| 释义 |
proteiform, a.|ˈprəʊtiːɪfɔːm|
[f. Prote-us + -iform.]
Changeable in form, or assuming many various forms, like the fabled Proteus or the ‘proteus-animalcule’; protean, multiform, extremely variable or various.
1793Critical Rev. IX. 183 Pathologists have, within these last years, differed greatly respecting the cause of this Proteiform disease [sc. gout]. 1833B. G. Babington tr. Hecker's Black Death ii. (1888) 20 This violent disease..is proteiform in its varieties. 1849–52Todd's Cycl. Anat. IV. 1224/2 Proteiform expansions of the Amœba and other inferior animals. 1853H. Lushington Ital. War (1859) 237 [They] must imagine to themselves such a string as never was put together before of..all the possible proteiform transformations of an absolute and impartial egotism. 1862H. Spencer First Princ. ii. xix. §152 (1875) 414 When we turn from these proteiform specks of living jelly..we find differences of tissue. 1944S. Putnam tr. E. da Cunha's Rebellion in Backlands ii. 84 The proteiform mestizo of the seaboard. |