| 释义 |
gratuitously, adv.|grəˈtjuːɪtəslɪ|
[f. prec. + -ly2.]
In a gratuitous manner.
1. Without cost to the recipient; without any claim or merit on his part; free of charge.
1716–17Bentley Serm. xi. 374 Gratuitously given us by the good-will of our Maker. 1773Erskine Inst. Sc. Law ii. iii. §25. 190 He who makes over a subject gratuitously is understood to transfer it barely as it was vested in himself when he made the grant. 1776Adam Smith W.N. i. xi. i. (1869) I. 159 The distributions of corn frequently made to the people, either gratuitously, or at a very low price. 1804W. Tennant Ind. Recreat. (ed. 2) I. 70 The children of such as have died..are admitted gratuitously into this school. 1867Smiles Huguenots Eng. i. (1880) 18 The bishop also distributed the four Gospels gratuitously among the poor.
2. Without sufficient cause, reason, or ground; unjustifiably, unwarrantably, unnecessarily.
1697Bentley Diss. Ep. Phalaris 43 But there is a learned Greek Professor..who, after he has asserted the credit of Euripides's Letters, gratuitously undertakes to apologize for These too, about this matter of the Dialect. 1774S. Hallifax Roman Civil Law Pref. xvi, Those, who apply to the study of the Common Law, often boast, and sometimes gratuitously enough, of this distinction. 1799Kirwan Geol. Ess. 385 The vast size of the most ancient species of fish he ascribes to the great heat which he gratuitously supposes the sea to have originally possessed. 1845Ld. Houghton in T. W. Reid Life (1891) I. viii. 359 It is assumed (I think gratuitously) that Peel is going to repeal the Corn Laws. 1875E. White Life in Christ i. ii. (1878) 14 The most gratuitously perverse misinterpretations. 1880McCarthy Own Times IV. xlviii. 22 Gratuitously offensive. |