| 释义 |
portable, a. and n.|ˈpɔətəb(ə)l|
[a. F. portable, ad. late L. portābilis that may be carried, f. portāre to bear, carry: see port v.1 and -able.]
A. adj.
1. a. Capable of being carried by hand or on the person; capable of being moved from place to place; easily carried or conveyed. Also used to distinguish mechanical devices or electrical apparatus manufactured in forms smaller and lighter than normal, to enable them to be easily carried about.
Often used to distinguish modified movable forms of machines or structures which as a rule are constructed as immovable fixtures, as portable derrick, dial, fence, furnace, railway, steam engine, etc.
c1400tr. Secreta Secret., Gov. Lordsh. 91 Þat portable kynde... he þanne, þat yn his name racys hit, and berys it with hym clanly, he shal purchace reuerence and honour. 1594Plat Jewell-ho. iii. 36 A portable ynke to be caried in the forme of a powder in any paper, leather purse or boxe. 1597A. M. tr. Guillemeau's Fr. Chirurg. lf. xvi b/1 The Instrumentes of a little portable case. a1653W. Gouge Comm. Heb. ii. (1655) 300 The [tabernacle] was a kind of portable Temple. 1669Sturmy Mariner's Mag. v. xii. 49 Very portable and fit for his Pocket. 1706Phillips, Portable Barometer. 1730A. Gordon Maffei's Amphith. 337 Portable Forms or Benches. 1821J. Q. Adams in C. Davies Metr. Syst. iii. (1871) 200 The pound weight should be a specific gravity easily portable about the person. 1831Brewster Optics xl. §192. 330 A very convenient portable camera obscura. 1837W. Irving Capt. Bonneville II. 192 He..put up a small stock of necessaries in the most portable form. 1872Yeats Growth Comm. 50 Holding property not in lands but portable goods. 1913Wireless World Apr. p. xxxiv/2 The hon. secretary showed some model Marconi apparatus and a portable set. 1926Scribner's Mag. Aug. 76/2 (Advt.), Portable receiving sets..now make it possible to carry this fine radio entertainment to summer camps and cottages. 1929Radio Times 8 Nov. 444/1 What fun you can have with a portable gramophone. 1932A. Christie Peril at End House ii. 31 There was a gramophone and..a portable wireless. 1937E. Wharton Ghosts 22 In the middle of the carefully scoured table stood a portable wireless. 1951Catal. of Exhibits, South Bank Exhib., Festival of Britain 128/2 Portable radio..mains or battery. 1961Lebende Sprachen VI. 70/1 Portable typewriter. 1976H. Nielsen Brink of Murder i. 11 The sportscast on the portable TV was in progress. 1977Wandsworth Borough News 16 Sept. 17/4 To permit portable radios and accept the inevitability of dog mess, whilst stridently prohibiting children from cycling seems to reflect odd standards.
b. Said of liquid substances congealed, and of gaseous substances liquefied, so as to be more conveniently carried or transported.
1758J. Blake Plan Mar. Syst. 53 Portable soop was recommended. 1836W. Irving Astoria II. 192 Five pounds of portable soup, and a sufficient quantity of dried meat to allow each man a pittance of five pounds and a quarter. 1836–41Brande Chem. (ed. 5) 546 Large quantities of this liquid were obtained at the Portable Gas-works, by subjecting the gas produced by the decomposition of whale oil, to a pressure of 30 atmospheres. 1849Punch XVII. 91/2 We have all heard of ‘Portable Soup’... Now we have ‘Portable Milk’. A small jar of this solidified material, we are told, contains the equivalent of six gallons of fluid milk.
c. fig. Easy to carry in the memory, to carry out in practice, etc.
1655Fuller Ch. Hist. vii. i. §31 These Psalms were therefore translated, to make them more portable in peoples memories. 1711Steele Spect. No. 100 ⁋4 This portable Quality of Good-humour seasons all the Parts and Occurrences we meet with.
d. Of a building or the like: not of a permanent construction; capable of being dismantled and re-erected elsewhere.
1860Players I. v. 39 (Advt.), Portable Theatres with scenery, Gas Fittings, &c. fitted up in town or country. 1955[see portability]. 1968Globe & Mail (Toronto) 3 Feb. 50/1 All have temporary lodging, two in portable halls and one in Woodbine Junior High School. 1972[see modular a. 1 b].
e. fig. Of rights, privileges, information, etc.: capable of being transferred or adapted in changed circumstances.
