| 释义 |
ˈhour-glass
1. a. A contrivance for measuring time, consisting of a glass vessel with obconical ends connected by a constricted neck, through which a quantity of sand (or sometimes mercury) runs in exactly an hour; a sand-glass that runs for an hour.
c1515Cocke Lorell's B. (Percy Soc.) 12 One kepte y⊇ compas, and watched y⊇ our glasse. 1591Churchw. Acc. St. Helen's, Abingdon (Nichols 1797) 143 Paid for an houre glass for the pulpitt, 4d. 1596Shakes. Merch. V. i. i. 25. 1642 Fuller Holy & Prof. St. ii. xxi. 139 America is not unfitly resembled to an Hour-glasse, which hath a narrow neck of land..betwixt the parts thereof. 1711Addison Spect. No. 63 ⁋4 The figure of Time with an Hour-glass in one hand, and a Scythe in the other. 1852Hook Ch. Dict. (1871) 375 For the measurement of the time of sermon, hour-glasses were frequently attached to pulpits.
b. Often fig. or allusively, in reference to the passage of time; sometimes = an hour's space; a strictly finite space of time.
1588Fraunce Lawiers Log. i. iv. 28 b, If a preacher..should talk out his houre-glasse in discoursing of Bell the dragon. 1605Bacon Adv. Learn. ii. Ded. §15 Those things..may be done in succession of ages, though not within the houre-glasse of one mans life. 1644Quarles Barnabas & B. 26 What mean these strict reformers thus to spend their hour-glasses? 1714Gay Sheph. Week Friday 142 He..spoke the hour-glass in her praise—quite out. 1846Trench Mirac. vi. (1862) 185 When death was shaking the last few sands in the hour-glass of his daughter's life.
c. attrib., referring to the shape of an hour-glass.
1822–34Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) IV. 173 If the uterus..should contract..transversely so as to form what has been called an Hour-glass contraction. 1860G. H. K. Vac. Tour. 119, I used to think that the Pechts..built them hour-glass fashion to prevent the said enemy scrambling into them.
d. A marking (as on a spider) in the shape of an hour-glass.
1937Discovery Dec. 368/1 Two female Black Widows, showing the ‘hour-glass’ markings. 1962Metcalf & Flint Destructive & Useful Insects (ed. 4) xxi. 1009 (caption) The black widow spider, Latrodectus mactans. At left, the female from the underside, showing the characteristic hourglass-shaped spot.
2. Special Comb.: hour-glass structure Petrol., a structure present in certain rocks in which the mineral crystals have the shape of an hour-glass.
1888J. J. H. Teall Brit. Petrogr. vii. 159 The hour-glass structure already mentioned as occurring in the picrites is occasionally found in the normal plagioclaseaugite rocks. 1932F. F. Grout Petrogr. & Petrol. 100 ‘Hourglass’ structure is occasionally noted in augite. 1959W. W. Moorhouse Study of Rocks in Thin Section vi. 166 The larger grains and phenocrysts may be zoned, or they may show hourglass structure. |