| 释义 |
caducity|kəˈdjuːsɪtɪ|
[ad. F. caducité, as if:—L. *cadūcitātem, f. cadūcus: see next.]
1. Tendency to fall; quality of being perishable or fleeting; transitoriness, frailty.
1793W. Roberts Looker-on No. 49 (1794) II. 231 One of those evenings of autumn when the chilling damps of the air, and the caducity of nature, deepen the gloom of a melancholy mind. 1841L. Hunt Seer ii. (1864) 60 The stages of human existence, the caducity of which the writer applies to the world at large. 1879M. Pattison Milton 199 The ordinary caducity of language, in virtue of which every effusion of the human spirit is lodged in a body of death.
2. esp. The infirmity of old age, senility.
1769Chesterfield Lett. 426 IV. 272 This melancholick proof of my caducity. 1776–88Gibbon Decl. & F. lxi. (R.) Count Henry assumed the regency of the empire, at once in a state of childhood and caducity. 1815W. Taylor in Roberds Mem. II. 460 My father was attacked with symptoms of caducity. 1841D'Israeli Amen. Lit. (1867) 345 The youth, the middle-age, and the caducity of the eminent personage.
3. Roman Law. Lapse of a testamentary gift.
1875Poste Gaius ii. (ed. 2) 264 The leges caducariæ, which fixed the conditions of caducity. 1880Muirhead Gaius 464 If the party failing to take was sole heir, the caducity caused intestacy.
4. Zool. and Bot. Quality of being caducous.
1881J. S. Gardner in Nature XXIV. 75 The spores become detached before germination..this caducity always characterises the microspore. |