| 释义 |
incubator|ˈɪnkjuːbeɪtə(r)|
[a. L. incubātor, agent-n. f. incubāre to lie in or on.]
1. a. A bird which incubates or sits on eggs; a sitting bird. Also, any of certain other animals having particular patterns of behaviour to keep their eggs at a higher temperature than the surrounding environment. b. fig. One who sits brooding.
1858De Quincey Language Wks. IX. 81 The Hebrew..sitting..as incubator over the awful germs of the spiritualities that connect man with the unseen worlds. 1969A. Bellairs Life of Reptiles II. ix. 430 Of the six or more species which have acquired the brooding habit, only the Indian python is now known on good evidence to be a true incubator.
2. a. An apparatus for hatching birds by artificial heat.
1857Cottage Gardener 4 Aug. 274/2 An incubator is an unprofitable machine..It is a good hatcher..but the chickens cannot be reared. 1879Jefferies Wild Life in S.C. 188 The heat of the manure-heap acts as an incubator [to snakes' eggs]. 1884Health Exhib. Catal. 119/1 A Series of Thermostatic Incubators..for the artificial hatching of eggs.
b. An apparatus for rearing children born prematurely.
1896Westm. Gaz. 1 June 4/1 One of the incubators, or foster mothers, by means of which the lives of..little ones prematurely born into the world have been saved.
3. An apparatus for the artficial development of bacteria.
1896Allbutt's Syst. Med. I. 805 These [test-tubes] are capped and kept at 37° in the incubators for twenty-four hours.
4. fig. and transf. A breeder, author, source.
1864Daily Tel. 6 Sept., His mind is only an incubator for hatching lewdness. 1897L. A. Thurston Handbk. Annex. Hawaii 35 An incubator of international friction.
5. Comb. incubator-bird Austral. = megapode, megapod.
[1896F. G. Aflalo Sk. Nat. Hist. Austral. 152 These most interesting birds do not incubate their eggs... for instead..we find them deposited in a perfectly planned, thoroughly heated incubator.] 1943C. Barrett Austral. Animal Bk. xvii. 148 There are numerous species of Megapodes... All are ‘incubator-birds’, burying their large eggs in huge nest-mounds, to be incubated by the heat generated by decaying vegetation, or by solar heat. 1963Times 12 Mar. (Austral. Suppl.) p. x/7 There are several kinds of megapode or incubator-birds in Australia, of which the best-known is the lowan or mallee-hen. |