| 释义 |
inconstancy|ɪnˈkɒnstənsɪ|
[ad. L. inconstāntia; see prec. and -ancy.]
Want of constancy.
1. Of persons (or things personified, as Fortune): Fickleness of conduct or purpose; changeableness of character or disposition; unsteadfastness. Also, with pl., an instance of this.
1526Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 90 b, Inconsideration or neglygence, inconstancy or vnstablenes. 1590Spenser F.Q. i. iv. 1 For unto knight there is no greater shame Then lightnesse and inconstancie in love. 1601Holland Pliny II. 600 Willing after a sort to play at Fortunes game..and in some measure to satisfie her inconstancie. 1663Cowley Verses & Ess., Disc. Cromwell (1669) 54 Art thou the Country which didst hate, And mock the French Inconstancy? 1713Swift in Four C. Eng. Lett. 165 You have triumphed..by the steadiness of your temper, over the inconstancy and caprice of your friends. 1740Cheyne Regimen 167 Unaccountable Terrors, Panics, Inconstancies. 1894Sir E. Sullivan Woman 47 How you excuse, and even praise, the inconstancy of a woman who throws over another man for you.
2. Of things or events: Mutability, variability; irregularity; absence of uniformity.
1613Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 13 The silent Moone..constant image of the worlds inconstancie, which it never seeth twice with the same face. 1645Boate Irel. Nat. Hist. (1652) 165 It is never dry weather two or three dayes together. Which inconstancy and wetness of the weather [etc.]. 1726Leoni Alberti's Archit. I. 101/2 The inconstancy of the air is what spoils every thing. 1825McCulloch Pol. Econ. iii. ii. 240 The wages of labour, in different employments, vary with the constancy and inconstancy of employment. 1885J. Martineau Types Eth. Th. I. 421 The inconstancy of his [Comte's] analysis of the human capacities and instincts.
†b. Variation, difference. Obs.
1646J. Gregory Notes & Obs. (1650) 64 The Armenian Translation rendreth, ‘And Pharaoh called Joseph Fesuut’... This is all the inconstancy of reading I could observe.
†3. Inconsistency (in statements, etc.); an instance of this. Obs.
1557[see inconstance 3]. 1565Jewel Repl. Harding (1611) 412 He seemeth not to consider the inconstancie, and folly of his owne tale. 1605Bacon Adv. Learn. ii. x. §10 Let a man look into their [phisitians'] prescripts and ministrations, and he shall finde them but inconstancies.
¶4. Erron. for incontinency. Obs.
1581Marbeck Bk. of Notes 799 Some doe gather of this place, that Paule did mortifie in himself the fire of inconstancy, by long fasting. 1607Topsell Four-f. Beasts (1658) 204 The bladder of a female Kid drunk in powder, helpeth the inconstancy of urine. 1623Cockeram, Inconstancie, vnchastnes. |