| 释义 |
perpetual, a. (adv. and n.)|pəˈpɛtjuːəl|
Also 4 -ewel, 4–7 -uel, 5 -ueil, 6 parpetuall, (perputall).
[a. F. perpétuel (12th c. in Hatz.-Darm.) = It. perpetuale, ad. L. perpetuāl-is (in Quint., along with universāl-is), deriv. of perpetuus continuous, unbroken, permanent, f. per- 1 + (?) petĕre to aim at, seek.]
A. adj.
1. a. Lasting or destined to last for ever; eternal, unceasing; permanent (during life). Phr. perpetual student (also perpetual scholar): used of one who stays on as a student at a university or similar institution far beyond the normal period.
perpetual curate: see curate 2; so p. curacy, perpetual cure.
a1340Hampole Psalter xxiv. 7 Kepe noght til vengeaunce perpetuel þe trespasis of my ȝouthed. 1377Langl. P. Pl. B. xviii. 198 Þat her peyne be perpetuel & no preyere hem helpe. c1400Mandeville (Roxb.) xxiv. 112 He graunt his lettres of perpetuele peess till all Cristen men. 1456Sir G. Haye Law Arms (S.T.S.) 79 Men that war symple and nocht witty of perpetuale thingis. 1466in Archæologia (1887) L. i. 50 Mr. william leek vicar perpetuall. 1483Caxton G. de la Tour C v b, He dyde his wyf to be..putte in pryson perpetuel. a1533Frith Another Bk. agst. Rastell (1829) 227, I affirm hell & perpetual damnation. 1678Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. iv. 571 Following Plato, we should say, That God was Eternal; but the World only Perpetual. 1742Young Nt. Th. i. 166 How I dreamt Of Things impossible!.. Of Joys perpetual in perpetual Change! 1810in Risdon's Surv. Devon 413 Clawton is a perpetual cure. 1830R. Knox Béclard's Anat. Life 15 Béclard..was unanimously appointed to the office of perpetual secretary to that learned society. 1878Huxley Physiogr. 64 The [mountain] top will be enveloped in perpetual snow. 1924G. Calderon tr. Tchekhof's Cherry Orchard i. 132 Yes, I expect I shall be a perpetual student. Ibid., The ‘Perpetual Student’ has become a common type in Russia during the last fifteen or twenty years. 1960G. Butler Death lives Next Door i. 10 The perpetual scholar; the man who is always proceeding to the next and then the next degree. 1967E. Grierson Crime of one's Own xix. 154 He looked a little on the young side..to spend his life in lending libraries. The perpetual student? 1975‘J. Bell’ Victim vi. 71 The real university-type fanatics and loud-mouthed perpetual students.
b. perpetual motion, motion that goes on for ever; spec. that of a hypothetical machine, which being once set in motion should go on for ever, or until stopped by some external force or the wearing out of the machine. Hence perpetual-motionist.
1593Harvey Pierce's Super. Wks. (Grosart) II. 287 Entelechy..shewing whence they [divine minds] came by their heauenly and perpetuall motion. 1611B. Jonson Char. Author in Coryat's Crudities b iij, He is alwaies Tongue-Maior of the company, and if euer the perpetuall motion be to be hoped for, it is from thence. a1626Bacon New Atl. (1900) 43 We have divers curious Clocks;..And some Perpetuall Motions. 1646Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. ii. ii. 65 Petrus Peregrinus..a Fenchman, who two hundred yeeres since left a Tract of the Magnet and a perpetual motion to be made thereby. 1702Savery Miner's Friend 80, I know the Notions of the Perpetual Motion, or Self⁓moving Engine. 1862H. Spencer First Princ. ii. xxii. (1875) 493 It is of the same order as the belief that misleads perpetual motion schemers. 1872De Morgan Paradoxes 342 A perpetual motionist wanted to explain his method.
c. That serves, is applicable, or remains valid for all time to come, or for an unlimited time; e.g. † perpetual injunction, perpetual settlement.
perpetual action, a legal action for which there is no limitation of time; perpetual almanac = perpetual calendar (b); † perpetual alms = Frank Almoign: see almoign 2; perpetual calendar, (a) a calendar which can be adjusted to show any combination of day, date, and month; (b) a set of tables from which the day of the week can be reckoned for any date; (c) (in full perpetual calendar clock) a clock which indicates the date and automatically takes account of the length of each month; † perpetual caustic, common or lunar caustic: see caustic n. 1; † perpetual pill: see quot. 1727; perpetual screw = endless screw.
