| 释义 |
▪ I. parasite, n.|ˈpærəsaɪt|
Also 6 parrasite, parasyte, paresite, 6–7 parasit.
[ad. L. parasīt-us, -a, a. Gr. παράσῑτος lit. one who eats at the table of another, hence one who lives at another's expense and repays him with flattery, etc.; orig. an adj. = feeding beside; f. παρα- beside + σῖτος food. Cf. F. parasite (Rabelais 1535).]
1. a. One who eats at the table or at the expense of another; always with opprobrious application: ‘One that frequents rich tables and earns his welcome by flattery’ (J.); one who obtains the hospitality, patronage, or favour of the wealthy or powerful by obsequiousness and flattery; a hanger-on from interested motives; a ‘toady’.
1539Taverner Erasm. Prov. (1552) 71 It is the fashion of a flatterer and parasyte to lyue of an other man's trencher. 1542Udall Erasm. Apoph. 199 Parasites, were called suche smellefeastes as would seeke to bee free geastes at riche mennes tables. 1568Grafton Chron. II. 397 He..distributed the Dukes landes to his Parasites, and flatteryng folowers. 1607Shakes. Timon iii. vi. 104 You knot of Mouth-Friends:..Most smiling, smooth, detested Parasites. 1736Bolingbroke Patriot. (1749) 139 Crowds of spies, parasites and sycophants, will surround the throne under the patronage of such ministers. 1862Thackeray Four Georges iii, The good clergy not corrupted into parasites by hopes of preferment.
fig.1597–8Bp. Hall Sat. i. Prol. 10 Hath made his pen an hired parasite. 16022nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass. v. iv. 2160 This fond earth..Where most mens pens are hired parasites.
b. Gr. Antiq. One admitted to the table kept up for a public officer, or to the feast after a sacrifice.
(This is a sense given by the Greek grammarians and late writers, which was app. obs. in b.c. 400; it comes nearer to the etymological sense, but stands quite apart from the general current of meaning in Gr., L., and Eng.)
1697Potter Antiq. Greece i. xxvi. (1715) 147 The βασιλεύς is to take care that the Parasites be created out of the People, whose duty 'tis, each of them to reserve out of his allowance an Hecteum of Barly,..for the maintenance of the Genuine Citizens Feast. 1706Phillips, Parasite (among the Ancients) was the Priest's Guest, whom he invited to eat part of the Sacrifice: whence the word is taken for a smell-feast [etc.]. 1770Langhorne Plutarch (1879) I. 106/1 note, In the first ages the name of parasite was venerable and sacred, for it properly signified one that was a messmate at the table of sacrifices. 1791–1823D'Israeli Cur. Lit., Confus. Words. 1807Robinson Archæol. Græca i. xxiii. 100, iii. iii. 202. 1868 Smith Smaller Dict. Ant., s.v.
2. a. Biol. An animal or plant which lives in or upon another organism (technically called its host) and draws its nutriment directly from it. Also extended to animals or plants that live as tenants of others, but not at their expense (strictly called commensal or symbiotic); also to those which depend on others in various ways for sustenance, as the cuckoo, the skua-gull, etc. (see parasitic 2 b); and (inaccurately) to plants which grow upon others, deriving support but not nourishment from them (epiphytes), or which live on decaying organic matter (saprophytes).
See note s.v. parasitic 2 a.
1727–41Chambers Cycl., Parasites..in botany, a kind of diminutive plants, growing on trees, and so called from their manner of living and feeding, which is altogether on others... Such is moss,..which, with the lichens and mistletoe's, make the family of parasite plants. 1826Kirby & Sp. Entomol. xliv. IV. 209 The great body of insect parasites..belong to the Hymenoptera Order. 1835Henslow Phys. Bot. §234 Certain plants..obtain their nourishment immediately from other plants to which they attach themselves, and whose juices they absorb. Such plants are true ‘Parasites’. 1871Darwin Desc. Man I. i. i. 12 Man is infested with internal..and is plagued by external parasites. 1892J. A. Thomson Outlines Zool. 151 The Trematodes are leaf-like or roundish external or internal parasites.
b. Applied, loosely or poetically, to a plant that creeps or climbs about another plant or a wall, trellis-work, etc., by which it is supported.
1813Shelley Q. Mab i. 43 Like tendrils of the parasite Around a marble column. 1843Prescott Mexico ii. vii. (1864) 114 The branches of the..trees were..festooned with clustering vines of..variegated convolvuli, and other flowering parasites. 1876Browning A Forgiveness 77 Helpless as the statue..Against that strangling bell-flower's bondage: tear Away..the parasite.
c. fig. A person whose part or action resembles that of an animal parasite.
1883H. Drummond Nat. Law in Spir. W., Parasitism (1902) 95 Instead of having learned to pray the ecclesiastical parasite becomes satisfied with being prayed for. His transactions with the Eternal are effected by commission. 1898Westm. Gaz. 18 Jan. 3/1 If the employer who gives less than the equivalent of work in wages is a parasite, so also is the labourer who gives less than the equivalent of wages in work.
d. Philol. A parasitic vowel or consonant: see parasitic 3 b.
