| 释义 |
seeker|ˈsiːkə(r)|
Forms: 4 secher, sekere, 5 seker, 6 seaker, Sc. seiker, 6– seeker.
[f. seek v. + -er1.]
1. a. One who seeks, in various senses of the verb; a searcher, an explorer, one who endeavours to find something hidden or lost. Const. as the vb. Also in phr. seeker after truth.
Often used as the second element in objective combinations, such as office-seeker, pleasure-seeker.
c1330Arth. & Merl. 1196 (Kölbing) On a day, as ich ȝou telle, Þo ich þre sechers snelle Þat were ysent fram þe king. 1387–8T. Usk Test. Love Prol. 117 Knowing of trouth in causes of thinges was more hardyer in the first sechers..and lighter in us that han folowed after. 1483Cath. Angl. 328/1 A Seker, scrutator. 1567Palfreyman Baldwin's Mor. Philos. vii. vii. (1600) 129 Neither slaunder nor flatter, nor bee no seeker out of other mens matters. 1596Dalrymple tr. Leslie's Hist. Scot. I. 136 He trett mekle the seikeris of wylde beistes. a1686Clarkson Serm. (1696) 150 He rewards all seekers. 1818Byron Juan i. cxliv, 'Tis odd, not one of all these seekers thought..Of looking in the bed as well as under. 1840[see scientist]. a1850J. C. Calhoun Wks. (1874) IV. 302 As soon as the government becomes the mere creature of seekers of office, your free institutions are nearly at an end. 1868Farrar (title) Seekers after God. 1881Lady D. Hardy Through Cities & Prairie Lands 131, I fancy they are searching for the bride... But nobody attempts to put the clue in the hands of the seekers. a1968A. Farrer Interpret. & Belief (1976) 138 Madame Blavatsky, than whom few women have been more remarkable for the power of making solid objects fade into thin air among the mountains of India, and crystallize back to physical solidity in the middle of English drawing-room cushions, thence to be hacked out with scissors by delighted seekers after truth.
b. Eccl. Hist. (With capital S.) As the designation assumed by a class of sectaries in the 16–17th c.: see quot. 1645.
The date and authorship of the first quotation seem to be highly questionable. The passage quoted from Pagitt 1645 appears to contain the earliest known example of the use of the word as the designation of a sect, though the opinion there described was held by the three brothers Legate (c 1600), whose followers were called Legatine-Arians. (See C. Burrage, The Early English Dissenters, 1912, I. 214–6, 259–61, and App. A.)
1617J. Morton in R. Barclay Inner Life Relig. Soc. Commw. (1876) 412 Oh, ye Seekers, I would ye sought aright, and not beyond the Scriptures, calling it carnal. 1645E. Pagitt Heresiogr. (ed. 2) 141 Many..go under the name of Expecters and Seekers & doe deny that there is any true Church, or any true Minister, or any Ordinances: some of them assume the Church to be in the wildernesse, and they are seeking it there: others say it is in the smoke of the Temple, & that they are groping for it there. 1651Cleveland Poems 1, I saw a Vision yesternight Enough to sate a Seekers sight: I wisht my self a Shaker there, And her quick pulse my trembling sphear. a1720Sewel Hist. Quakers (1795) I. 10 Many separate societies, and amongst the rest also, such as were called Seekers. 1795Seward Anecd. (ed. 2) I. 318 Sir Henry Vane, so sagacious and resolute as to daunt and intimidate even Cromwell himself, yet so visionary and so feeble-minded as to be a Seeker and Millennist. 1836H. Rogers J. Howe iii. (1863) 47 From the Papists, who clung to every particle of ancient error, to the Seekers, who wandered about [etc.].
†c. seeker-out: a fielder at Cricket. Obs.
1744J. Love Cricket (1770) 18 The Seekers-out change Place. 1748in Waghorn's Cricket Scores (1899) 41 Smith..being allowed a seeker-out.
2. An instrument used in seeking or searching.
a. A kind of slender probe or tracer used in dissections. Cf. searcher 3 a.
1658A. Fox Wurtz' Surg. i. vi. 22 The small iron [surgical] instruments, which by reason of seeking, are called the seekers or searchers. 1882Wilder & Gage Anat. Technol. 72 The tracer is apparently similar to the ‘seeker’ of the English anatomists... This instrument was introduced into the laboratory of Cornell University [etc.]. 1888Huxley & Martin Elem. Biol. (ed. 2) 281 Insert a seeker into it [the pedal gland of the common snail]—it can be readily introduced for a distance of more than an inch.
b. Part of an astronomical telescope; cf. searcher 3 e, finder 3 b.
1892Athenæum 9 Apr. 473/2 Prof. Lamp at Kiel found it easily visible to the naked eye.., with a tail which in the seeker appeared about 2° in length.
Hence (sense 1 b) ˈseekerism, † ˈseekerness.
1657J. Watts Scribe, Pharisee, etc. i. 58 Is it to shew your unsetled and scrupulous seeker-nesse? 1884Ch. Quarterly Rev. XIX. 57 It [Independency] was continually losing its younger adherents by the ceaseless drift to Anabaptism, to Seekerism, to Quakerism [etc.].
Add:[2.] c. Mil. (A device in) a missile which locates its target by detecting emissions of heat, light, radio waves, etc. Cf. heat-seeker s.v. heat n. 14 d.
1949Gloss. Guided Missile Terms (U.S. Dept. Defense Res. & Devel. Board) (rev. ed.) 93 Seeker, target, a homing guidance device. 1956W. A. Heflin U.S. Air Force Dict. 461/2 Seeker,..esp. a missile that finds its target by means of the light, heat, or the like emitted by the target. 1959Space/Aeronautics Aug. 131/1 The seeker determines the target-missile relationship, solves the equations of relative motion, and generates the steering commands for the autopilot. Among the many types of seekers, infrared units have proved simplest and most accurate. 1977Aviation Week 25 July 16/3 A missile with a monopulse seeker with tail controls on an AIM-7E-size airframe. 1984Ibid. 19 Mar. 79/2 The seeker would permit detection of tanks through trees and reduce the effects from camouflage. 1987Internat. Combat Arms Sept. 51/1 Marconi Defense Systems claims that the advanced seeker on the Sea Eagle can respond to current ECM efforts. |