释义 |
▪ I. unˈthink, v. [un-2 3.] trans. To remove from thought; to annul or reverse by a mental effort. Also absol.
c1600Chalkhill Thealma & Cl. 537 Still the king burns, and still his working brain Plots and displots, thinks and unthinks again. 1613Shakes. Hen. VIII, ii. iv. 104, I do beseech You (gracious Madam) to vnthinke your speaking, And to say so no more. 1640C. Harvey Confusion i, One while I think, and then I am in pain To think how to unthink that thought again. 1675J. Howe Living Temple i. iii. 109 That the same thing is not thought and unthought, resolved and unresolved a thousand times in a day. 1709O. Dykes Eng. Prov. & Refl. (ed. 2) 6 There's no unthinking a Misfortune, after it has befallen us for want of Precaution or Foresight. 1811Henry & Isabella I. 6 They knew not how to think, and unthink so often that this world is, and is not a good place. 1818Cobbett Pol. Reg. XXXIII. 527 To imagine that gags..will induce the people to unthink their present thoughts and unfeel their present feelings! 1849D'Israeli's Cur. Lit. II. 428 Bayle stands among those masters of the human intellect who taught us to think, and also to unthink! 1894Illingworth Personality iv. 91 There is no question of the inevitableness of this conclusion; we cannot avoid it, we cannot unthink it. ▪ II. ˈunthink, n. [un-1 12.] Passive acceptance; failure to use logical reasoning.
1958Spectator 14 Nov. 641/2 Mr. Wechsler..got on his feet rampaging against ‘latrine prose’ and the tedious doctrine of ‘un-think’. 1961Guardian 9 June 11/6 The undiscriminating unthink of the new middle class. 1974P. Gore-Booth With Great Truth & Respect 421 And let us not talk of a ‘Lost Empire’; that is a piece of ‘unthink’ which implies that, if only we had been cleverer, Australia would still have been governed from London. |