| 释义 |
larva|ˈlɑːvə|
Pl. larvæ.
[L. larva a ghost, spectre, hobgoblin; also, a mask.]
1. A disembodied spirit; a ghost, hobgoblin, spectre. Obs. exc. Hist.
1651Baxter Inf. Bapt. 273, I live almost perpetually in my bed or chair or pulpit; as Calvin said of Cassander; such a larva I am that here am called up. 1882Encycl. Brit. XIV. 313/2 The dead..were..spirits of terror..: in this fearful sense the names Lemures and still more Larvæ were appropriated to them.
fig.1827Syd. Smith in Edin. Rev. Mar. 429 There is the larva of tyranny, and the skeleton of malice.
2. a. An insect in the grub state, i.e. from the time of its leaving the egg till its transformation into a pupa. b. Applied to the early immature form of animals of other classes, when the development to maturity involves some sort of metamorphosis.
In the first quot. the word is used in a general sense = ‘mask’, ‘guise’: the technical restricted use is due to Linnæus. In the larva the perfect form, or imago, of the insect is unrecognizable.
[1691Ray Creation i. (1692) 7 We exclude both these from the degree of Species, making them to be the same Insect under a different Larva or Habit.] 1768G. White Selborne xviii. (1789) 54 The larvæ of insects are full of eggs. 1770Pennant Zool. IV. 37 The two small ones [sc. lizards] are Larvæ, with their branchial fins, which drop off when they quit the water. 1815Kirby & Sp. Entomol. I. 67 This Linné called the larva state, and an insect when in it a larva. 1837Goring & Pritchard Microgr. 212 Among aquatic larvæ, the most beautiful and delicate are those of the numerous species of gnat. 1849Murchison Siluria App. D. 539 They are larvæ of Echinoderms. 1859Darwin Orig. Spec. xiii. 440 Cuvier did not perceive that a barnacle was..a crustacean; but a glance at the larva shows this to be the case. 1874Brewer in Coues Birds N.W. 65 Collecting flies and larvae among a clump of locust trees. 1897Daily News 23 Jan. 6/1 This plaice larva has no mouth, at least no open mouth.
fig.1854H. Rogers Ess. II. i. 32 He is sure to deposit in his own writings the larvæ of future controversies.
c. attrib., as larva-case, larva-form, larva-stage, larva-state.
1791E. Darwin Bot. Gard. i. 197 So in his silken sepulchre the worm, Warm'd with new life, unfolds his larva-form. 1855J. Phillips Man. Geol. 459 Thin tufaceous limestones, sometimes full of the larva-cases of phryganidae. 1874Carpenter Ment. Phys. i. ii. §59 (1879) 58 The change from the larva to the perfect or imago state of the Insect. 1893J. Tuckey tr. Hatschek's Amphioxus 159 Those stages which form the transition from the development of the embryo..to the larvae stages which are self-nourishing. |