| 释义 |
lynchet|ˈlɪnʃɪt|
Forms: 7– lynchet(t, 9 linchard, 8–9 linchet.
[f. linch n.2; perh. by confusion with lanchet, landshard.]
1. A strip of green land between two pieces of ploughed land.
1674Ray S. & E.C. Words 71 A Lynchett, a green balk to divide lands. a1722Lisle Husb. (1752) 67 There happened in this ground to be a linchet ploughed up in the winter. 1863Barnes Dorset Gloss., Linchet or Linch, Lynchet or Lynch,..the strip of green ground between two ploughed ledges. 1893Wiltshire Gloss., Linch, Linchet,..Linchard, &c.
2. A slope or terrace along the face of a chalk down. (Cf. linch n.2). Also attrib.
1797[see linch n.2]. 1844Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc. V. i. 169 The parings from road-sides, old banks, and linchets, ant⁓hills, &c., are burnt. 1888T. Hardy Wessex Tales (1889) 26 The ‘lynchets’, or flint slopes, which belted the escarpment at intervals of a dozen yards. 1898― Wessex Poems 135 That Highway the Icen, Which trails its pale riband down Wessex O'er lynchet and lea. 1917J. Masefield Old Front Line 42 The line of the lynchet-top merges into the slope behind it.
b. Archæol. A cultivation terrace. Also attrib.
1796Gentl. Mag. LXVI. 822/1 On the declivities of the elevated and chalky tracts of Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, and other counties, there very frequently occurs a beautiful assemblage of terraces, mostly horizontal, and rising in a continued series like the steps of Egyptian pyramids... These, which are commonly arable,..are popularly called lynchets... They are generally regarded in the neighbourhood as the offspring of human exertion in remote ages, to facilitate and extend the dominion of the plough. 1869D. Mackintosh Scenery Eng. & Wales iv. ii. 89 Many terraces are still cultivated but..there is..a general desire to plough down the ‘lynchets’ (as they are locally called), and..formerly their number was much greater than at present. 1908A. H. Allcroft Earthwork of Eng. ii. 40 All but the very summits of the highest Downs were early ploughed, and the lynchets must in many cases be of mediæval, if not of Saxon date. 1953R. J. C. Atkinson Field Archaeol. (ed. 2) 19 When lynchets (cultivation terraces) are photographed facing a setting sun, the sloping faces of the terraces..will reflect more light than the surrounding ground. 1954M. Beresford Lost Villages ix. 297 On the valley sides are lynchet-like terraces which look as if they mark where the ploughs moved. 1968J. Arnold Shell Bk. Country Crafts 13 Celtic farmers increased the areas of their arable land by excavating some of the hillsides and making terraces or lynchets.
Hence ˈlynchetted ppl. a., of land: cultivated in this way.
1928Antiquity June 171 To the south and west of the lynchetted area lies what is known as ‘The Druid's Circle’. 1933Ibid. VII. 494 The..rarity in Cumbria of the lynchetted form of settlement. 1954S. Piggott Neolithic Cultures ii. 33 Certain types of settlement, characterized by huts within irregular lynchetted areas, may be Neolithic in date. |