| 释义 |
▪ I. leaden, a.|lɛd(ə)n|
Forms: 1 léaden, 4 ledun, 4–5 leden, 5 ledyn, 6 leeden, 6– leaden.
[OE. léaden: see lead n.1 and -en4.
The absence of umlaut shows that the word was formed in OE., not inherited from WGer. Cf. Du. looden.]
1. a. Consisting or made of lead.
c1000in Schmid Gesetze 414 Si þæt alfæt isen oððe æren, leaden oððe læmen. c1000ælfric Hom. I. 426 Mid leadenum swipum langlice swingan. 1382Wyclif 2 Macc. iv. 14 Pleying with ledun dishe. 1420E.E. Wills (1882) 46 Also iijc. of ledyn wyȝtis. 1596Shakes. Merch. V. ii. vii. 15 What says this leaden casket? 1663Gerbier Counsel 87 Leaden gutters. 1746–7Hervey Medit. (1818) 43 Swifter than a whirlwind flies the leaden death. 1816J. Smith Panorama Sci. & Art II. 558 Distilled in a leaden, earthen, or glass retort. 1855Macaulay Hist. Eng. xvi. III. 638 Deposited in a leaden coffin. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) I. 252 She descended into the deep like a leaden plummet. 1883R. W. Dixon Mano iv. xii. 177 The leaden roofs arose like terraces Behind the battlements.
b. In allegorical contexts, with allusion to qualities of the metal or to the fig. senses below, as in leaden key, leaden sceptre, attributed poet. to the powers of sleep or dullness; leaden sword, the type of an ineffectual weapon.
1579Fulke Heskins' Parl. 396 He heweth at it with his leaden sworde. 1601Shakes. Jul. C. iv. iii. 268 O Murd'rous slumber! Layest thou thy Leaden Mace vpon my Boy..? 16022nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass. iv. iii. 1887 Those leaden spouts, That nought downe vent but what they do receiue. 1682O. N. tr. Boileau's Lutrin i. 35 When Eyes and Ears Nights leaden Key composes. 1742Young Nt. Th. i. 20 Night..stretches forth Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world. 1829H. Neele Lit. Rem. 33 The leaden sceptre of French taste was stretched over the tragic drama.
2. transf. and fig.
a. Of base quality or composition; of little value; opposed to golden.
b. Heavy as if made of lead; oppressive, burdensome; (of the limbs) hard to drag along, tardy in movement; hence said of movement, etc.; (of slumber or soporific influences) heavy, dull, benumbing.
c. With allusion to the want of elasticity in the metal: Inert, spiritless, depressing.
d. Of a dull, cold, pale colour; dull grey.
a.1577Batman (title) The Golden Booke of the Leaden Goddes. 1590Marlowe Edw. II, ii. ii. (1598) D 1 b, Base leaden Earles, that glory in your birth. 1612Bp. Hall Serm. Imprese of God ii. Wks. (1625) 455 The Church of Rome..(which cares not if she haue golden vessels, though she haue leaden Prests). 1616Capt. Smith Descr. New Eng. 33 The golden age and the leaden age.
b.1579Lyly Euphues (Arb.) 172 Though God haue leaden handes, which when they strike pay home. 1585Abp. Sandys Serm. xii. 197 It is good for a iudge commonly to haue leaden feete. 1609Ev. Wom. in Hum. iii. i. in Bullen O. Pl. IV, Lay not a leaden loade of foule reproach Upon so weake a prop. 1713C'tess of Winchilsea Misc. Poems 13 [He] courts deforming Death, to mend his Leaden pace. 1725Pope Odyss. iv. 610 Leaden slumbers press his drooping eyes. 1827–44Willis Jephthah's Dau. 25 Onward came The leaden tramp of thousands. 1860Reade Cloister & H. xxxviii. (1896) 112 He has risen, and was dragging his leaden limbs along. 1878B. Taylor Deukalion i. i. 15 That leaden weight which pressed mine eyelids to reluctant sleep. 1887Pall Mall G. 9 Feb. 4/1, I have never felt the atmosphere of the House so leaden.
c.1592Shakes. Ven. & Ad. 34 The tender boy, Who..powted in a dull disdaine, With leaden appetite. 1641Milton Ch. Govt. vi. Wks. 1851 III. 124 To bring..an unactive blindnesse of mind upon the people by their leaden doctrine. 1647R. Baron Cyprian Acad. i. 8 Saturne, that leaden planet did cast his melancholy influence over all his intellectuals. 1865Merivale Rom. Emp. VIII. lxiv. 90 Under its leaden rule little scope was left for the free and healthy exercise of mind. 1889Times (weekly ed.) 20 Dec. 5/2 In ‘the Progress of Spring’ are leaden lines.
d.c1386Chaucer Can. Yeom. Prol. & T. 175 Wher my colour was bothe fressh and reed Now is it wan and of leden hewe. 1576Newton Lemnie's Complex. i. viii. 65 It declyneth to a swart and leaden colour, such as we see in men in the cold Wynter. 1840Gen. P. Thompson Exerc. (1842) V. 131 Sleepless nights passed under the leaden eye of him he..sent to death. 1865Gosse Land & Sea (1874) 4 The sky was leaden. 1877Black Green Past. xxxiv. (1878) 270 The green islands lay desolate in the midst of the leaden sea. 1897Allbutt's Syst. Med. II. 205 The vesicle..has a uniform purple or leaden appearance.
