| 释义 |
Nitrian, a.|ˈnɪtrɪən|
[f. the name Nitria: see -an.]
Of, pertaining to, or designating the desert region of Nitria in Egypt, spec. the Christian hermit monks, renowned for asceticism, who lived there in the fourth century.
1867C. M. Yonge Pupils of St. John ix. 149 Christians..are said to have preferred the Nitrian valley because of the words of Jeremiah—‘though thou wash thee with nitre’. 1892I. G. Smith Christian Monasticism vii. 186 In the famous monastery of St. Gall, in Switzerland, as in the Nitrian monasteries of the fifth century, the whip..was suspended from a pillar in the chapter-house. 1904J. O. Hannay Wisdom of Desert 6 Journeying still southwards over about forty miles of utterly desolate land, he would come to a long valley extending east and west between two ranges of mountains.. covered with..dangerous rocks. This is the famous Nitrian desert... At the end of the fourth century the Nitrian mountains were dotted over with hermits' cells. 1923T. E. Lawrence Let. 14 May (1938) 416 This sort of thing must be madness... It's terrible to hold myself voluntarily here, and yet I want to stay here till it no longer hurts me... It's a lurid flash into the Nitrian desert: seems almost to strip the sainthood from Anthony. 1958L. Durrell Balthazar iv. 80 His mind winged away like a swallow across the dunes into the Nitrian desert itself. |