| 释义 |
silliness|ˈsɪlɪnɪs|
[f. silly a. + -ness.]
1. The quality of being silly; foolishness, senselessness.
1604Shakes. Oth. i. iii. 309 It is sillynesse to liue, when to liue is torment. 1634Canne Necess. Separ. 220 He sayth, that the Prelates may well laugh at Mr. Iohnsons simplicity and sillinesse of wit, that thinkes to fright them with such a bugbeare as this. 1705Berkeley Commonpl. Bk. Wks. 1871 IV. 427 The sillyness of the current doctrine makes much for me. 1779Mirror No. 35, If all this..proceed from silliness, we must pity the man, and there's an end on't. 1865Livingstone Zambesi viii. 179 It is a combination of silliness with absurdity quite odious. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) IV. 410 The silliness of the so-called laws of thought..has been well exposed by Hegel himself.
b. An instance of this; a silly thing, act, etc.
1740–1Richardson Pamela I. 62, I shall write on,..tho' I should have nothing but Sillinesses to write. 1854J. S. C. Abbott Napoleon (1855) I. xxxii. 491 Behold a silliness fit for a medical student, but not for me. 1882Stevenson Fam. Stud. ii. 104 If he had said ‘the love of healthy men for the female form’, he would have said almost a silliness.
2. Mental weakness.
1822–7Good Study Med. (1829) IV. 194 Moria demens stultitia. This, which is what we ordinarily denominate silliness, is generally a natural infirmity. 1899Allbutt's Syst. Med. VII. 695 Melancholia, or mere silliness, may be the earliest feature of the disease. |