| 释义 |
infinitude|ɪnˈfɪnɪtjuːd|
[f. L. type *infīnītūdo, prob. in med. or mod.L. (after multitūdo, magnitūdo, etc.). Cotgrave, 1611, has the corresp. F. infinitude = infinité, and Florio has It. infinitudine ‘infinitenesse, endlesnesse’. Cf. finitude, which has no It. or Fr. equivalent, and may have been formed after this; also the later definitude.]
1. The quality or attribute of being infinite; boundlessness. Also in hyperbolical sense: Immensity, vastness (cf. infinite A. 1 b).
1641Milton Reform. ii. (1851) 68 Thou, the third Subsistence of Divine Infinitude, illumining Spirit, the joy and solace of created Things. 1677Hale Prim. Orig. Man. i. vi. 117, I remove Infinitude from what I find to be necessarily finite. 1744Harris Three Treat. iii. ii. (1765) 226 Where the Telescope that can descry, to what Infinitude Wisdom extends. 1807W. Taylor in Ann. Rev. V. 549 The best arguments..for the infinitude of Deity. 1890Garnett Milton 157 The universe fatigues with its infinitude.
2. (with pl.) Something that is infinite (or, by hyperbole, indefinitely great); a boundless (or vast) extent, space, amount, number, etc.; infinity.
1667Milton P.L. vii. 168 Boundless the Deep, because I am who fill Infinitude, nor vacuous the space. 1762Sterne Tr. Shandy V. xxiv, There was that infinitude of oddities in him. 1847E. FitzGerald Lett. I. 181 Science..unrolls a greater Epic than the Iliad; the history of the World, the infinitudes of Space and Time! 1859Darwin Orig. Spec. iv. (1873) 101 The form of each depends on an infinitude of complex relations. |