| 释义 |
crookedness|ˈkrʊkɪdnɪs|
[f. as prec. + -ness.]
The quality or state of being crooked.
1. lit.
a. generally.
1398Trevisa Barth. de P.R. xvii. iv. (1495) 605 The fer stretchyth vpryght wythoute ony crokydnesse. 1447O. Bokenham Seyntys (Roxb.) 257 Lyht..rhyt furth procedyth wyth owte crokydnesse. 1677Hale Prim. Orig. Man. i. ii. 55 The apparent crookedness of the Staff in a double medium of Air and Water. 1858Hawthorne Fr. & It. Jrnls. (1872) I. 16 This legend may account for any crookedness of the street.
b. Bodily deformity.
1398Trevisa Barth. de P.R. v. xxviii. (1495) 138 The cause of shrynkynge and crokidnes of the honde. 1547Boorde Brev. Health clxiv. 59 Crokednes or curvytie in the backe or shoulders. 1692Locke Educ. Wks. 1812. IX. 14 Narrow breasts..ill lungs, and crookedness, are the..effects of hard boddice and clothes that pinch.
†c. Math. Curvature. Obs. rare.
1651Hobbes Leviath. ii. xxvii. 156 All deviation from a strait line is equally crookednesse. 1656tr. Hobbes' Elem. Philos. (1839) 294 The crookedness of the arch of a circle is everywhere uniform.
2. fig. Deviation from rectitude; moral obliquity; perversity, etc.: see crooked 3.
c1380Wyclif Serm. Sel. Wks. I. 273 Sich crokidnesse bringiþ aȝen derknesse of mannis liif. 1576Fleming Panopl. Epist. 393 The crookednesse of my lucke. 1673Lady's Call. ii. i. 59 Youth..easily warps into a crookedness. 1803Wellington in Gurw. Desp. II. 351 There is a crookedness in his policy. 1875Manning Mission H. Ghost xi. 305 Moral obliquities bring on a crookedness which hinders the faculty of discerning the rectitude of God's truth.
3. (with pl.) An instance of crookedness; a crooked or bent part. Also fig. A ‘crooked’ piece of conduct.
1654Whitlock Zootomia 496 As Carpenters bring the square to great unweildy crookednesses, that cannot be moved to it. 1766Pennant Zool. (R.) x, A variety of trout, which is naturally deformed, having a strange crookedness near the tail. 1869Trollope He Knew xxviii. (1878) 159 He lived by the crookednesses of people. |