| 释义 |
prepotent, a.|priːˈpəʊtənt|
[ad. L. præpotent-em, pr. pple. of præposse to be more or very powerful, to have the superiority, f. præ, pre- A. 5, 6 + posse to be able, have power: see potent.]
1. a. Having great power, force, influence, or authority; pre-eminent in power.
a1450Mankind (Brandl) 759 My prepotent father, when ȝe sowpe, sowpe owt ȝowur messe. 1468Hen. VII at York in Surtees Misc. (1888) 56 Most prepotent prince of power imperiall. 1591R. Turnbull Exp. St. James 166 b, Excellent for wisdome, prepotent in power, renowmed for vertue. 1657Physical Dict., Præpotent, strong, effectual, potent, above or before others. 1826G. S. Faber Diffic. Romanism (1853) 300 To borrow his prepotent bolt from the armoury of his predecessor. 1885Mrs. E. Lynn Linton Stabbed in Dark iii, Some vague, intangible, but prepotent barrier had risen up between him and them.
b. Excelling in potency, more powerful than others; predominant.
1641R. B. K. Parallel of Liturgy w. Mass-Bk., etc. Pref. 6 Overswayed by the prepotent Popish faction. 1880P. Greg Errant II. v. 59 What was the attraction prepotent over all the charms of the ball-room? 1881Palgrave Visions of Eng. 153 After the ruin of the prepotent influence of Spain.
c. Psychol. Applied to the effective stimulus and its response when stimuli with different, conflicting, responses occur together.
1906C. S. Sherrington Integrative Action Nervous Syst. vi. 228 It is those stimuli which..are most fitted to excite pain which, as a general rule, excite in the ‘spinal’ animal..the prepotent reflexes. 1928Psychol. Rev. XXXV. 420 The animal behaves as it does because a certain prepotent stimulus in the environment has forced it that way. 1948W. McDougall Introd. Social Psychol. (ed. 29) 459 The ‘prepotent reflexes’ of sex, fear, and rage. 1953B. F. Skinner Sci. & Human Behav. xiv. 220 The prepotent response does not, merely by virtue of its having been emitted, alter the strength of the dispossessed response. 1960Hinsie & Campbell Psychiatric Dict. (ed. 3) 571/2 In general, nociceptive reflexes, such as the flexion reflex, are prepotent to all other types of reflex competing for the final common pathway.
2. Biol. Having a greater power of transmitting hereditary features or qualities; having a stronger fertilizing influence.
1859Darwin Orig. Spec. iv. 99 A plant's own pollen is always prepotent over foreign pollen. Ibid. viii. 274 When two species are crossed, one has sometimes a prepotent power of impressing its likeness on the hybrid. 1878Stewart & Tait Unseen Univ. v. §168. 173 There seems to be in many instances a prepotent influence about a newly arisen variety. 1888J. T. Gulick in Linn. Soc. Jrnl., Zool. XX. 239 If..individuals so varying as to be prepotent with each other are very few..they will fail of being segregated through failing to receive any of the prepotent pollen.
3. [pre- A. 3.] Previously endowed with power or potentiality.
1874Tyndall Addr. Brit. Assoc. Belfast 58 It is by the operation of an insoluble mystery that life is evolved, species differentiated, and mind unfolded from their prepotent elements in the immeasurable past.
Hence preˈpotently adv., in a prepotent manner; with overwhelming power.
1899W. James in Talks on Psychol. 88 A single exciting word may call up its own associates prepotently. |