin sheath for its lock. Ibid. 278 To return to that gorilla-land forest. |