释义 |
metewand|ˈmiːtwɒnd| Also 6–7 meat-, 5–7, 9 dial. met-, 7 meet-. [f. mete v.1 or met n.1 + wand n.] A measuring rod. Now dial.
c1440Promp. Parv. 336/1 Metwande, idem quod ȝerde. 1549Allen Jude's Par. Rev. 36 The golden reed is as it were a golden met wonde. 1624F. White Repl. Fisher 318 A measure containing the length of a man, which was the meat-wand, or measure which the Angell held. 1668Culpepper & Cole Barthol. Anat. Man. iv. xx. 355 The Drapers Metwand termed an Ell. 1876Whitby Gloss., Met-wand, Met-wood, or Met-yard, a measuring-rod. A draper's yard-stick. b. fig. A standard of measurement or estimation. literary.
a1568R. Ascham Scholem. ii. (Arb.) 101 A true tochstone, a sure metwand lieth before both their eyes. a1656Bp. Hall Rem. Wks. (1660) 205 Time is the common measure of all things, the universal met-wand of the Almighty. 1700C. Ness Antid. agst. Armin. (1827) 8 Measuring supernatural mysteries with the crooked metewand of degenerate reason. 1809–10Coleridge Friend xiii. (1887) 53 The degree of his moral guilt is not the mete-wand of his condemnation. 1866Lowell Lessing Prose Wks. 1890 II. 223 He continually trips and falls flat over his metewand of classical propriety. |