| 释义 |
▪ I. senior, a. and n.|ˈsiːnɪə(r)|
Forms: 4–6 senyour(e, 4, 6–7 seniour, 5–6 seniore, senyor, 6 senioure, seneour, 7 seigniour, 8 seignior, 5– senior.
[a. L. senior, compar. of sen-em, senex old, cogn. w. Gr. ἕνος old (in ἕνη last day of the moon), OIrish sen, Lith. séna-s, Skr. sána old. The subst. use of the Latin word (cf. B. below) is the source of seigneur, seignior, senhor, señor, signor.]
A. adj.
1. a. Older, elder; esp. used after a person's name to denote the elder of two bearing the same name in a family; also (after a simple surname) the elder of two boys of the same surname in a school, etc. Abbreviated , (U.S. 3).
1432–50tr. Higden (Rolls) II. 103 Kynge Edwarde the senior. 1496Rolls of Parlt. VI. 518/1 Johannes Robynson de Boston Sen'. 1577Kendall Flowers of Epigr. 6 Widowes old, and senior chuffs. c1630Risdon Surv. Devon §311 (1810) 321 Edward, sirnamed Senior, a nurse-father of the church. 1668Steele Husbandm. Calling vi. (1672) 138 The grass sprung lately of the ground, and so did he, only he is the senior grass. 1825T. Hook Sayings Ser. ii. Man of Many Fr. I. 201 The senior four children re-appeared in the drawing-room. 1893Leland Mem. I. 21 An infant school..kept by the Misses Donaldson... Miss Donaldson, senior, sat at a desk [etc.].
†b. Anterior in date, superior in antiquity to.
1655Fuller Ch. Hist. ii. vii. §87 Plain-song is much seniour to all Descanting. 1699Bentley Phal. 362 He must be senior to Zaleucus himself.
c. senior citizen, a term for an elderly person, esp. one who is past the age of retirement. orig. U.S.
Freq. used in official communications and by the media as a euphemism for ‘old-age pensioner’.
1938Time 24 Oct. 12/2 Mr. Downey had an inspiration to do something on behalf of what he calls, for campaign purposes, ‘our senior citizens’. 1956School & Society (U.S.) 12 May 169 As a basis for their education, it [sc. pragmatism] is good for the young, the middle-aged, and our senior citizens. 1962British Advent Messenger 28 Sept. 30/2 Owing to the extensive alterations to be done it was October 27, 1958, before we could welcome any of those dear senior citizens who were so anxiously waiting to enter the Home. 1966T. Pynchon Crying of Lot 49 iv. 90 Vesperhaven House, a home for senior citizens that Inverarity had put up. 1969Listener 23 Jan. 101/2 More organised resistance came from the ‘senior citizen’—or ‘old age pensioners’—lobby. 1974H. MacInnes Climb to Lost World iv. 56 We staggered up the bank to the village like senior citizens en route to the post office to collect their pensions. 1977B. Pym Quartet in Autumn xxi. 192 She is a retired person, a senior citizen, you might say.
2. a. That ranks before others in virtue of longer service or tenure of a position; superior to others in standing. the senior service: the navy as distinguished from the army.
1513Bradshaw St. Werburge i. 2164 Bycause that Werburge in order was senyoure, Her mother Ermenylde gaue her the sufferaynte. 1811Wellington in Gurw. Desp. (1837) VII. 245 You are aware that he is senior to Marshal Beresford. 1886C. E. Pascoe London of To-day xxiv. (ed. 3) 225 The Inner and Middle Temple..are the two senior Inns. 1899Hope Huntly Our Code of Honour xxii, ‘It was my heart's desire in boyhood to enter the senior service’. ‘Then why did you not?’ ‘Oh, I yielded to my mother; she was keen on the army.’ 1911London Mag. Oct. 264 The Admiral turned round... ‘The Army’, he said gaily, ‘comes to the rescue of the senior Service’.
b. In school and college use.
(a) Applied to a pupil or student who has been longer under tuition than another (const. to). (b) Applied to a student who is no longer a freshman; in the U.S. to a student in his last year or term. (c) In certain universities, used in designations connoting a specific standing, as senior sophister. Also Senior Fellow, a term applied at Cambridge and Dublin to a select number of the fellows of longest standing in a college, in whom the whole or the greater part of its government was formerly vested; at Oxford in the 18th c. sometimes applied to those fellows who had graduated, as distinguished from the undergraduate fellows. senior student (Christ Church, Oxford): see student1.
