| 释义 |
lowland, n. and a.|ˈləʊlənd|
Also 6–9 lawland, 8 lawlin, 9 laighland, lawlant. Also Lallan.
[f. low a. + land.]
A. n.
1. Low or level land; land which is on a lower level than the adjoining districts. Usually pl.
sing.1841Thoreau Jrnl. 8 Feb. in Writings (1906) VII. 207 Upland and lowland, forest and field have been ransacked. 1843Knickerbocker XXII. 5 Everywhere, in lowland and highland,..nothing is more evident than the..degradation of the negro. 1855Kingsley Heroes, Theseus ii. 205 The lowland grew blue beneath his feet. 1885Bible (R.V.) Jer. xxxiii. 13 In the cities of the lowland.
pl.1693Dryden Ovid's Met. i. Poems 1743 II. 176 No Nat'ral Cause she found from Brooks, or Bogs, Or marshy Lowlands, to produce the Fogs. 1725De Foe Voy. round World (1840) 266 So high above the valley that it looked like the lowlands in England do below Box Hill in Surrey. 1870Yeats Nat. Hist. Comm. 106 The central lowlands must be the coldest part of North America.
fig.1864Lowell Fireside Trav. 118 The lowlands and levels of ordinary palaver.
2. spec.
a. (Now always pl.) The less mountainous region of Scotland, situated south and east of the Highlands.
1631in Thanes of Cawdor (Spalding Club) 273 The necessitie of his advis doeth ofttymes invite him to the lowlandis. a1687Petty Pol. Arith. iv. (1691) 69 Whether England and the Low-Lands of Scotland, can maintain a fifth part more People than they now do..the said Territories of England, and the Low-Land of Scotland, contain about Thirty Six Millions of Acres. c1730Burt Lett. N. Scotl. (1818) I. 37 The Kirk..distinguishes the Lowlands from the Highlands by the language generally spoken by the inhabitants. 1822Galt Provost xiii. 98 Mr. Keg..had come in from the Laighlands..to live among us. 1938Duke of Montrose in R. Bain Clans & Tartans 11 The Tartan as a dress properly belongs to the Highlands, and not to the Lowlands. 1961C. R. MacKinnon Highlands in Hist. 95 Montrose had mustered his army at Blair Atholl, and decided to open his campaign in the Lowlands in order to encourage the king's supporters in the south.
b. pl. The Low Countries.
c1685in Roxburghe Ballads (Ballad Soc.) (1887) VI. ii. 421 And it is called the Sweet Trinity, And was taken by the false Gallaly, sailing in the Low-lands. 1923G. B. Harrison Shakespeare's Fellows iii. 100 Between his service in the Lowlands and the success of Every Man in his Humour, 1598, he had tried acting. 1961T. Henrot Belgium 28 Some fifteen Spanish grandees were named successively governors of the Spanish Low Lands.
3. lowlands: the Lowland (Scottish) dialect. (Cf. Lallans s.v. Lallan.) Sc.
1832–53Ballantine Whistle-Binkie (Scot. Songs) Ser. iii. 27 My young cousin Peggy cam doun frae Dunkeld, Wi' nae word o'lawlants ava, man. a1878H. Ainslie Land of Burns (1892) 335 Has gude braid lawlan's left the land?
B. attrib. or adj.
1. Of, pertaining to, or inhabiting low land or a level district; occas. pertaining to the ‘nether regions’.
1567Reg. Privy Council Scot. I. 555 To eschew sic contemptuus oppressioun in a peciabill cuntre and lawland. 1691Dryden K. Arthur i. 7 His Errand was, to draw the Low-land damps..from the foggy Fens. 1711Shaftesbury Charac. (1737) III. 52 Israel was constrain'd to go down to Egypt, and sue for maintenance to these..low-land states. 1721Ramsay Answer to Burchet 8 He..Doups down to visit ilka lawland ghaist. 1823in Hone Every-day Bk. II. 926 Our lowland vapours..deranged her constitution. 1863Woolner My Beautiful Lady 138 Well coerced by Lowland William's [i.e. William III's] craft. 1865Whittier Revisited 41 Bring down, O lowland river, The joy of the hills to the waiting sea. 1868W. W. Hunter Compar. Dict. Lang. India 2 The English have studied and understand the lowland population as no conquerors ever studied or understood a subject race.
2. Of, belonging to, or characteristic of the Lowlands of Scotland.
1508Dunbar Flyting w. Kennedie 56 Ane lawland ers wald mak a bettir noyis. 1610Holland Camden's Brit. i. 155 The Scots are divided into Hechtlandmen and Lawlandmen. 1752Fawkes Descr. May Pref., The Lowland Scotch language, and the English, at that time, were nearly the same. 1785Burns Jolly Beggars Air iv, A Highland lad my love was born, The Lawlan' laws he held in scorn. 1896N. Munro Lost Pibroch (1902) 88 In her house on the Lowland road Jean Rob starved. 1898Crockett Standard Bearer i. 6 Lambs which had just been brought from a neighbouring lowland farm. |