c1450Godstow Reg. 35 To be had and to be hold into fre and perpetuel almesse. 1503–4Act 19 Hen VII, c. 29 Preamble, To hold..of your Highnesse and of your heyres in free & perpetuall Almes. 1641Wilkins Math. Magick i. ix, Another invention, commonly styled a perpetuall screw, which hath the motion of a wheel and the force of a screw, being both infinite. 1651G. W. tr. Cowel's Inst. 238, I call those [actions] perpetuall..which have not any set time expresly allotted for their continuance. 1683Lond. Gaz. No. 1832/4 Sir S. Morland's Perpetual Almanack. 1704J. Harris Lex. Techn. I, Infernal-Stone, or Perpetual Caustick, is a Chymical Operation, whereby Silver is rendred Caustick by the Salts of Spirit of Nitre. 1727–41Chambers Cycl. II. s.v. Regulus, Of this regulus [of antimony]..are made..the antimonial pills... These pills, having..performed their office and been discharged the body, will serve the same purpose again, and again; whence they have obtained the name of perpetual pills. 1799P. Moore in R. Patton Asiat. Mon. (1801) 194 note, The manifest, and by no means unnatural, fruit of this last zemindarry system, called the perpetual settlement. 1818Cruise Digest (ed. 2) IV. 548 The Lord Chancellor decreed that a perpetual injunction should be awarded against Lord Forbes and his trustees. 1844H. H. Wilson Brit. India I. 443 Regulations were passed in..1802,..announcing the principles of a perpetual settlement, which..was effected in the districts..subject to the authority of the Madras Government. 1881Encycl. Brit. XII. 76 On the 17th February 1577 was signed the ‘Perpetual Edict’, which ratified the Pacification of Ghent. 1895Montgomery Ward Catal. 254/3 Perpetual Calendar, made of celluloid and..imitation silver..silk ribbons with dates, etc. 1904Harbottle Dict. Allusions 193 Perpetual League, a league entered into in 1291 by the three Forest Cantons of Switzerland. 1960H. Hayward Antique Coll. 215/1 Perpetual calendar clock, clock including a calendar, which corrects itself for the short months... The mechanism consists of a slotted wheel revolving once a year..with slots of varying length which control the movement of a lever, allowing it to pass one or more teeth of the calendar wheel at a time. 1962E. Bruton Dict. Clocks & Watches 130 Perpetual calendar, calendar worked by a clock which corrects for months of different lengths (and sometimes for leap years also). 1971L. P. Davies Shadow Before iii. 30 A perpetual calendar confirmed his earlier estimate. 1973W. J. Burley Death in Salubrious Place v. 105 The perpetual calendar said Wednesday August 25th. Clarissa had changed it that morning.
d. = perennial a. 2 b.
1882Garden 4 Feb. 75/3 The Beta maritima; known as the Perpetual or Beet Spinach.
e. Never ending, endless in succession in space.
1873Black Pr. Thule xiii, This city of perpetual houses.
f. Of an investment: irredeemable. Also ellipt. or as n. Cf. annuity 3.
1869Bradshaw's Railway Manual XXI. 30 Perpetual 4 per cent. stock... Present terminable 4½ per cent. stocks. 1882R. Bithell Counting-House Dict. 224 Consols—commonly called Bank Annuities—are perpetual. 1948G. Crowther Outl. Money (rev. ed.) ii. 75 The mediums, the longs and the perpetuals are liquid at a price. 1965Perry & Ryder Thomson's Dict. Banking (ed. 11) 436/2 Perpetual annuity... The purchaser cannot obtain the principal back, but he can sell his right to the annual payment to someone else.