1651[Langbaine] Found. Oxford 4 Merton Colledge..twelve Schollers, whereof nine should serve the nine seniour Fellows. 1651― Found. Cambridge 9 Kings Colledge... In which Colledge at this present is a Provost, 70 Fellows and Scholars,..besides 12 servitors to the seniour Fellows, 6 poor Scholars, with other Students. 1698Farquhar Love & Bottle iii. ii, Your father was a senior fellow and your mother was an air-pump. 1721Amherst Terræ Fil. xl. (1726) 212 He would give his vote, that every senior-fellow in the college should have a living tack'd to his fellowship. 1744Birch Life Boyle 69 Mr. Tallents..became senior fellow and president or vice-master of his college [Magdalene, Cambridge]. a1763Martyn & Kippis Life of 1st Earl Shaftesb. (1836) I. 42 On a particular day, the senior undergraduates, in the evening, called the fresh-men to the fire, and made them hold out their chins. 1877in Worthington's Pract. Physics (1881) Introd. 1, I should be inclined to discontinue Physical Laboratory work in schools, except in the case of senior boys.
c. In quasi-superlative sense, applied to the officer, student, etc. who is highest in seniority among those of his own grade.
1848Thackeray Van. Fair xxx, The stout senior Major, who led the regiment into action. 1863‘Ouida’ Held in Bondage i, The senior pupil was standing with his back to the fire.
d. In commercial use, applied to the partner in a firm who (whether on account of length of standing or for other reasons) has precedence of the rest in the formal enumeration of the members.
1864R. B. Kimball Was he Successful? 209 (Hoppe) Mr. Tenant..was..the senior member of the house of Allwise, Tenant & Co.
e. Stock Exchange. Applied to securities the owners of which have first claim to be repaid by the issuing company. Cf. junior stock s.v. junior a. (n.) 5.
1914H. Halford Dict. Stock Market Terms (ed. 2) 79 Senior stocks. Debentures and Preference Stocks carrying a fixed rate of interest and ranking for dividend in priority to the Ordinary and Deferred Stocks. 1925H. Parkinson ABC of Stocks & Shares 63 Among the ‘senior’ securities of the large railway companies the investor may roam at will. 1939Mead & Grodinsky Ebb & Flow of Investment Values i. 5 Granted these formal requirements in ratios, priorities, and margins of safety, the senior securities of certain industries secured by certain forms of property,..are recommended. 1964P. Wyckoff Dict. Stock Market Terms 238 Senior Securities. Bonds and preferred stock which receive prior consideration when a corporation fails or is being dissolved.
3. In certain Cambridge University terms, used to connote a pre-eminence in rank having no relation to length of standing. senior wrangler, the head of the ‘wranglers’, i.e. of the first class of those who are successful in the Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge (hence senior-wranglership); similarly, senior classic, senior moralist, the student who takes the first place in the Classical and the Moral Sciences Tripos respectively. (In consequence of the reforms of 1906–9, the status indicated by these titles has ceased to exist, the class-lists being now arranged not in order of merit but alphabetically). senior optime, one who is placed in the second class in the Mathematical Tripos. (See optime.)
1831Greville Mem. 2 Jan. (1874) II. 101 Maule was senior wrangler and senior medallist at Cambridge, and is a lawyer. 1859Farrar Julian Home v, Of course you intend to be senior classic, or senior wrangler? 1862Calverley Verses & Transl. (1894) 44 Each perambulating infant Had a magic in its squall, For my eager eye detected Senior Wranglers in them all. 1878Latham in Encycl. Brit. VIII. 778 The éclat attaching to the ‘tripos list’ and the senior wranglership.
4. Of institutions, associations, etc. reserved for the senior members of a body, as senior common-room, senior mess, etc.
1774J. Woodforde Diary 14 Jan. (1924) I. 122 We all went into the Senr Common Room. 1959M. Bradbury Eating People is Wrong i. 28 As Treece was leaving the Senior Common Room..the Vice-Chancellor appeared in the doorway. 1981E. North Dames iii. 41 They were in the Senior Common Room standing by the first school photograph.
