| 释义 |
▪ I. staircase|ˈstɛəkeɪs|
[f. stair n. + case n.2]
1. a. Originally, ‘The inclosure of a pair of Stairs, whether it be with Walls, or with Walls and Railes and Bannisters, &c.’ (Moxon Mech. Exerc., 1679, p. 172); now usually a flight (or sometimes a whole series of flights) of stairs with their supporting framework, balusters, etc. spec., at Oxford and Cambridge, a college staircase and the rooms accessible from it; in transf. use, the people living in those rooms. moving staircase: see moving ppl. a. 3.
1624Wotton Archit. i. 57 Of Staire-cases. 1634Brereton Trav. (Chetham Soc.) 32 Here is a dainty stair-case, there being two pair of stairs which come out of the hall. 1726Leoni Alberti's Archit. I. 17 b, Stair-cases therefore are of two sorts..that which has no Steps, but is mounted by a Sloping Ascent, and the other is that which is mounted by Steps. 1762J. Wesley Jrnl. 29 Mar., Who lived in the same staircase with me at Christchurch. 1777Robertson Hist. Amer. II. vii. 297 The ascent to it was by a stair-case of a hundred and fourteen steps. 1823P. Nicholson Pract. Build. 184 The wall which supports the ends of the steps is called the stair-case. 1826Lamb Elia Ser. ii. Pop. Fallacies xi, The true Lady Marys and Lady Bettys..are consigned to the staircase and the lumber-room. 1848Dickens Dombey xliii, Florence..crept down the staircase. 1861T. Hughes Tom Brown at Oxford I. i. 13 The rest is divided into staircases, on each of which are six or eight sets of rooms. 1878Browning La Saisiaz 15 Till the landing on the staircase saw escape the latest spark. 1914C. Mackenzie Sinister St. II. iii. x. 699 ‘Alan, who are these mysterious creatures that come down for cocoa at ten?’.. ‘They'd bore you rather... They're people who live on this staircase. I don't see them any other time.’ 1974J. I. M. Stewart Gaudy ii. 26 The corridor is not an Oxford institution. One lives on a staircase: commonly one set of rooms on either hand, storey by storey, from ground floor to attics. A hospitable man will give a party for the whole staircase. 1977K. Benton Red Hen Conspiracy xvi. 130 He was one of my pupils... Leader of a very rowdy staircase.
b. transf.
a1668R. Lassels Voy. Italy (1698) I. 46 When we came to Mount Sampion, one of the great stair-cases of Italy, we were forced..to go afoot. 1687Lovell Thevenot's Trav. i. 140 This Stair-case hath been made very easie to go down and up, for the convenience of the Oxen that go down to labour. 1781Gibbon Decl. & F. xix. II. 156 A secret..staircase, scooped out of the rock that hangs over the stream of the Tigris. 1860Tyndall Glac. ii. xi. 290, I therefore took my axe,..and cut an oblique staircase up the wall of ice.
c. fig.
1641Baker Apol. 19 Doth not the whole staire case by which all Learning..is ascended up by, lye open before them? 1650Fuller Pisgah iv. i. 17 Climax the mountain.., whose figure like that figure in Rhetorick ascends like a staire-case by degrees.
d. spirit (also bravery) of the staircase, phrases rendering Fr. esprit de l'escalier (see esprit 2 c). See also sense 4 below.
a1906J. Morley in H. W. & F. G. Fowler King's English (1906) i. 32, I thought afterwards, but it was the spirit of the staircase, what a pity it was that I did not stand at the door with a hat, saying, ‘Give an obol to Belisarius.’ 1906[see esprit 2 c]. 1976L. Hellman Scoundrel Time 110 Ah, the bravery you tell yourself was possible when it's all over, the bravery of the staircase.
e. Electronics. A voltage that alters in equal steps to a maximum or minimum value.
1956Electronics Feb. 192/2 A..staircase generator which generates a negative-going staircase is shown in Fig. 1. 1959Ibid. 23 Jan. 36/3 Each pulse in the train causes one step of the staircase. 1965Wireless World Sept. 425/1 This signal..consists of a 12·5 µs bar, a sine-squared pulse..and a five-step staircase.
