| 释义 |
-an, suffix
I. Derivative.
1. repr. L. -ānus, -āna, -ānum ‘of, or belonging to’; as castellān-us, oppidān-us, pāgān-us, urbān-us, silvān-us, Africān-us, Rōmān-us, Sullān-us, Justiniān-us. In OFr. this became -ain, or (after i) -en, as chastelain, Romain, payen, Italien; and so originally adopted in ME., but subseq. refashioned after L. as -an, and so in all words formed in Eng. direct, or adopted from the mod. langs. (It. Sp. Pg. -ano, Fr. -ain, -en.). Esp. added to proper names; ‘belonging to a place’ as American, Chilean, Russian, Oxonian; ‘following a founder,’ as Arminian, Lutheran, Muhammadan, Linnæan, or ‘a system,’ as Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Anglican, Gallican; and, in Zoology, to names of divisions, ‘belonging to a class or order,’ as mammalian, reptilian, crustacean, arachnidan, acalephan. Primarily these are all adjs., but as in L. etc., all may be used subst., and with some this is the more frequent use. The zoological words supply singulars to the collective plurals in -a, as a crustacean = a member of the Crustacea. Already in L. this termination was often added to others, to -i-us so commonly that -iānus, -ian, is in use merely a euphonic variety of -an; cf. Corinth-i-an, Rom-an, Christ-i-an, Muhammad-an.
2. in Chem. for -ane, arbitrary ending proposed by Davy for names of chlorides containing one atom of chlorine, as in azotan obs. In some words -an is a meaningless formative as allox-an.
† II. Inflexional.
1. In OE., ending of oblique cases, and nom. pl. of weak declension. Both became in ME. -en, now rarely preserved in pl., as ox-en:—OE. ox-an. Hence (dat. or loc. sing.) in advb. or prep. forms like ut-an, abut-an, befor-an, ME. uten, abuten, and ute, abute. Now obs.
2. In OE., ending of pres. inf. of vbs., levelled in ME. to -en, -e, and now lost, as OE. writ-an, send-an; ME. writ-e(n, send-e(n; mod. write, send. |