| 释义 |
offshoot|ˈɒfʃuːt, ɔː-|
[f. off- 3 + shoot.]
1. A shoot springing from the stem or other part of a plant, a lateral shoot; a lateral branch projecting from the main part of anything material, as a nerve-trunk, mountain-range, street, etc.
1814J. Murray in Smiles Life (1891) I. xi. 254 Stunted offshoots of felled trees. 1851Carpenter Man. Phys. (ed. 2) 230 The vesicular matter of the retina is an offshoot (so to speak) from that of the optic ganglion. 1872Raymond Statist. Mines & Mining 275 A constant succession of mountain ranges, spurs, and offshoots from the great central chains. 1872Jenkinson Guide Eng. Lakes (1879) 242 Lonscale Fell is the most eastern offshoot of Skiddaw.
b. fig. A collateral branch or descendant from a (specified) family or race.
1710Addison Tatler No. 157 ⁋10 [She] finds her self related, by some Off-shoot or other, to almost every great Family in England. 1874Symonds Sk. Italy & Greece (1898) I. ix. 188 An offshoot of the great house which had already given Dukes to Florence.
c. Something which originated as a branch of something else; a derivative.
1801Strutt Sports & Past. iii. vi. 222 Off-shoots from the Saturnalian disfigurement. 1867M. E. Herbert Cradle L. ix. 139 A large school in the town, which has offshoots in the surrounding villages. 1878R. B. Smith Carthage 9 The much older settlement of which it may have been an offshoot.
†2. Something that ‘shoots off’ or emanates; an emanation. Obs. rare—1.
1674N. Fairfax Bulk & Selv. 28 The body is..reeking out whole steams of little unseen off-shoots. |