†2. = staircase-shell (in 4). Obs.
1713Petiver Aquat. Anim. Amboinæ Tab. ii, Buccinum scalare verum..Royal Stair-Case. Ibid. Tab. xiii, Buccinum scalare..Small Stair-case. 1815S. Brookes Conchol. 157 Staircase. Trochus perspectivus.
3. Phys. A continuous series of responses to nerve stimuli, varying from a minimal to a maximal intensity. (Syd. Soc. Lex. citing Romanes.)
[1871Bowditch in Ber. d. k. Sächs. Gesellsch. d. Wissensch., Math.-Phys. XXIII. 669 Wir wollen eine so beschaffene Reihe von Zuckungen unter dem Namen einer Treppe zusammenfassen.] 1882Gaskell in Jrnl. Physiol. IV. 106 In both the strip from the tortoise's auricle and the frog's ventricle..a series of single stimulations produces a ‘staircase’. 1885McWilliam Ibid. VI. 209 This phenomenon has been termed a ‘staircase of beats (aufsteigende Treppe)’.
4. attrib. and Comb.: staircase-gallery, staircase-head; staircase-like adj.; also with reference to sense 1 d, as staircase afterthought, staircase thought, staircase wit; staircase generator Electronics, a signal generator whose output is a staircase (sense 1 e above); staircase-shell, a shell of the genus Solarium, any member of the family Solariidæ.
1964Guardian 17 Jan. 11/6 The Senator, having written this last passage, decided not to deliver it, a *staircase afterthought that will cost him dear.
1848Dickens Dombey xlvii, She paced her own room, opened the door and paced the *staircase-gallery outside.
1956*Staircase generator [see sense 1 e]. 1976Pract. Electronics Oct. 812/2 The output from the staircase generator is then fed into one input of a comparator.
1802G. Colman Br. Grins, Elder Bro. (1819) 123 Crow, in the dark, now, reached the *stair-case head.
1881Mrs. Holman Hunt Childr. Jerus. 102 They made their way up and down such *staircase-like rocks as in England would seem impossible.
1830Say Amer. Conchol. Pl. 27 Scalaria..., a genus of very pretty shells, known by the name of *staircase shells by some collectors. 1896Lydekker Roy. Nat. Hist. VI. 387 The so-called staircase-shells (Solariidæ).
1958J. Lodwick Bid Soldiers Shoot ii. vi. 210 ‘At what time did it start to snow that night, Lodwick?’ He was referring..to the night of the parachutage... *Staircase thought makes me wish that I had suggested that they have a look at my companion's boots, to which the virginal blanket fallen from Heaven might still..be clinging.
1920A. Dobson in National Rev. July 654 *Staircase-wit. If you fail to understand a joke within twenty-four hours, your symptoms indicate sluggish apprehension... This is what the French call ‘L'esprit de l'escalier’.
Hence ˈstaircased a., furnished with a staircase; ˈstaircasing vbl. n., supplying or providing with a staircase or staircases.
1729in Willis & Clark Cambridge (1886) I. 563 At a Congregation..agreed to proceed in Covering flooring sashing staircasing of the new Building. 1909Engl. Rev. Jan. 223 Each of the two balconied and staircased belfries.
▪ II. staircase, v.|ˈstɛəkeɪs|
[f. the n.]
intr. Of a tenant: to purchase a freehold incrementally through a shared ownership scheme.
1988Times 20 Sept. 13/3 An increasing number of rural landowners are prepared to give, or sell at well below market value, sites to housing associations for the provision of affordable homes for village people. Some of them, however, are deterred from doing so because of the right of the first occupant to ‘staircase’. 1989Guardian 6 May (Weekend Suppl.) 27/3 When buyers ‘staircase’, they will take on more of the home at the prevailing market price rather than the original amount, so the housing association reaps the benefit of increasing values. 1990Sunday Correspondent 6 May 43/4 Career progression means they can usually afford to staircase to outright ownership. |