| 释义 |
littleness|ˈlɪt(ə)lnɪs|
[OE. lýtelnes: see little a. and -ness.]
The attribute of being little.
1. Smallness of quantity, amount, bulk, stature, degree, or extent.
c1000ælfric Gram. xxxviii. (Z.) 228 Sume syndon qvantitatis, ða ᵹetacniað mycelnysse oð ðe lytelnesse [v.r. lutelnesse]. 1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xiii. xxvi. (1495) 460 Affocius is a lytyll fysshe and for lytylnes it not may be tak with hoke. 1526Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 63 b, His vylenes, lytelnes, or other deformite of nature. a1550in Dunbar's Poems (1893) 317 For littilnes scho was forlorne, Siche ane kemp to beir. 1642Fuller Holy & Prof. St. ii. ix. 86 Those of unusuall littlenesse are made ladies dwarfs. 1655― Hist. Camb. 83 Lowness of endowment, and littlenesse of Receit, is all [that] can be cavilled at in this foundation. a1667Cowley Greatness in Verses & Ess. (1674) 121, I confess, I love Littleness almost in all things, A little convenient Estate, a little chearful House, a little Company, and a very little Feast. 1726Swift Gulliver ii. viii, Observing the littleness of the houses, the trees, the cattle, and the people, I began to think myself in Lilliput. 1828Chalmers in Watson Life A. Thomson (1882) 81, I thought not of the littleness of time, I recklessly thought not of the greatness of eternity. 1883Harper's Mag. Nov. 902/1 A marvellous littleness of hand and foot.
2. Want of greatness, grandeur, or importance; insignificance, triviality, meanness, pettiness; smallness of mind.
1388Wyclif Ps. liv. 9 [lv. 8], I abood hym, that made me saaf fro the litilnesse [Vulg. pusillanimitate], ether drede of spirit. 1483Cath. Angl. 219/1 A Litilnes, decliuitas ingenij est, modicitas, paruitas, paucitas. 1502Ord. Crysten Men (W. de W. 1506) ii. i. 84 Knowynge the lytylnesse & fray[l]te of humayne nature. 1694South Serm. II. Ep. Ded., If the supposed Littleness of these matters should be a sufficient Reason for the laying them aside. 1710Steele Tatler No. 197 ⁋4 There is a Sort of Littleness in the Minds of Men of wrong Sense. 1779F. Burney Diary 20 Oct., Mrs. Thrale..is so enraged with him for his littleness of soul in this respect. 1822Hazlitt Table-t. Ser. ii. iii. (1869) 78 Littleness is their element, and they give a character of meanness to whatever they touch. 1871L. Stephen Playgr. Eur. xi. (1894) 262 The mountains..speak to man of his littleness and his ephemeral existence. 1896W. Ward Talks with Tennyson in New Rev. July 81 Contemptuousness..was, he said, a sure sign of intellectual littleness.
b. An instance of this; a mean, petty quality or action.
1660N. Ingelo Bentiv. & Ur. ii. (1682) 110 Neither are our minds troubled with those Limitations and Littlenesses which we meet with in our preception of other things. a1797H. Walpole Mem. Geo. II (1847) III. xi. 292 One of those vainglorious littlenesses which too often entered into his composition. 1832Carlyle Misc. (1857) III. 38 Pitiful Littlenesses as we are. 1859Tennyson Idylls Ded. 25 Wearing the white flower of a blameless life, Before a thousand peering littlenesses. 1865Merivale Rom. Emp. VIII. lxiii. 66 The greatness of their general character over⁓shadowed their littlenesses. |