5. Special collocations: senior class U.S., a class in college or high school made up of students in their fourth year of academic study; senior college U.S., a college in which the last two years' work for the bachelor's degree is done; senior high (school) N. Amer., a secondary school comprising the three (or four) upper high school grades (cf. junior high (school) s.v. junior a. (n.) 5); senior school, a school, or part of a school, for older children; senior year U.S., the fourth and last year of a high school or college course.
1766T. Clap Ann. or Hist. Yale College 14 The *Senior Class were removed to Milford. 1837Stat. Harvard Univ. 11 The third vacation for the Senior Class shall begin one day before the general vacation. 1900C. W. Winchester Victories of Wesley Castle 25 Wesley and Chester went to the city of Dorchester on some business for the senior class. 1980Redbook Oct. 231/2, I couldn't go on the senior-class trip to Washington.
1899Univ. of Chicago Reg. 37/1 The Faculties of the Schools of Arts, Literature, and Science have been organized as follows:..(2) The Faculty of the *Senior Colleges [etc.]. 1942Bull. Vanderbilt Univ. 15 May 69 The College is divided, for certain purposes, into the Junior College and the Senior College. 1977Information Please Almanac for 1978 826 (heading) Accredited U.S. Senior Colleges and Universities.
1909Ann. Rep. Bd. Educ. (Columbus, Ohio) 29 You have established a Junior High School..leaving the tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades for the *Senior High Schools. 1949Los Angeles Times 23 June ii. 5/1 Then they enter senior high school, and become ‘juniors’ and then seniors. 1955[see composite a. 6 e]. 1974Encycl. Brit. Macropædia VI. 422/1 The elementary-secondary sequence overall is 12 years in length.., but the subdivisions of these years are various:..six-three-three (elementary school, junior high school, and senior high school), [etc.].
1871*Senior school [see junior school s.v. junior a. 5]. 1930Times 26 Mar. 12/1 The first step in reorganization is to group all the senior children from 11 upwards in separate senior schools or departments or ‘senior tops’. 1963[see djebba, jibbah]. 1963Barnard & Lauwerys Handbk. Brit. Educ. Terms 175 Senior School, (1) An obsolete term used to describe the free non-selective post-primary schools (age⁓group 11–14) established under the pre-1944 elementary code. They provided a course of general studies with some vocational bias... (2) A term sometimes used to describe the top classes/forms of a grammar or public school.
1796J. Morse Amer. Univ. Geogr. (ed. 3) I. 420 The undergraduates are not permitted to attend them [sc. medical lectures] till their *senior year. 1924S. S. Colvin Introd. High School Teaching 12 A number of high schools offer in their senior year a vocational course.
B. n. An elder person. lit. and fig.
1. a. One superior or worthy of deference and reverence by reason of age; one having pre-eminence in dignity by priority of election, appointment, etc.
c1380Wyclif Wks. (1880) 303 Non drede siche seniours ben fendis þat speken lying in ypocrisie. c1440York Myst. xli. 78 Symeon, that senyour. 1482Monk of Evesham (Arb.) 31 When the bretheren had begunne matens y mette with a senyor that ye knowe wele in the chirche porch. 1513Bradshaw St. Werburge i. 1175 Folowynge the counseyll and mynde of a senyor. 1615Crooke Body of Man 360 The diuine senior Hippocrates. 1725Pope Odyss. iii. 23 Meet then the Senior far renown'd for sense, With rev'rent awe, but decent confidence. 1823Scott Quentin D. xvi, His conversation, tricks, and songs, were..entertaining to the..younger brethren, and so unedifying in the opinion of the seniors of the fraternity, that [etc.]. 1905Tuckwell Remin. Radical Parson xii. 159 Its castellan was a dignified, sweet-visaged senior.
b. With possessive.
c1425Found. St. Bartholomew's (E.E.T.S.) 17 In the begynnynge of this areysed frame oure senyoures tellid vs that one a day at evensong tyme whan derkenys drew vpon ther was seyn a light from heuyn. 1678Cudworth Intell. Syst. 211 [tr. Herodotus]. Hesiod and Homer, were..not above four hundred years my Seniors [orig. µευ πρεσβυτέρους]. 1782F. Burney Cecilia i. i, Though much her senior, he was by no means of an age to render his addressing her an impropriety. 1818Scott Hrt. Midl. xxii, His senior at the bar. 1862F. W. Robinson Owen iv. vi, She was a year or two my senior.
