| 释义 |
reducible, a.|rɪˈdjuːsɪb(ə)l|
[ad. L. type *redūcibilis: see reduce v. and -ible.]
That may be reduced; capable or admitting of reduction.
†1.
a. Of persons: That may be brought back to right conduct; reclaimable. Obs. rare.
a1450Mankind 821 (Brandl), ‘Nolo mortem peccatoris’, inquis, yff he wyll [be] reducyble.
b. Of things: That may be restored to a former († state or) position. rare. (Now only Surg.)
1646Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. iii. vi. 117 Once omitted or perverted..it is not reducible by any other whatsoever. 1655Marquis of Worcester Cent. Inv. §13 Without blowing the Decks up, or destroying them from being reducible. 1878T. Bryant Pract. Surg. I. 646 When a hernia comes down into a sac and goes up again, it is called reducible.
2. a. That may be referred or assigned to some other thing, to some class or specified number of classes.
1529More Dyaloge i. Wks. 170/1 Some..rule of oure liuing, whiche is also depending vppon faith & reducible therto. 1577Harrison England iii. xiv. (1878) ii. 97 Our yeare is counted after the course of the sunne, and although the church hath some vse of that of the moone..yet it is reducible to that of the sunne. 1639Fuller Holy War v. x. 246 These millions of miracles are reducible to one of these foure ranks. 1698W. Chilcot Evil Thoughts v. (1851) 57 Every thought..unsuitable..to his glorious attributes, is reducible to this first kind of evil thoughts. 1791Hamilton Berthollet's Dyeing I. i. i. i. 25 Facts which are not reducible to any theory. 1806–7J. Beresford Miseries Hum. Life (1826) i. Introd., Such items of anguish only as may be reducible to that specific class of ‘miseries’.
†b. That may be referred to a place or person.
1655Fuller Hist. Camb. (1840) 45 Brought up in Cambridge, but not reducible, with probability, to any College now in being. 1661Boyle Style of Script. (1675) 169 Wise men..will not easily lose good thoughts or good expressions, because they are not reducible to them.
3. That may be brought to († or into) some more definite state, arrangement, or principle.
1651G. W. tr. Cowel's Inst. 184 It is necessary that the thing sold be certain or reducible to certainty. 1668Hale Pref. Rolle's Abridgm. b ij, The Common-Law is reducible into a competent method, as to the general Heads thereof. 1710Steele Tatler No. 234 ⁋9 Our English Tongue..is the most determinate in its construction, and reducible to the fewest Rules. 1756C. Lucas Ess. Waters I. 4 Into some or all of these principles, all bodies are reducible by art, as well as nature. 1818Cruise Digest (ed. 2) III. 377 There is no title in the English law reducible to a more technical system than the title of descent in fee simple.
4. a. That may be brought, altered or converted to or into another (esp. a simpler) form.
c1645Howell Lett. (1655) II. 69 In the new World..there is no root, flower, fruit or pulse but is reducible to a potable liquor. 1666Boyle Orig. Formes & Qual. 339 A salt easily reducible..into Chrystalline Grains. 1699Bentley Phal. 465 Thus reducible to Trochaics. 1754Lewis in Phil. Trans. XLVIII. 640 All are reducible..into powder. 1777Priestley Philos. Necess. 182 Complex reasoning is all reducible to acts of simple judgment. 1838–9Hallam Hist. Lit. (1847) I. 23 The words..seem reducible, with a little emendation, to short verses. 1881Mivart Cat 253 Nervous tissue is reducible into water. 1932Lewis & Langford Symbolic Logic ix. 282 Functions like this one, which can be expressed in equivalent form by means of functions of a lower degree of generality, will be said to be reducible. 1967R. A. George tr. Carnap's Logical Struct. of World i. 6 An object (or concept) is said to be reducible to one or more other objects if all statements about it can be transformed into statements about these other objects.
b. Without const. (see reduce v. 16, 17).
1674S. Jeake Arith. (1696) 299 Square Surdes..not thus reducible..are to be joyned together with the sign..+. 1842Parnell Chem. Anal. (1845) 263 Metals whose compounds are reducible with soda on charcoal in the reducing flame. 1884W. H. Greenwood Steel & Iron vi. 93 These silicates (which are only reducible with difficulty). 1957G. E. Hutchinson Treat. Limnol. I. xi. 707 Some of both oxidizable and reducible iron was no doubt in organic combination. 1976Nature 15 Jan. 147/1 These bulk membranes, being less dense than water, separated aqueous reducing agents and potentially reducible substrates.
†5. That may be brought to a belief, under a standard. Obs. rare.
1639Fuller Holy War iv. ii. 170 Now it seemeth the Tartars are reducible with most facility to our religion. 1760–72H. Brooke Fool of Qual. (1809) IV. 78 There is no..virtue, that is not reducible under the standard of..Love.
6. Sc. Law. Of a deed, contract, decree, etc.: That may be annulled by a court.
1754Erskine Princ. Sc. Law (1809) 108 No deed, granted with consent of the interdicters, is reducible. 1838W. Bell Dict. Law Scot. 832 All deeds executed by a minor..are reducible on the head of minority and lesion. 1888Ld. Watson in Law Times Rep. LIX. 4/2 To determine whether the marriage contract is reducible.
7. That may be lessened in number or amount.
1742Richardson Pamela IV. 370 The number of the old ones will be always reducible..in a greater Proportion, than the new ones will increase. 1852Mill Pol. Econ. iii. xviii. (ed. 3) §8. 365 These two influencing circumstances are in reality reducible to one.
Hence reˈducibleness; reˈducibly adv.
1666Boyle Orig. Formes & Qual. 201 The thing itself is made plausible by the reduciblenesse of ice back again into Water. 1680― Scept. Chem. iii. Wks. 1772 I. 538 Its reducibleness, according to Helmont, into alcali and water. 1854C. Forster Monum. Assyria (1859) 1 The consequent reducibleness of all the postdiluvian dialects to the one primeval language. 1882Ogilvie, Reducibly.
Add:[4.] c. spec. in Math. Of a polynomial: capable of being factorized into two or more polynomials of lower degree. Of a group: expressible as the direct product of two of its subgroups.
1674[see sense 4 b above]. 1885A. Cayley Coll. Math. Papers XII. 251 A seminvariant which is not reducible is said to be irreducible, or otherwise to be a perpetuant. 1934Webster s.v. Algebra, A reducible algebra is an algebra, A, expressible as the sum of two proper subalgebras, B and C, such that the products BC, CB and the intersection of B and C are the zero element. 1965Patterson & Rutherford Elem. Abstr. Algebra iv. 126 If F is the field of real numbers, then the polynomial 2-x2 over F is reducible, since √2-x and √2+x are factors. 1971Powell & Higman Finite Simple Groups iii. 149 V is completely reducible, i.e., a direct sum of irreducible modules. |