2. a. Continuing or continued without intermission; constant; continuous; unfailing; uninterrupted.
perpetual bellows, a bellows capable of giving a continuous blast of air.
c1380Wyclif Sel. Wks. III. 431 To be bonde to perpetual kepyng of siche maner signes. 1484Caxton Curiall 3 He shal be enuoyed [pr. ennoyed] now here, now there as a courrour or renner perpetuell. 1552Abp. Hamilton Catech. (1884) 38 The well..and perpetuall spring of gudnes. 1594T. B. La Primaud. Fr. Acad. ii. 437 The humours and qualities are in perpetuall motion. 1697Dryden Virg. Georg. iv. 540 With Waters drawn from their perpetual Spring. 1755Mrs. Delany Life & Corr. (1861) III. 384 The melancholy hurry of business..for some time to come will necessarily keep her spirits in a perpetual flutter. 1758Reid tr. Macquer's Chym. I. 362 Excite the fire violently with a pair, or more, of perpetual bellows till the Iron melt. 1837–9Hallam Hist. Lit. i. v. §16 This produced..perpetual barbarisms and deviations from purity of idiom.
b. Continuous or unbroken in spatial extent.
1658Earl of Monmouth tr. Paruta's Wars Cyprus 109 An almost perpetuall shore, which extends it selfe for the space of thirty miles from the mouth of the Adice, to that of Piave. 1670–98R. Lassels Voy. Italy II. 20 Great Pillars of freestone..whose capitelli..are joyned to one another above by arches and a perpetual cornice. 1791Cowper Iliad vii. 381 [To Ajax] Agamemnon gave the chine Perpetual.
c. perpetual check: in Chess and related games, a situation in which one player cannot prevent the other from making an unlimited sequence of checking moves (and thus obtaining a draw). Also ellipt. as perpetual.
1820J. S. Bingham tr. E. Dal Rio's Incomparable Game of Chess 44 At the end of the game..the Rook sometimes draws the game against the Queen, and is admirable in making a drawn game by perpetual check. 1856C. Tomlinson Chess Player's Ann. 120 ‘You might have drawn the game,’ said he, ‘by perpetual check.’ 1960R. C. Bell Board & Table Games I. ii. 60 [Shatranj.] Perpetual check was considered a drawn game. 1973Correspondence Chess Spring 385/2 Black either has to take a perpetual or allow White to queen a P with a dangerous check.
B. Used as adv. = perpetually.
c1374Chaucer Boeth. ii. Pr. iv. 28 (Camb. MS.) Or ellis yt last nat perpetuel. 1439in Ancestor July (1904) 15 That the said nonnes sette me in here martilage to pray for me perpetuall. 1552Lyndesay Monarche 695 Motioun continuall, Quhilk doith indure perpetuall. 1607Shakes. Timon iv. iii. 503 You perpetuall sober Gods. c1742Gray Ignorance 4 Where rushy Camus' slowly-winding flood Perpetual draws his humid train of mud. 1817Jas. Mill Brit. India II. iv. viii. 282 The tribute..was reduced from nine lacs perpetual, to seven lacs per annum, for the space of six years.
b. perpetual-flowering carnation, a variety of carnation with a long flowering season, usually grown in a cool greenhouse, as it is not hardy out of doors.
1885T. Baines Greenhouse & Stove Plants 93/2 Carnation (Perpetual Flowering)... With a sufficient number of plants they may be had in bloom all the year round. 1900J. Douglas in W. D. Drury Bk. Gardening iii. 55 Perpetual-Flowering Carnations are generally propagated by slips. 1926M. C. Allwood Carnations viii. 55 The Perpetual-flowering Carnation can be planted in May. 1960Times 29 June 17/3 Perpetual-flowering carnations and pinks form a very attractive exhibit. 1971S. Bailey Perpetual-Flowering Carnations (rev. ed.) 18 The perpetual-flowering carnation owes its origin to at least two Dianthus species, namely D. caryophyllus and D. sinensis.
C. n. (elliptical uses of the adj.)
1. a. = perennial n. 1. b. One of several continuously blooming varieties of rose.
c1710C. Fiennes Diary (1888) 300 All sorts of Perpetualls as well as Annualls. 1859Loudon Gardening 1054 Roses... Damask perpetual. Hybrid perpetual. 1890Daily News 28 Jan. 6/6 A choice selection of hybrid perpetuals, tea-scented, and moss kinds.
2. A machine used in shearing cloth: see quot.
1879Cassell's Techn. Educ. IV. 342/2 The shearing is..effected by means of a machine called a ‘perpetual’, consisting of a roller with cutting blades passing spirally round it.
†3. A hereditary or heritable office. Obs.
1568Cecil in Robertson Hist. Scot. (1759) App. xxvii, Providing he shall not dispose of any offices or perpetuals to continue any longer, but to these offered of the premises. |