†2. In early translations of the New Testament, used to render L. senior, Gr. πρεσβύτερος, in various applications, where the later versions have elder. Hence occas. used as the designation of the class of ministers called ‘elders’ or ‘presbyters’ in the primitive church, or in communities professedly formed on the model of this. Obs.
1382Wyclif Rev. vii. 11 And alle aungels stoden in cumpas of the trone and of [the] senyouris or eldre. c1440Alphabet of Tales 233/26 Þan prayed for þis childe þe xxiiij seniores; and so þis childe was forgyffen his tryspas. 1526Tindale Matt. xxvi. 59 The chefe prestes, and the seniours, and all the counsell sought false witnes ageinste Jesus. 1564Brief Exam. *****iij, Whence were Seniours in the primitiue Churche? 1572[J. Field], etc. Admonit. Parl. A vj, And to these three ioyntly, that is, the Ministers, Seniors, and deacons, is the whole regimente of the churche to be committed. 1582N. T. (Rheims) Rev. iv. 4 Upon the thrones foure and twentie seniors sitting.
3. a. In school and college use: One of the more advanced students; also one no longer a freshman. In U.S. a student in his fourth year.
1612Brinsley Lud. Lit. xxvi. (1627) 272 That the two or foure Seniors in each fourme, be as Ushers in that fourme. 1741Customs of Harvard in Hall College Words (1851) 318 No Freshman shall be saucy to his Senior. 1836O. W. Holmes Song Centenn. Celebr. Harvard 39 Lord! how the seniors knocked about The freshman class of one. 1888Bryce Amer. Commw. vi. cii. III. 453 In an American college the students..of the fourth year [are called] seniors.
b. A senior fellow of a college; a member of a council or deliberative assembly for managing the internal affairs of a college. Cf. seniority 3.
1645Ordin. Parl. Regul. Univ. Cambr. 3 The Government of Trinity Colledge is setled in the Master and eight Seniors. 1648Winyard Midsummer-Moon 3 Doctors and Seniors are too tough for continuall cramming, he must have Batchellers of art [etc.]. 1717E. Miller Acc. Cambr. 109 The 11th and 12th Statutes [Trin. Coll.] concern the Election of Officers, Lecturers, Seniors, College Preachers, and Fellows; and appoints first, That the Master read this Statute before the eight Seniors; then he and the Seniors are to take an Oath, That they will elect no-body to any Office by Favour, &c. but him only whom [etc.]
4. With the. The familiar name of the United Service and Royal Aero Club.
1906G. W. E. Russell Social Silhouettes xxviii. 195 If he is an old soldier, he is eligible for ‘The Senior’, and may make free with the Duke of Wellington's dry sherry and Dugald Stewart's still drier library. 1974Financial Times 29 June 15/3 Commander James Allen, secretary of the United Services and Royal Aero (which is widely known in club circles as the Senior), [etc.]. 1974R. McDouall Clubland Cooking 11 Going west from Trafalgar Square we come first to the United Service Club, known as ‘The Senior’, because it was for senior officers of the Army and Navy. 1975Sunday Times 25 May 24/1 The closure of the Senior will shake all the generals and admirals who have taken it for granted since 1815.
5. Comb.: † senior-junior, a person old and young at the same time.
1588Shakes. L.L.L. iii. i. 182 This signior Iunior gyant drawfe [read dwarf], don Cupid.
▸ senior moment n. colloq. humorous an instance or short period of forgetfulness or confusion, such as might be experienced by an elderly person.
1996Re: probably Most Stupid Question to ask in this Group in rec.food.cooking (Usenet newsgroup) 3 May Please ignore this person. He is obviously suffering from a *senior moment. 2003Yours Oct. 5/1 Have you had one recently? A senior moment that is? Where you've heard yourself saying or doing something silly, absent-minded or unaccountable.
▸ senior kindergarten n. N. Amer. Educ. (now chiefly Canad.) an advanced level of kindergarten, now usually the second of two kindergarten grades (cf. junior kindergarten n. at junior adj. and n. Additions).
1901Daily News (Naugatuck, Connecticut) (Electronic text) 26 Feb. In the New Britain school there are 78 graduates,..15 in the *senior kindergarten class. 1945Winnipeg Free Press 5 July 8/2 Those attending..will be taught junior and senior kindergarten methods. 2002Today's Parent (Electronic ed.) July 82 The balance started shifting the summer after senior kindergarten, when Ty panicked about advancing to grade-one school work.
▪ II. senior
obs. form of seignior. |