| 释义 |
▪ I. blight, n.|blaɪt|
Also 7–8 blite.
[A word of unknown origin; which entered literature, apparently from the speech of farmers or gardeners, in the 17th c.; literary men were at first doubtful as to its proper spelling, and seem to have thought of the plant blite.
(Among suggestions as to its origin are: that it is somehow related to blichening above; that it may possibly represent an ON. *bleht-r, the antecedent of Icel. blettr stain, spot, blot; that it is a derivative of the verb blike, or of the stem black or bleyke, bleach, bleak; or onomatopœic, with a feeling for blow, blast, and kindred bl- words.)]
1. gen. Any baleful influence of atmospheric or invisible origin, that suddenly blasts, nips, or destroys plants, affects them with disease, arrests their growth, or prevents their blossom from ‘setting’; a diseased state of plants of unknown or assumed atmospheric origin.
1669Worlidge Syst. Agric. viii. §3 (1681) 159 Spoiled by the various mutations of the Air, or by Blights, Mildews, etc. 1697Dryden Virg. Georg. iv. 468 With Blites destroy my Corn. ― Palamon & Arc. ii. 59 So may thy tender Blossoms fear no blite. 1699Garth Dispens. vi. 78 Their blissful Plains no Blites, nor Mildews fear. a1700Temple Miscell., Gardening Wks. 1720 I. 188 [not in ed. 1690] A Soot or Smuttiness upon the Leaves [of Wall fruit]..I complained to the oldest and best Gardeners, who..esteemed it some Blight of the Spring. 1720Gay Poems (1745) II. 87 Fade not with sudden blights or winter's wind. 1737Miller Gard. Dict. (R.) Blights are often caused by a continued easterly wind. 1812J. Wilson Isle of Palms iv. 762 Flowers..Unharm'd by frost or blight.
2. Specifically applied to:
a. Diseases in plants caused by fungoid parasites, as mildew, rust, or smut, in corn. (App. the earliest use.)
1611Cotgr., Brulure, blight, brancorne; (an hearbe). 1671Skinner Etymol., Blight, idem quod milldew..quæ fruges corrumpit. 1807Vancouver Agric. Devon (1813) 434 Wheat..very much smitten with the bligh[t], or rust, as it is generally called in this neighbourhood. 1830Lindley Nat. Syst. Bot. 337 The blight in corn, occasioned by Puccinia graminis. 1859W. Coleman Woodlands (1866) 75 If a tuft of this blight as it is called be closely examined.
b. A species of aphis, destructive to fruit-trees.
[Cf.1727Bradley Fam. Dict. s.v., The common People..are well satisfy'd that Blights are brought by the East Wind, which brings or hatches the Caterpillar.] 1802Paley Nat. Theol. xxvi. (1819) 423 What we call blights are oftentimes legions of animated beings. 1882Garden 11 Feb. 99/2 The worst insect enemy to the attacks of which the Apple is liable is what is termed the American blight. 1885Contemp. Rev. Oct. 561 It thinks there are some ‘blight’ among the blossoms at the top, and if there are it will eat them.
c. A close hazy overcast state of the atmosphere, which sometimes prevails in summer or autumn.
1848Lytton Harold iv. 194 In that smoke as in a blight the wings withered up.
3. Applied to affections of the face or skin:
a. An eruption on the human skin consisting of minute reddish pimples, ‘a form of Lichen urticatus.’
1864in Webster. 1880in Syd. Soc. Lex.
b. Facial palsy arising from cold. Syd. Soc. Lex.
c. blight in the eye: extravasation of blood under the conjunctive membrane.
4. transf. and fig.
a. Any malignant influence of obscure or mysterious origin; anything which withers hopes or prospects, or checks prosperity.
a1661B. Holyday Juvenal 246 Let Isis with her timbrel strike me blind (not properly with the sistrum it self, but with its invisible power, with a blite). 1797Godwin Enquirer i. v. 35 Genius..may..suffer an untimely blight. 1873Burton Hist. Scot. VI. lxx. 212 A strange mysterious punishment, which seemed like a blight or judgement of a higher power. 1884Fortn. Rev. Jan. 79 The withering blight of Turkish rule.
b. spec. An unsightly urban area (cf. blighted ppl. a. 1 b).
1938L. Mumford Culture of Cities 8 We..face the accumulated physical and social results of that disruption: ravaged landscapes, disorderly urban districts,..patches of blight, mile upon mile of standardized slums. 1952M. Lock et al. Bedford by River i. 23/1 Blight clearance will affect another 4,100 people who will be displaced from the main clearance areas. Ibid. 23/2 Isolated pockets of blight.
5. Comb., as blight-beetle. blight-bird Austral. and N.Z., an early settlers' name for a bird belonging to the Australian genus Zosterops.
1852T. Harris Insects New Eng. 79 This insect, which may be called the blight-beetle, from the injury it occasions, attacks also apple, apricot, and plum trees. 1870R. Taylor Maori & Eng. Dict. 17/2 Kanohimowhiti, or Tauhau, white eye or blight bird (Zosterops lateralis) was first observed July, 1856 in the South, and about Auckland. 1882T. H. Potts Out in Open 130 The white-eye or blight-bird..clears away multitudes of small insect pests. 1888Newton in Encycl. Brit. XXIV. 824/1 In 1856 it was noticed..as occurring in the South Island of New Zealand, when it became known..to the English settlers as the ‘Blight-bird’. 1965Austral. Encycl. VIII. 129/2 Silvereyes..do much good by destroying scale-insects and other pests, and have thereby earned the name of blight-birds.
▪ II. blight, v.|blaɪt|
[f. the n.]
1. trans. To affect with blight (see the n., sense 1).
1695J. Woodward Nat. Hist. Earth iv. 212 It then blasts Vegetables,..blights Corn and Fruits, and is sometimes injurious even to Men. 1727Bradley Fam. Dict. s.v. Blight, Some do conjecture, that it is the East Wind of itself that Blights. 1803R. Anderson Cumberld. Ballads 79 She bleets the cworn wi' her bad e'e. 1834Pringle Afr. Sk. iv. 186 A sharp frost..blighted all our early potatoes. 1842Tennyson Poet's Mind 18 There is frost in your breath Which would blight the plants.
b. transf. of parts of the body.
1811Scott Don Roderick v. li, Blighted be the tongue That names thy name without the honour due.
2. fig. To exert a baleful influence on; to destroy the brightness, beauty, or promise of; to nip in the bud, mar, frustrate.
1712Addison Spect. No. 457 ⁋3 It [Lady Blast's whisper] blights like an easterly wind. 1735Oldys Life Raleigh Wks. 1829 I. 357 Yet could [they]..blite them [brave and active spirits] from advancing to any fruitful or profitable conclusions. 1832Lewis Use & Ab. Pol. Terms iii. 34 Deprivation of rank..which blights so many prospects. 1863Geo. Eliot Romola ii. iv. (1880) II. 44 The delusion which had blighted her young years. |