3. Qualifying other adjectives.
1844Ruskin Arrows Chace (1880) I. 288 The lights being often a blaze of gold, and the shadows a dark leaden grey. 1846Beddoes Let. Poems p. cix, Prose of the leadenest drab dye has ever pursued Your humble servant. 1885Stevenson Dynamiter 126 Within, like a black and leaden-heavy kernel, he was conscious of the weight upon his soul. 1894R. B. Sharpe Handbk. Birds Gt. Brit. I. 33 Bill, leaden blue.
4. Comb. Chiefly parasynthetic, as leaden-coloured, leaden-eyed, leaden-footed, leaden-headed, leaden-hearted (hence leaden-heartedness), leaden-heeled, leaden-hued, leaden-lidded, leaden-locked, leaden-natured, leaden-pated, leaden-skulled, leaden-spirited, leaden-thoughted, leaden-weighted, leaden-willed, leaden-winged; also leaden-stepping, in which leaden is quasi-adv.; leaden-like adv.
1598Florio, Plombeo,..*leaden coloured. 1816Shelley Alastor 557 Leaden-coloured even.
1820Keats Ode Nightingale 28 *Leaden-eyed despairs.
1596R. L[inche] Diella (1877) 61 *Leaden-footed griefe. 1899F. T. Bullen Log Sea-waif 246 Never before..had I felt time to be so leaden-footed.
1589Marprel. Epit. E iij, Not..so *leaden-headed as your brother Bridges. 1852Dickens Bleak Ho. i, A leaden-headed old corporation.
1596R. L[inche] Diella (1877) 31 *Leaden-harted sleepe.
1938C. Day Lewis Overtures to Death 14 Infirm and grey This leaden-hearted day Drags its lank hours.
1864E. Murray E. Norman III. 28 He subsided into a sort of *leaden-heartedness.
1598E. Guilpin Skial. (1878) 35 Thys *leaden-heeled passion is to dull, To keepe pace with this Satyre-footed gull.
1877W. Black Green Past. xxvii. (1878) 221 Water—*leaden-hued—with no trace of phosphorescent fire in it.
1946W. de la Mare Traveller 18 His *leaden-lidded eyes.
1574Hellowes Gueuara's Fam. Ep. (1577) 169 To write so heauie or *leadenlike, your Lordship had no occasion.
1963Listener 7 Mar. 429/1 A man..Whiskered and *leaden-locked.
1889Skrine Mem. E. Thring 42 The..*leaden-natured boy.
1603Florio Montaigne ii. viii. (1632) 220, I was the..most *leaden-pated to learne my lesson. 1681Heraclitus Ridens No. 42 (1713) II. 19 The Leaden-pated Gentleman propounded the Matter.
c1600Distracted Emp. v. i. in Bullen O. Pl. III. 242 What a *leaden-skulld slave he makes me.
1609J. Davies Humours Heaven on Earth (Grosart) 10/2 Let leane-fac'd *leaden-spirited Saturnists..Prate what they list.
1630Milton Time 2 The lazy *leaden-stepping hours.
1596R. L[inche] Diella (1877) 52 Now *leaden-thoughted Morpheus dyms each sight.
1888T. W. Reid Life W. E. Forster I. 75 *Leaden-weighted lethargy.
1596C. Fitzgeffrey Sir F. Drake (1881) 58 Summons my Muse..Her *leaden-winged crest aloft to raise.
a1645Featly Reynolds in Fuller Abel Rediv. (1867) II. 243 We university men were *leaden-witted, who admired so dull a man.
5. leaden fly-catcher, a small grey-green Australian bird, Myiagra rubecula, of the family Muscicapidæ (see fly-catcher 2).
1908E. J. Banfield Confessions of Beachcomber i. iii. 95 Leaden Fly-catcher, Myiagra rubecula (plumbea). 1911J. A. Leach Austral. Bird Bk. 125 Leaden Flycatcher... Upper wings, tail, breast leaden-gray glossed with green. 1965Austral. Encycl. IV. 121/1 The best-known [tropical flycatchers] are the leaden flycatcher (Myiagra rubecula) which migrates south to Tasmania, and the black-faced flycatcher.
Hence ˈleadenly adv., in a leaden manner; without elasticity or spring; after the manner, or with the effect of a leaden weight. ˈleadenness, the quality of being leaden both in a material and an immaterial sense.
1611Cotgr., Ternissure, palenesse..leadennesse of colour. 1879G. Meredith Egoist II. vii. 141 It had sunk suddenly and leadenly under the sense of imprisonment. 1893B. Harraden Ships that pass 99 The lovelessness and leadenness of his temperament. 1895Crockett Cleg Kelly xxvii, She went leadenly up the steps.
▪ II. leaden, v.|lɛd(ə)n|
[f. lead n.1 + -en5 or f. leaden a.]
†a. trans. To fasten with molten lead. Obs.
b. To make leaden or dull.
c. intr. To press down like lead; only in leadening ppl. a.
1552Huloet, Leaden or sowdre together, plumbo. 1835Fraser's Mag. XII. 637 A leadening weight of something indescribable began to gather upon his heart. 1899Speaker 29 July 107/1 The very completeness with which Mr. Mends has done his work..leadens his narrative.
▪ III. leaden
obs. dial. form of leden. |