| 释义 |
spherical, a. and n.|ˈsfɛrɪkəl|
Forms: α. 6 sperycall, 6–7 sphericall, 7– spherical. β. 6–9 sphærical (7 -all). γ. 7 sphearicall.
[f. as prec. + -al1.]
A. adj.
1. a. Having the form of a sphere (or a segment of a sphere); globular.
α1523Skelton Garl. Laurel 1514 Then to the heuyn sperycall vpwarde I gasid. 1570Billingsley Euclid xi. def. 12. 316 The Sphericall superficies, which is the limite..of a Sphere. 1613Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 508 The Earth being,..at the first forming of it, more perfectly sphericall. 1698J. Keill Exam. Th. Earth (1734) 275 He will not suppose..that the Channel of the Sea is exactly of a Spherical surface. 1753Hogarth Anal. Beauty 8 Connected circular threads, or lines, forming a true spherical shell. 1805–17Jameson Char. Min. (ed. 3) 168 Supposing the molecules to be spherical. 1851S. P. Woodward Mollusca 38 Completely spherical pearls can only be formed loose in the..soft parts of the animal. 1871B. Stewart Heat (ed. 2) §67 A kind of flask, either cylindrical or spherical.
β1570Dee Math. Pref. D j b, Perpendiculars drawen to the Sphæricall Superficies of the earth. 1610Healey St. Aug. Citie of God 483 A center is that point in the midst of a sphæricall body from whence all lines drawn to the circumference are equal. 1658Sir T. Browne Gard. Cyrus iv. 64 Since many..sphæricall seeds arise from angular spindles. 1705Bp. Berkeley in Fraser Life (1871) 483 Segments of sphærical surfaces. 1753Chambers' Cycl. Suppl. s.v. Lycoperdon, The snow white sphærical lycoperdon.
γ1613Blundevil's Exerc. iii. ii. vi. (ed. 4) 381 Sith the earth and the water..do make together one whole Sphearicall or round body.
b. Of form or figure: Characteristic of a sphere.
1527Thorne in Hakluyt (1589) 257 To set the forme Sphericall of the world in Plano after yt true rule of Cosmographie. 1553Eden Treat. New Ind. (Arb.) 11 Wyth what certayne demonstracions the Astronomers and Geometricians, proue the earth to bee rounde, and the Sphericall or rounde forme to bee mooste perfecte. 1608Topsell Serpents 260 They haue eyther a Sphæricall and heauenly, or at least-wise an Ouall forme. 1698J. Keill Exam. Th. Earth (1734) 137 The Figure of the Earth which the Theorist rightly affirms not to have been exactly Spherical. 1803J. Imison Sci. & Art I. 237 The machine used on this occasion was formed of silk of a spherical figure. 1868Lockyer Guillemin's Heavens (ed. 3) 96 Its form is not rigorously spherical.
†c. spherical number, a number whose powers always terminate in the same digit as the number itself. Obs. (Cf. circular a. 10.)
The only spherical numbers are 5, 6, and 10.
1646Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. 219 As Plato first began, and some have endeavoured since by perfect and sphericall numbers. 1658― Gard. Cyrus iii. 53 The number of five is remarkable in every Circle, not only as the first sphærical Number, but the measure of sphærical motion. 1704J. Harris Lex. Techn. I, Circular Numbers, or Spherical ones, according to some, are such whose Powers terminate in the Roots themselves.
d. Circular. rare—1.
1730A. Gordon Maffei's Amphith. 126 A spherical Building, with Towers at Intervals, as the City Tusculana appears in the Coins of the Sulpician Family.
2. Math.
a. Of lines or figures: Drawn in, or on the surface of, a sphere; esp. spherical triangle.
1571Digges Pantom. iv. x. Y i b, The axis and sphericall Diameter of thys Dodecaedron. 1585Blagrave Math. Iewel (title-p.), The whole Artes of Astronomy... Dyalling, Sphericall triangles, Setting figures [etc.]. 1632J. Hayward tr. Biondi's Eromena 136 Such like were the reasonings of sundry young Princes of divers Countries, who like sphericall lines came to meete all in one and the same center. 1678Hobbes Decam. Wks. 1845 VII. 162 The arch of a spherical angle is the side opposite to the angle. 1715tr. Gregory's Astron. (1726) I. 476 The spherical Triangle PLT. 1824–5Encycl. Metrop. (1845) I. 362/1 A spherical polygon is a portion of the surface of a sphere terminated by several arcs of great circles. 1860Cayley Math. Papers (1891) IV. 428 The envelope of XY is a spherical conic. 1861Parker Introd. Gothic Arch. (ed. 2) Gloss. Ind. 250 Spherical triangle, a triangular opening with curved sides, used in clearstory windows. 1886B. Brown Schola to Cathedral iv. 168 The spherical pendentive, by which dome construction was brought to perfection.
b. Dealing with the properties of the sphere or spherical figures.
1728Chambers Cycl. s.v., Spherical Geometry, the Doctrine of the Sphere. Ibid., Spherical Trigonometry, the Art of resolving Spherical Triangles. 1795Playfair Elem. Geom. 279 Elements of Plane and Spherical Trigonometry. 1852Bristed Five Yrs. Eng. Univ. (ed. 2) 220 To make sure of the two questions in Spherical Trigonometry, on the first morning's paper.
c. Of or pertaining to, characteristic of, arising from, the sphere or its properties.
Chiefly in special collocations, as spherical aberration, spherical excess, spherical harmonic, spherical inversion, spherical projection, etc.: see the ns.
3. Of or pertaining to the celestial spheres.
1605Shakes. Lear i. ii. 134 As if we were..Knaues, Theeues, and Treachers by Sphericall predominance. a1619M. Fotherby Atheom. ii. xi. §1 (1622) 310 This sphericall motion of the heauens. 1838Mrs. Browning Isobel's Child xxxi, A harp whose strings are..tuned to music spherical.
4. spherical compasses, spherical lathe: (see quots.). spherical wave: a wave in which the wave fronts are concentric spheres.
1875Knight Dict. Mech. 2264/2 Spherical Lathe, a lathe for turning spheres. 1891Cent. Dict., Spherical compasses, a kind of calipers for measuring globular bodies. 1907Chem. Abstr. I. 1470 The spherical wave of explosion is propagated in a fluid medium according to formulas analogous to those derived for plane waves. 1976D. Ross Mechanics of Underwater Noise ii. 35 The intensity of a spherical wave is proportional to the square of the pressure.
5. Forming parasynthetic adjs., as spherical-bodied, spherical-roofed, spherical-surfaced.
1804Shaw Gen. Zool. V. ii. 432 Spherical-bodied Diodon, with triangular spines. 1946Nature 26 Oct. 26 583/2 The abberations of a spherical mirror are corrected by a single spherical-surfaced meniscus lens. 1977N.Y. Rev. Bks. 13 Oct. 16/1 The spherical-roofed auditorium at CIA headquarters in Langley.
B. n. A spherical body. rare.
1652Gaule Magastrom. xxvi. I ij, All these Arts are chiefly conversant about the spherical, or round, whether figure, or number, or motion; they are forced..to confesse, that a perfect round, or spherical, is no where to be found. |