| 释义 |
▪ I. cannibal1|ˈkænɪbəl|
Forms: 6–8 canibal, 6–7 caniball(e, canniball, 7 cannabal, 7– cannibal.
[In 16th c. pl. Canibales, a. Sp. Canibales, originally one of the forms of the ethnic name Carib or Caribes, a fierce nation of the West Indies, who are recorded to have been anthropophagi, and from whom the name was subsequently extended as a descriptive term.
Professor J. H. Trumbull, of Hartford, has pointed out that l, n, r interchange dialectally in American languages, whence the variant forms Caniba, Caribe, Galibi: and that Columbus's first representation of the name as he heard it from the Cubans was Canibales, explained as ‘los de Caniba or Canima’; when he landed on Hayti, he heard the name of the people as Caribes and their country Carib; the latter was afterwards identified with Puerto Rico, named by the Spaniards ‘Isla de Carib’, ‘which in some islands’, Columbus says, ‘they call Caniba, but in Hayti Carib’. Apparently, however, it was only foreigners who made a place-name out of that of the people: according to Oviedo (Hist. Gen. ii. viii.) caribe signifies ‘brave and daring’, with which Prof. Trumbull compares the Tupi caryba ‘superior man, hero, vir’. calib-an is app. another variant = carib-an; cf. Galibi above-mentioned.
Columbus's notion on hearing of Caniba was to associate the name with the Grand Khan, whose dominions he believed to be not far distant; he held ‘que Caniba no es otra cosa sino la gente del Gran Can’. To connect the name with Sp. can, It. cane, L. canis dog, was a later delusion, entertained by Geraldini, Bp. of San Domingo, 1521–5; it naturally tickled the etymological fancy of the 16th c., and may have helped to perpetuate the particular form canibal in association with the sense anthropophagi. See Prof. Trumbull's article, in N. & Q. Ser. v. IV. 171.]
1. A man (esp. a savage) that eats human flesh; a man-eater, an anthropophagite. Originally proper name of the man-eating Caribs of the Antilles.
1553Eden Treat. New Ind. (tr. Sebastian Munster Cosmog. 15) Arb. 30 Columbus..sayled toward y⊇ South, and at y⊇ length came to the Ilandes of the Canibals. And because he came thether on the Sundaye called the Dominical day, he called the Iland..Dominica..Insula Crucis..was also an Ilande of the Canibales. 1555― Decades New World (tr. Peter Martyr 1511) i. (Arb.) 66 The wylde and myscheuous people called Canibales or Caribes, which were accustomed to eate mannes flesshe (and called of the olde writers Anthropophagi)..Vexed with the incursions of these manhuntyng Canibales. 1584R. Scot Discov. Witchcr. ii. ix, Kin to the Anthropophagi and Canibals. 1594J. Davis Seaman's Secr. ii. (1607) 12 The Canibals of America flye the presence of men. 1604Shakes. Oth. i. iii. 143 The Canibals that each others eate. 1661Hickeringill Jamaica 76 Thence they are call'd Caribs, or Cannibals. 1679Establ. Test 18 The fierce Cannibals of the West Indies. 1748Anson Voy. iii. vii. (ed. 4) 480 The necessity of turning cannibal. 1772Priestley Nat. & Rev. Relig. (1782) III. 50 M. Voltaire..represents the Jews as canibals. 1852Th. Ross tr. Humboldt's Trav. III. 214 Geraldini, who sought to Latinize all barbarous denominations, recognized in the Cannibals the manners of dogs (canes). 1865Livingstone Zambesi iii. 67 Nearly all blacks believe the whites to be cannibals.
b. fig. (sometimes formerly as a strong term of abuse for ‘bloodthirsty savage’).
1563–87Foxe A. & M. (1684) III. 739 (On Boner's portrait) This Cannibal in three years space Two hundred Martyrs slew. 1593Shakes. 3 Hen. VI, v. v. 61 Butchers and Villaines, bloudy Caniballes, How sweet a Plant haue you vntimely cropt. 1604Hieron Wks. I. 559 Such are his carnall cardinals, Or rather bloudy canibals. 1845Stoddart in Encycl. Metrop. (1847) I. 159/1 The late Mr. Windham, an accomplished scholar..whom Mr. Tooke calls..a ‘cannibal’, and ‘a cowardly assassin’. 1860Emerson Cond. Life vii. Wks. (Bohn) II. 420 Sickness is a cannibal which eats up all the life and youth it can lay hold of.
2. An animal that preys on its own species.
1796Morse Amer. Geog. I. 696 The shark and great black stingray, are insatiable cannibals. 1881Darwin Earth Worms i. 37 They [worms] are cannibals.
3. attrib. Pertaining to a cannibal, cannibal-like; bloodthirsty.
1596Nashe Saffron Walden 120 He is such a vaine Basilisco..& swarmeth in vile Canniball words. 1607Chapman Bussy D'Amb. Plays 1873 II. 58 To feede The rauenous wolfe of thy most Canibal valour. a1694Tillotson Serm. xcix. (1742) VI. 1591 They have the face to complain of the cannibal laws, and bloody persecutions of the church of England. 1790Burke Fr. Rev. 210 To stimulate their cannibal appetites. 1855Macaulay Hist. Eng. III. xiv. 400 The street poets portioned out all his joints with cannibal ferocity. 1873Spectator 22 Feb. 240/1 He [the shrike] is a cannibal bird.
▪ II. ˈcannibal2
[? Corruption of Camdeboo: see Pettman Africanderisms.]
Used attrib. in cannibal stink-wood, a South African name for Celtis kraussiana.
1859R. J. Mann Natal 156 (Pettman), There is a variety of this wood known under the name of the Cannibal stink-wood. 1877M. A. Barker Yr.'s Housekpg. S. Afr. 325 What rhyme or reason, what sense or satire can there be in such a name as ‘Cannibal Stink-wood’?—applied..to a graceful, handsome tree whose bark gives out an aromatic..perfume. |