1965Economist 13 Feb. 671 Pension rights..should not be lost when an employee is sacked or moves to another firm; ideally they should be ‘portable’. 1967Wall St. Jrnl. 5 Jan. 2/3 (heading) Hoffa to seek portable pensions for teamsters moving into new jobs. 1970A. Cameron et al. Computers & Old Eng. Concordances 22 The proposal never says..what care he's going to take to make sure that his work is portable, that his work really can be used by people at other institutions.
†2. fig. Supportable; bearable; endurable; that can be borne or tolerated. Obs.
c1500Melusine 209 To putte me to raisounable raunson & payement portable to me. 1589–90Reg. Privy Council Scot. IV. 452 Fra all watcheing,..stent or contributioun, or beiring or sustening of ony uther portable chargeis. 1605Shakes. Lear iii. vi. 115 How light and portable my pain seems now. a1653Binning Serm. (1845) 585 The soul puts upon Him that unsupportable yoke of Transgressions, and takes from Him the portable yoke of His commandments.
†3. Capable of carrying ships or boats; navigable.
1600Hakluyt Voy. III. 46 If you find great plentie of tymber on the shore side or vpon any portable riuer. 1645–52Boate Irel. Nat. Hist. (1860) 21 The Nuric-water..is not portable but of very little barkes and boats, and that only when the tide is in. 1685Wood Life 23 Mar. III. 136 A drie winter: no flood: waters very low, not portable.
†4. Portly. Obs. rare.
1769R. Cumberland Brothers (1808) 29 He..is a little peaking, puling thing; I am a jolly portable man, as you see.
B. n. That which is portable; spec. a piece of machinery that is portable (in sense 1 a above); usu. ellipt. for portable camera, computer, gramophone, radio, typewriter, etc.
1883J. Hay in Century Mag. Dec. 281/2, I don't doubt..but what we could pay ourselves well for the job,—spoil the 'Gyptians, you know,—forage on the enemy. Plenty of portables in them houses, eh! 1918C. Stone Let. 3 Apr. in C. Mackenzie My Life & Times (1966) V. 132 The gramophone (a Decca portable) is going again this evening after a fortnight's silence. 1926Wireless World 26 May 16/1 (Advt.), For sale... Portables. 1930T. E. Lawrence Let. 8 Jan. (1938) 677 An Italian bad-hat dashed me one of those electric gramophones... All the same that portable was good at Miranshah. 1931B. Brown Talking Pictures v. 132 The Western Electric portable for sound-on-film. 1933Hearst's International Mar. 101/2, I doubt if Mrs. Norris could type out a really good chapter on her rickety portable. 1952M. Laski Village vi. 103 We've got an old portable we used to use for the farm correspondence... But she can't do touch⁓typing. 1957Practical Wireless XXXIII. 530/2 Next comes the portable. It is probably here that it [sc. the transistor] finds its greatest application. 1960Life 5 Dec. 8 (Advt.), This is the new Motorola portable—forerunner of all TV to come and gift idea of a lifetime. 1966Auden About House 18 The Olivetti portable, The dictionaries (the very Best money can buy). 1973Times 30 Oct. 32/9 (Advt.), Colour T.V. portables. 1976J. Lee Ninth Man ii. 201 He would steal some of these carbons. Sarah had a little portable at his apartment. He would retype them. 1983Observer 19 June 21/1 Although perception of portability differs radically, three categories can be discerned{ddd}These are the handhelds, the true portables, and the transportables. 1984Computer News 6 Dec. 11 It's the only portable that can give you the benefits of integrated office automation. 1986Guardian 14 Apr. 22/5 Portables should run for at least a few hours on batteries and be small enough to fit into a briefcase.
Hence ˈportableness, portability.
1727Bailey vol. II, Portableness, capableness of being carried.
▸ Computing. Of software: usable on different machines or on different systems; transferable from one machine or system to another.
1971J. F. Traub in J. R. Rice Math. Software v. 136 By portable software we mean that only small easily identifiable changes are necessary to transfer the software to a new environment. 1984QL User Dec. 28 As it is written mostly in machine-independent code, the system is extraordinarily portable. 2001Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey) (Nexis) 8 Jan. [He] has experience writing his own asset-management software. The difference this time is that he's making it fully portable, and useful across industry groups and even the military. |