| 释义 |
sequacious, a.|sɪˈkweɪʃəs|
[f. L. sequāc-, sequāx (see prec.) + -ious.]
1. Of a free agent or his attributes: Given to following another or others, esp. a leader. † Const. to, of.
1643Trapp Comm. Gen. vi. 20 See how sequacious these poor creatures are to God their Centurion. 1680C. Nesse Ch. Hist. 30 How sequacious were they all to God..they all come at his call. 1687Dryden St. Cecilia's Day vii, Orpheus cou'd lead the savage race, And Trees unrooted left their Place, Sequacious of the Lyre. 1766Blackstone Comm. II. 5 The frequent disappointments..induced them to gather together such animals as were of a more tame and sequacious nature. 1833Bp. Hampden Bampton Lect. (1848) 73 We find individuals..like the Sophist of old, leading after them, by the charm of their voice, troops of sequacious hearers. 1885G. Allen Babylon xi, Here..he could wander out into the woods alone (after he had shaken off the attentions of the too sequacious Almeda).
b. Given to slavish or unreasoning following of others (esp. in matters of thought or opinion).
Common in the 17th c.
1653Gauden Hierasp. To Rdr. (e), By seeming to..admire their many new masters, and their rarer gifts; which make them worthy indeed of such soft and sequacious disciples. 1656Artif. Handsom. 111 They make loud and fierce Declamations,..rather in a sequacious and credulous easinesse, than after the rate of any perswasive strictnesse. 1693Apol. Clergy Scot. 32 A Momus, a poor sequacious Animal, that follows such as went before him. 1727–46Thomson Summer 1713 Those superstitious horrors that enslave The fond sequacious herd. 1842W. Howitt Rur. & Dom. Life Germany 202 The Germans..have thus acquired in matters of public opinion, a sequacious and yielding character. 1880Lady Eastlake Mrs. Grote iv. 77 The sequacious deference to the Ministry of the day..filled us with painful reflections. 1885M. Pattison Mem. 208, I had been drawn into Tractarianism, not by the contagion of a sequacious zeal, but by the inner force of an inherited pietism. 1893T. K. Abbott ‘Do this’ etc. 5 Some passages of the LXX there are which have been referred to in the most sequacious manner by writer after writer.
†2. Of things: Readily yielding to traction; easily moulded to any required shape; ductile, pliable, flexible. Obs.
1640Bp. Reynolds Passions xxxi. 321 Of all Fire there is none so ductile, so sequacious and obsequious as this of Wrath. 1652N. Culverwel Disc. Lt. Nat. i. vii. (1661) 47 Such falsities, as come disguis'd in a Syllogistical form, which by their sequacious windings, and gradual insinuations, twine about some weak understandings. 1657Tomlinson Renou's Disp. 716 The Salve..should be sequacious. 1661G. Rust Origen 84 The inferiour spirit of the world..will not fail to bring her treasure into view when invited by congruous and sequacious dispositions of matter. 1673Grew Anat. Plants (1682) 137 Convolvula's..wind..because their Parts are disposed so, as to render them more sequaceous to the external Motor. 1752C. Smart Hop-garden ii. 67 Now extract From the sequacious earth the pole.
3. Of musical notes, metrical feet: Following one another with unvarying regularity of order.
1795Coleridge Eolian Harp 18 And now, its strings Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes Over delicious surges sink and rise. 1864D. W. Thompson Daydreams Schoolm. 243 That Hellenic speech..that rises and falls in Plato with the long sequacious music of an æolian lute.
4. Of style or thought: Persisting in one continuous direction.
1828De Quincey Rhet. Wks. 1862 X. 41 Milton..polonaises with a grand Castilian air, in paces too sequacious and processional. 1835― Autobiog. Wks. 1889 II. 69 The motions of his mind were slow, solemn, sequacious, like those of the planets.
Hence seˈquaciously adv.
1891Century Dict. 1897A. B. Bruce in Expositor's Grk. Test. I. 148/1 note, One in a herd of swine might..begin to run wildly about, and be followed sequaciously by the whole flock. |