| 释义 |
irreducible, a.|ɪrɪˈdjuːsɪb(ə)l|
[ir-2: cf. F. irréductible.]
That cannot be reduced.
1. That cannot be brought to a desired form, state, condition, etc. Const. † into, to.
1633Prynne Histriom. i. ii. 41 They are irreducible, vnconuertible to any lawfull, good, or Christian purposes. 1669W. Simpson Hydrol. Chym. 166 Irreducible to their pristine metalline form. 1818Hallam Mid. Ages (1878) III. ix. ii. 346 The fashions of dress and amusements are generally capricious and irreducible to rule. 1881Maxwell Electr. & Magn. I. 355 When chemical affinity was regarded as a quality sui generis, and irreducible to numerical measurement.
b. spec. That cannot be reduced to a simpler or more intelligible form; incapable of being resolved into elements, or of being brought under any recognized law or principle.
1835Poe Adv. Hans Pfaall Wks. 1864 I. 8 A constituent of azote, so long considered irreducible. 1841Myers Cath. Th. iv. §15. 259 The great primary Fact..irreducible and unintelligible by any faculty of ours. 1868Lockyer Guillemin's Heavens (ed. 3) 396 Each new triumph of optical skill results in a resolution of some nebulæ, before irreducible. 1871R. H. Hutton Ess. (1877) I. 42 To admit the..irreducible nature of mental phenomena—to admit that they cannot anyhow be analysed into physical.
c. Algebra. (See quots.)
1753Chambers Cycl. Supp., Irreducible case,..that case of cubic equations where the root, according to Cardan's rule, appears under an impossible or imaginary form, and yet is real. 1778Maseres in Phil. Trans. LXVIII. 920 The remaining case of the cubick equation..which..cannot be resolved by the rules above mentioned, has..obtained amongst algebraists the name of the irreducible case: at least it is often called by the French writers of algebra le cas irréductible. 1838–9Hallam Hist. Lit. II. viii. §7. 325 Bombelli saw better than Cardan the nature of what is called the irreducible case in cubic equations.
2. Path. That cannot be reduced by treatment to a desired form or condition.
1836–9Todd Cycl. Anat. II. 740/1 Old ruptures that have become irreducible. 1859Ibid. V. 684/1 An irreducible tumour in the right groin.
3. Incapable of being reduced to a smaller number or amount; the fewest or smallest possible.
1860Farrar Orig. Lang. x. 205 The three families of language are irreducible, i.e. incapable of being derived from one another. 188.American XIV. 134 (Cent.) What is it that we must hold fast as the irreducible minimum of churchmanship?
4. That cannot be reduced to submission; invincible, insuperable.
1858National Rev. Oct. 500 Allowing the irreducible, uncontrollable nature of the prophetic impulse. 1859Masson Brit. Novelists 100 At last, foiled by her irreducible virtue, he is compelled to call in the clergyman. 1885Wingfield Barbara Philpot II. vi. 193 So 'twas irreducible dislike of his person that had caused the uproar.
Hence irreˈducibleness; irreˈducibly adv.
1828Webster, Irreducibleness. 1841–4Emerson Ess., Experience Wks. (Bohn) I. 183 The ancients, struck with this irreducibleness of the elements of human life to calculation, exalted Chance into a divinity. 1847Craig, Irreducibly. 1923C. D. Broad Sci. Thought x. 368 The temporal relations..are really irreducibly triadic. |