| 释义 |
madrepore|ˈmædrɪpɔə(r)|
[ad. mod.L. madrepora or F. madrépore (1710), ad. It. madrepora.
The Italian naturalist Ferrante Imperato (Hist. Nat., 1599) uses poro as a name for ‘a kind of vegetable the substance of which resembles that of coral, but differs in being porous’. He evidently regarded this word as identical with the ordinary It. poro, ad. L. porus pore n.; but perh. it really represented late L. pōrus, a. Gr. πῶρος calcareous stone, stalactite. Among the species of ‘poro’ he enumerates millepora, frondipora, and ‘those plants by some called madrepores (here madripore, but elsewhere madrepora occurs), which are tubular growths, issuing from a common stem, and attached together at their roots, so that they resemble a honeycomb’. The word madrepora (which Imperato app. did not invent) seems to be f. madre mother + poro, the ending of the latter being changed to suit the gender of the n. prefixed in apposition; on this view, the other words, millepora, frondipora, etc., must have been formed later in imitation of madrepora. A comparison of Imperato's woodcut of the ‘madrepores’ with those of the other species of poro seems to suggest that the prefix ‘mother’ may refer to the appearance of prolific growth characteristic of this ‘plant’.]
1. Formerly applied loosely to most or all of the perforate corals (which, however, were not originally classed as corals); now usually in more restricted use, a polypidom of the genus Madrepora (or family Madreporidæ).
1751Stack (tr. from French) in Phil. Trans. XLVII. 449 The several species of vermicular tubes found in the sea, the madrepores, millepores, lithophytons, corallines, sponges. Ibid. 460 They have denominated pora that class of them, which seem'd pierc'd with holes. Of these they found some, the holes of which were large; and these they call'd madrepora. 1802Bingley Anim. Biog. (1813) III. 475 The Branching and Prickly Madrepore. 1832Lyell Princ. Geol. II. 111 The madrepores or lamelliferous polyparia, are found in their fullest development only in the tropical seas of Polynesia and the East and West Indies. 1840Blyth, etc. tr. Cuvier's Anim. Kingd. (1849) 658 When the Madrepore is branched, and the stars are confined to the extremities of each branch, it is the Caryophyllia of Lamouroux... Madrepora, or Madrepores properly so called, have the whole surface roughened by little stars. 1875Huxley in Encycl. Brit. I. 130/2 In some madrepores the whole skeleton is reduced to a mere network of dense calcareous substance. 1882Cassell's Nat. Hist. VI. 297 The common so-called Madrepore of the Devonshire coast, and those which are dredged up out of moderately deep water in the North Atlantic, are common examples of the genus Caryophyllia.
2. The animal producing the madrepore coral.
1841Emerson Address, Method Nature Wks. (Bohn) II. 224 Nature turns off new firmaments..as fast as the madrepores make coral. 1875Merivale Gen. Hist. Rome xxiii. (1877) 160 The..instinct with which the madrepore extends his empire over the bottom of the ocean.
3. Limestone composed of fossil madrepores.
1809Visct. Valentia Voy. III. 309 The houses in Jidda are far superior to those at Mocha. They are built of large blocks of very fine madrapore [sic].
4. attrib., as madrepore coral, madrepore hole, madrepore island; madrepore marble, = sense 3.
1866–7Livingstone Last Jrnls. (1873) I. iv. 85 The yellow plains..look like yellow hæmatite with madrepore holes in it. 1869tr. Pouchet's Universe (1871) 76 Twenty-six madrepore islands. 1876Page Adv. Text-Bk. Geol. iii. 67 A branch of the common madrepore coral. 1879Cassell's Techn. Educ. ii. 87 Many blocks are almost entirely formed of fossil corals, and known as madrepore marbles.
▸ Zool. = madreporite n. 3.
1955L. H. Hyman Invertebrates IV. vii. 153 Often..support by the dorsal mesentery is also lost, so that the stone canal and madrepore hang freely into the coelom. 1962Jrnl. Paleontol. 36 933 In the interradius to the right of the madrepore, a low pyramid of triangular plates is interpreted as the anus. 2000C. Tudge Variety of Life ii. xii. 328 The fluid within the system is different in composition from the surrounding sea water..although it usually connects to the sea via the madrepore, which in starfish and brittle stars at least is on the aboral surface. |