| 释义 |
Mesopotamia|mɛsəpəˈteɪmɪə|
[a. Gr. µεσοποταµία (sc. χωρά) country between two rivers (applied spec. as below), f. µέσο-ς middle + ποταµός river.]
1. a. A proper name for the tract between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Sometimes used allusively in etymological sense for: A tract between two rivers.
1854R. G. Latham Native Races Russian Emp. 177 The Doab, Entre Rios, or Mesopotamia, bounded by the rivers Obi and Irtish. 1886Pall Mall Gaz. 23 June 13/2 Every Oxford man has known and loved the beauties of the walk called Mesopotamia. 1944G. B. Cressey Asia's Lands & Peoples xxvi. 401/2 The land between the rivers, that is, the true ‘Mesopotamia’, is thus capable of easy irrigation from either side. 1963A. R. Woolley Clarendon Guide Oxf. 130 A path continues between the river and a mill-race and this is known as Mesopotamia.
b. = Belgravia.
1864E. Yates Broken to Harness (ed. 3) xv. 271 A house in Great Adullam Street, Macpelah Square, in that district of London whilom known as ‘Mesopotamia’.
2. As the type of a word which is long, pleasant-sounding, and incomprehensible; used allusively for something which gives irrational or inexplicable comfort or satisfaction to the hearer (see quots.).
1827Scott Chron. Canongate 1st Ser. I. v. 109 She resembled exactly in her criticism the devotee who pitched on the ‘sweet word Mesopotamia’, as the most edifying note which she could bring away from a sermon. 1870Brewer's Dict. Phr. & Fable 572/1 The true ‘Mesopotamia’ ring..i.e., something high-sounding and pleasing, but wholly past comprehension. The allusion is to the story of an old woman who told her pastor that she ‘found great support in that comfortable word Mesopotamia’. 1886‘M. Gray’ Silence of Dean Maitland III. iii. iv. 94 It was said of the Bishop of Belminster that he could pronounce the mystic word ‘Mesopotamia’ in such a manner as to affect his auditors to tears; but of the dean it might be averred that his pronunciation of ‘Mesopotamia’ caused the listeners' hearts to vibrate with every sorrow and every joy they had ever known, all in the brief space of time occupied by the utterance of that affecting word. 1906F. M. Parsons Garrick & his Circle 245 Whitefield possessed the inborn gift of preaching to the nerves, and there is an edifying, though probably fallacious, report of Garrick's having remarked that he could pronounce ‘Mesopotamia’ in such a way as to move any audience to tears. 1908G. B. Shaw Platform & Pulpit (1962) 47 There are people who will swallow as inspired revelation any sort of stuff that, so to speak, has the word Mesopotamia in it. 1924L. Parks What is Modernism? p. xviii, The reaction to words is a curious psychological—I suspect pathological— phenomenon. The oft-told tale of the good woman who found ‘Mesopotamia’ a soothing word is one example. |