| 释义 |
plumb-line, n.|ˈplʌmlaɪn|
Also 7 plim-.
1. A line or cord having at one end a metal bob or plummet, for testing or determining vertical direction; sometimes = plumb-rule.
1538Elyot Dict. Perpendiculum, a plumlyne, such as masons and carpenters haue, with leadde at the ende. 1609Bible (Douay) Isa. xxxiv. 11 A measure shal be stretched out upon it, to bring it to nothing and a plumme line unto destruction. 1611Cotgr., Aniveller, to..square by plumbe⁓line, or plumbe-rule. 1613M. Ridley Magn. Bodies 43 A plim line fastened to one end of the diamiter. 1706Phillips, Plumb-Line, Plumb-Rule, or Plummet, an Instrument us'd by Carpenters, Masons, Bricklayers and others, to find whether a Pillar, Wall, etc. stand upright. 1815J. Smith Panorama Sc. & Art I. 277 The attraction of a lofty mountain is found to draw a plumb-line..a little out of the perpendicular.
b. fig. A means of testing or judging; a standard.
1570T. Norton Nowel's Catech. (1853) 182 To be directed and tried by the most precise rule, and, as it were, by the plumbline of God's law and judgment. 1666Sancroft Lex Ignea 18 We have no Plumb-line of Reason.
†2. Geom. A vertical or perpendicular line; a straight line at right angles to another. Obs.
1551Recorde Pathw. Knowl. i. Defin., When one line lyeth flatte (whiche is named the ground line) and an other commeth downe on it, and is called a perpendiculer or plumme lyne. 1570Billingsley Euclid i. x. 3 A perpendicular line, commonly called among artificers a plumbe lyne. 1704J. Harris Lex. Techn. I, Plumb-Line, the same with Perpendicular.
3. A mariner's sounding-line; also fig. something with which to fathom intellectual or moral depths.
1648C. Walker Hist. Independ. i. 116 This is an unsoundable Gulfe, here any plumb-line faileth me. 1864Spectator 7 May 527/2 This truth..that degrees of guilt are so utterly beyond the fathoming powers of our plumb-lines without a knowledge of the moral opportunities and antecedents of every life. 1884J. Tait Mind in Matter Pref. (1892) 6 The plumbline of human degradation surely never touched a lower depth.
Hence ˈplumb-line v., to sound, or determine, as by a plumb-line.
1846Mrs. Gore Eng. Char. (1852) 3 The moment a presumptuous individual acts or thinks an inch out of the plumb-lined perpendicularity exacted by the formalities of society. 1875Lewes Probl. Life & Mind II. ii. §78. 90 Some unattainable depth to be postulated, but not plumb-lined. |