1888Sweet Eng. Sounds 40 The quality of the parasite is often determined by that of the nearest accented vowel.
3. Min. A mineral developed upon or within another; spec. [ad. Ger. parasit] a plumose variety of boracite, the result of alteration.
1868Dana Min. (ed. 5) 596 Parasite of Volger is the plumose interior of some crystals of boracite. 1896A. H. Chester Dict. Names Min., Parasite..(Parasit), because formed as a parasite at the expense of the original mineral. The plumose interior of certain crystals of boracite.
4. attrib. often passing into adj. = parasitic; parasite-vowel, parasite-consonant, parasite-sound, parasite-letter: see 2 d; parasite-diphthong, a diphthong formed by the development of a parasite beside the original vowel; parasite drag Aeronaut., the drag of all parts of an aircraft other than that induced by the lift or due to the lifting surface (quot. 1927 represents a broader use); parasite (jet) fighter Aeronaut., an aircraft carried by and operating from another aircraft; parasite resistance Aeronaut. = parasite drag.
1875F. S. Haden Earth to Earth 60 Not the respectable tradesman..but a *parasite class which interposes itself.
1888Sweet Eng. Sounds 40 E. fear..from OE. fēr shows how *parasite-diphthongs begin.
1927V. W. Page Mod. Aircraft (1928) iv. 134 The *parasite drag results from friction of the air on the parts of the airplane, including the wings, tail, fuselage, landing gear, etc., and from the eddies set up by these parts when in motion. 1934Jrnl. R. Aeronaut. Soc. XXXXIII. 459 For aeroplanes of normal design, the ratio of induced drag to parasite drag was very low at high speeds. 1958Guided Missiles (U.S. Dept. Air Force) ii. 24/2 Both parasite and induced drag vary as the square of the velocity. 1965C. N. Van Deventer Introd. Gen. Aeronaut. iv. 59/1 The resistance of parts that do not contribute to lift is called parasite drag.
1948Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Va.) 2 Jan. 10/1 A new jet fighter plane is expected soon to start and end a flight high in the sky for the first time in history. This is the McDonnell XP-85, known as a ‘*parasite’ fighter because it is based on a larger craft. 1948Shell Aviation News No. 121. 6/3 The Air Force has announced the building by McDonnell of a parasite jet fighter..designed to be carried in the front bomb-bay of Consolidated's B-36. It has no landing gear and is launched and picked-up by means of a retractable hook which engages in an eye on the mother plane. 1977New Scientist 25 Aug. 489/4 In the immediate post-war years the US Army Air Force test launched the diminutive McDonnell XF-85 Goblin parasite fighter from the bomb bay of a Boeing B-29 bomber.
1727–41Chambers Cycl. s.v. Moss, A little plant of the *parasite kind.
1817Coleridge Biog. Lit. I. i. 6 These *parasite plants of youthful poetry.
1918Webster Add., *Parasite resistance. 1921Flight XIII. 509/2 Great reduction in parasite resistance..is brought about by the cantilever construction. 1929Aircraft Engineering Mar. 10 Giant seaplanes are another story... Aerodynamically they are disappointingly full of parasite resistance.
1888*Parasite vowel [see parasite v. 3].
1809–10Coleridge Friend (1865) 37 The *parasite weeds, that fed on its very roots.
5. Comb., as parasite-containing, parasite-covered, parasite-infested, parasite-like adjs.
1897Outing (U.S.) XXX. 163/2 Fish..with thin, parasite-covered bodies. 1897Pop. Sci. Monthly Nov. 70 Which effect their dispersal in this parasitelike way. 1898P. Manson Trop. Diseases iii. 74 Parasite-containing red blood corpuscles. Ibid. 75 Effete parasite-infested corpuscles.
▪ II. ˈparasite, v. rare.
[f. prec. n.]
1. intr. To act the parasite or sycophant.
1609Bp. W. Barlow Answ. Nameless Cath 41 Popes testifying of themselues; or Canonists Paraziting to Popes. 1932[see gazump v.].
2. trans. To infest as a parasite, to parasitize. Also fig.
1868Amer. Naturalist May 128 Parasited cocoons and eggs of insects, or living insects and other animals infested by parasites. 1882Amer. Naturalist XVI. 150, I had the opportunity of examining a larva..parasited by an allied species. 1963Guardian 14 June 10/2 The cuckoo bees Psithyrus..parasite the Bombex. 1968Daily Tel. (Colour Suppl.) 8 Nov. 12/3 Viruses are incomplete cells. They exist by parasiting ‘proper’ cells, and getting into them. 1969K. Giles Death cracks Bottle vii. 83 The only worry I had was that he might be parasiting the business stone dry. 1976Eastern Daily Press (Norwich) 19 Nov. 12/2 Beds of pelargoniums..heavily parasited by this rust.
3. intr. (Philol.) To develop a parasitic sound.
1888Sweet Eng. Sounds 40 (Parasiting) The development of parasite-vowels before and after certain consonants... The first stage in parasiting..is seen in such words as E. bower, German bauer from older būr, in which the glide to the (r) has been exaggerated into an independent (ə). |