| 释义 |
academic, a. and n.|ækəˈdɛmɪk|
[ad. med.L. acadēmic-us, Fr. académique.]
A. adj.
1. Belonging to the Academy, the school or philosophy of Plato; sceptical.
1610Healey St. Aug., City of God (1620) xi. xxvi. 408 I fear not the Academike arguments..that say: what if you erre? 1777Hume Ess. & Treat. II. 134 The wise lend a very academic faith to every report which favours the passion of the reporter. 1756Burke Subl. & B. Pref., Wks. I. 87 Cicero true as he was to the academick philosophy.
2. a. Of or belonging to an academy or institution for higher learning; hence, collegiate, scholarly.
c1588Greene Friar Bacon ii. 6 Masters of our academic state That rule in Oxford. 1599Bp. Hall Virgidem iv. vi. 83 Oh let me lead an academicke life. 1633G. Herbert Temple 39, Affliction 45 Thou often didst with Academick praise Melt and dissolve my rage. 1750Johnson Rambler No. 163 ⁋4 Which my academick rudeness made me unable to repay. 1831Carlyle Sart. Res. (1858) 17 It betokens in the Author a rusticity and academic seclusion. 1875B. Taylor Faust ii. i. II. 9 See hitherward your grateful scholar wending Outgrown the academic rods of old.
b. academic freedom, the freedom of a teacher to state his opinions openly without censorship, or without the fear of losing his position, etc. (cf. G. akademische Freiheit); see also quot. 1963.
1901World's Work July 920/2 Every right-thinking man will stand firmly for academic freedom of thought. 1930Jrnl. Abnormal Psychol. XXV. 156 Academic Freedom... University instructors should have the greatest possible freedom in discussing their opinions with their students. 1963Times 9 Mar. 8/4 The Chancellor of the University of Natal..unveiled a plaque..to commemorate ‘the death of academic freedom’ through the imposition of racial segregation in South African universities.
3. Of or belonging to a learned society, or association for the promotion of art or science; of or belonging to an Academician.
1879Daily Tel. May 23 Each successively forced the heavy portals of Somerset House and Trafalgar-square to..admit them..to Academic rank.
4. Not leading to a decision; unpractical; theoretical, formal, or conventional.
1886Times 31 Mar. 7/2 This discussion partook of an academic character, for it was well understood that, whatever the result of the discussions might be, no practical step would be taken in the present Parliament. 1888H. James in Scribner's Mag. IV. 73/1 Mr. Wendover asked her if she liked English society and if it was superior to American..; she thought his questions ‘academic’—the term she used to see applied in the Times to certain speeches in Parliament. 1897D. G. Hogarth Philip & Alex. of Macedon i. 85 Since the references..to the Olynthian war are in the last degree meagre and vague, and those to Philip merely general, the Olynthiacs would possess for the historian only an academic interest. 1901C. Eliot in Foreign Office Confid. Print Ser., E. Africa lxviii. xi (30 Nov.) 7 North of Mount Elgon..the frontier should proceed in a straight line.., but at present the point seems to be of purely academic interest, as we are not likely to extend our effective Administration to this district. 1929H. G. Wells King who was King vi. §2. 198 All this discussion, Sirs, is— academic. The war has begun already. 1931Economist 21 Nov. 961/2 The results of the elections can only be of academic interest, as there were no Opposition candidates. 1957Times 19 Nov. 11/2 If Russia's rockets can do what Mr. Khrushchev claims they can the blocking of American ports would surely be academic.
5. Conforming too rigidly to the principles (in painting, etc.) of an academy; excessively formal.
1889Cent. Dict. (s.v. academic), Figure of academic proportions, in painting, a figure of a little less than half the natural size, such as it is the custom for pupils to draw from the antique and from life..hence, an academic figure, composition, etc., is one which appears conventional or unspontaneous, and smacks of practice-work or adherence to formulas and traditions. 1934Haskell Balletomania xv. 310 It did not take long for the new movement to become solidly and immovably academic. 1941Manchester Guard. Wkly. 17 Jan. 51 As an artist he was never too revolutionary to be easily understood, yet never academic enough to be dull. 1961Times 22 Mar. 16/1 The figure-studies by Puvis are complacent and academic in the worst sense.
B. n. [The adj. used absol.]
1. An ancient philosopher of the Academy, an adherent of the philosophical school of Plato; a Platonist.
1586B[eard] tr. La Primaudaye's Fr. Acad. 9 Plato, Xenophon..& manie other excellent personages, afterward called Academikes. 1671Milton P.R. iv. 277 Mellifluous streames that watered all the schools Of academics old and new. 1751Chambers Cycl. s.v. They who embraced the system of Plato, among the ancients, were called academici, Academics; whereas those who did the same since the restoration of learning, have assumed the denomination of Platonists. 1830Sir J. Macintosh Progr. of Eth. Philos. Wks. 1846 I. 28 His [Cleanthes'] most formidable opponent, Arcesilaus the academic.
2. a. A member of a college or university; a collegian. Now spec. a senior member of a university; a member of the academic staff of a university or college; also loosely, an academically-gifted person.
It is unclear even from the full context of quot. 1894 whether a student or faculty member is referred to by ‘academic’.
1587Fleming Contn. Holinshed III. 1379/1 At hir being in Cambridge..thus did an academike write in praise of the forenamed earle. 1611Coryat Crudities 438 All the men generally doe weare it, both citizens and Academicks. 1750Johnson Rambler No. 29 ⁋13 The academick hopes to divert the ladies. 1795Gibbon Auto-Biog. 26 The uniform habit of the academics, the square cap and black gown. 1838Fraser's Mag. XVII. 468 He annoyed tutors, proctors, et hoc genus omne;..but was, on the whole, a not indecorous young academic. [1894Univ. Chicago Weekly 4 Oct. 4/1 One student, a member of the graduate school,..was heard one day soliciting an ‘Academic’ to set him right on the question of credits.] 1954A. S. C. Ross in Neuphilologische Mitteilungen LV. 32 People who use them are either non-U (very often, commercial travellers) or, if U, are elderly academics. 1955J. Wain Interpretations p. xv, The contributors are mainly either academics—men who draw salaries from Universities—..or..members of the ‘literary world’. 1965W. Golding Hot Gates 26 It is a fact that academics seldom wear academic dress. 1976J. Archer Not Penny More ii. 26 He had never been a brilliant scholar, and he envied the natural academics among his classmates. 1981V. Glendinning Edith Sitwell 3 The second man too was an academic, though not a specialist in English literature.
b. = academical B, which is the more usual term.
1823Lockhart Reg. Dalton (1842) 144 Dressed in the full academics of a gentleman Commoner—one of the most graceful, certainly, of all European costumes.
3. A member of a society for promoting art or science; = Academist 2, academician. rare.
1751Chambers Cycl. s.v., Academics or rather Academists is also used among us for the members of the modern Academies, or instituted societies of learned persons. 1868Swinburne Ess. & Stud. (1875) 372 Like Coriolanus, the painter [Sandys] might say..it is his to banish the judges, his to reject the ‘Common cry’ of academics.
4. pl. Academics, Eng. name of the Academica, one of the writings of Cicero.
5. pl. Academic studies. U.S.
1974Anderson (S. Carolina) Independent 18 Apr. 4b/1 ‘They must be good in academics as well as coordination,’ she said. 1977Time 10 Oct. 39/3 Their report cited such cadet slang terms as ‘cool on academics’ and ‘cooperate and graduate’ as indicative of the attitude of a large majority of a typical class. 1981Underground Grammarian Sept. 2 When the community appeals to higher standards of academics, that always kills spiritual values. |