| 释义 |
constancy|ˈkɒnstənsɪ|
[ad. L. constāntia: see prec. and -ancy.]
The quality of being constant.
1. a. The state or quality of being unmoved in mind; steadfastness, firmness, endurance, fortitude.
1526Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 136 Constancy is y⊇ vertue wherby man or woman holdeth hole, and is not broken by impacyency. 1553Eden Treat. Newe Ind. Ep. to Rdr. (Arb.) 9, I woulde wishe all men to be of such corage and constancie in these affayres. 1623Mede in Ellis Orig. Lett. i. 291. III. 153 Thank God for the Princes constancie in Religion. 1709Pope Lett. 17 July, I stood resign'd with a stoical constancy to endure the worst of evils. 1856Emerson Eng. Traits, Race Wks. II. 20 They have maintained constancy and self-equality for many ages.
†b. Determination, resolution (to do a thing).
1603Knolles Hist. Turks (1621) 986 Encreased his constancie to avoid a most certaine death. 1643R. Baillie Lett. & Jrnls. (1841) II. 80 The constancie of most of them to doe the Queen better service at London.
2. Steadfastness of attachment to a person or cause; faithfulness, fidelity.
1548Hall Chron. 193 b, What for the confidence that he had in her perfyte constancy..he determined..to marye with her. 1599Shakes. Hen. V, v. ii. 161 While thou liu'st, deare Kate, take a fellow of plaine and vncoyned Constancie. 1754Sherlock Disc. (1759) I. i. 2 The Ground of their Constancy and Adherence to Christ. a1839Praed Poems (1864) II. 438 And talks right well of constancy and truth. 1874Green Short Hist. vi. §6. 335 A constancy of friendship which won him a host of devoted adherents.
3. a. The quality of being invariable (see constant a. 4–6); uniformity, unchangingness, regularity.
a1600Hooker (J.), The laws of God..of a different constitution from the former, in respect of the one's constancy, and the mutability of the other. a1619M. Fotherby Atheom. ii. xi. §2 (1622) 313 The admirable order and incredible constancie of the Heauens. 1794Sullivan View Nat. I. 206 The polar wind blows with equal constancy in both the frigid zones. 1830Herschel Stud. Nat. Phil. 239 The important fact of the constancy of the angles at which their faces meet. 1855Brewster Newton II. xxv. 365 The constancy of temperature in the phenomena of fusion and ebullition.
†b. Persistence, perseverance. Obs.
1613Shakes. Hen. VIII, iii. ii. 2 If you will now vnite in your Complaints, And force them with a Constancy.
c. Psychol. (See quot. 1952.)
1924R. M. Ogden tr. Koffka's Growth of Mind v. 271 ‘Constancy-hypothesis’, according to which a certain sensation always corresponds to a certain stimulus just as soon as ever the capacity for the sensation in question has been attained. Ibid. 295 This constancy of form becomes the child's mode of perception. 1929W. Köhler Gestalt Psychol. (1930) iv. 93 Constancy of brightness and of size cannot be explained by the assumption of one-way conduction determining local sensory experience in terms of local stimulation. 1935Koffka Princip. Gestalt Psychol. iii. 72 We may single out three characteristics of things which will..be constitutive of things: shaped boundedness, dynamic properties, and constancy. 1940Brit. Jrnl. Psychol. Jan. 261 The ‘bundle’ and ‘constancy’ hypotheses. 1952Drever Dict. Psychol. 49 Constancy phenomena, phenomena of perception, where psychological laws seem to cut across physical laws, so that perceived objects retain to some extent certain characteristics in relative independence of change in the stimuli affecting the sense organ. 1959Chambers's Encycl. XI. 321/1 The perceptual constancies... All these effects in perception are technically known as the constancy phenomena. Constancy is seldom, if ever complete... Indeed the expression ‘tendency to constancy’ is more appropriate.
4. (with a) Something permanent, a permanency. for a constancy: as a permanent arrangement.
1710Steele Tatler No. 208 ⁋2 The Person most agreeable to a Man for a Constancy. 1749Chesterfield Lett. 26 Dec., Six, or at most seven hours sleep is, for a constancy, as much as you or anybody can want. c1750W. Stroud Mem. 52 A Chariot, which I hired for a Constancy, or at least for the chiefest Part of..seven weeks. 1888Scotsman 8 Feb. 10/6 Advt., A constancy and liberal wages for a good workman.
†5. Certainty. Obs.
1563Wills & Inv. N.C. (1835) 213, I..knowing the constantie of Death and y⊇ vnconstantie of the houre and time. 1590Shakes. Mids. N. v. i. 26 More witnesseth than fancies images, And growes to something of great constancie [But Schmidt understands it as = ‘consistency’: see next].
†6. Physical firmness, solidity; = consistence.
1794Sullivan View Nat. II. 212 In passing from its liquid state to its concretion, to its constancy and firmness.
7. Ecology. The proportion of a particular species found in an ecological community.
1926Tansley & Chipp Study of Veg. ii. 10 The species may also be considered in regard to..their constancy in an association, i.e., of a large number of sample areas, the percentage number in which the given species occurs. 1950Jrnl. Ecol. XXXVIII. 72 Several species of low constancy on the less exposed stands acquire high constancy on the more exposed. |