| 释义 |
▪ I. ramble, n.1|ˈræmb(ə)l|
[f. the vb.]
1. An act of rambling; a walk († formerly any excursion or journey) without definite route or other aim than recreation or pleasure.
1654Gayton Pleas. Notes iv. xx. 268 Witches are confin'd in their night rambles, to egge shels. 1662Pepys Diary 30 June, So through bridge to Blackfryers, and home; she being much pleased with the ramble in every particular of it. 1725Berkeley Let. to Prior 15 Oct. Wks. 1871 IV. 115, I have been these five weeks in a ramble though England. 1791Boswell Johnson an. 1776, 21 Mar., Next morning..we set out in a post-chaise to pursue our ramble. 1810Crabbe Borough xxiv, Then walks were made, Not a sweet ramble, but a slow parade. 1854Baroness Bunsen in Hare Life (1879) II. iv. 173 A most delightful ramble up a dell.
transf. and fig.1659H. More Immort. Soul iii. xiv. §10. 479 This wild and audacious ramble from a more secure state. a1700in Somers Tracts (1748) I. 269 This Ramble of Imagination is not altogether a Dream. 1818Keats Endym. i. 932 A brook—Whose silver ramble..Tracing along,—it brought me to a cave.
b. Phr. on or upon the ramble = rambling.
1700T. Brown Amusem. Ser. Com. 19, I will set both his and my Imagination on the Ramble. 1733Swift Corr. (1841) II. 714 Since I left that place..I have been still upon the ramble. 1792C. Smith Desmond III. 167, I..shall be upon the ramble for some time.
2. Rambling, incoherence. rare.
a1716South Sermons (1737) II. 107 Put off with ramble and confused talk, babble, and tautology. Ibid. 159 Their prayers; so full of ramble and inconsequence.
▪ II. ˈramble, n.2 Coal-mining.
Also ram(m)ell.
[? var. of rammel n.2; but cf. Sw. ramla to fall down.]
A thin bed of shale lying above a coal-seam, which falls down as the coal is taken out, and requires to be separated from it. Also Comb.
1851Greenwell Coal-Trade Terms 41 At some collieries, an extra allowance..is made for hewing with ramble. 1893–4Labour Commission, Gloss. 66 An extra allowance..called ‘ramble-money’.
▪ III. ramble, v.|ˈræmb(ə)l|
Also 7 ramel.
[Of obscure formation: cf. cramble, scramble. An earlier form appears to have been romble rumble.]
1. a. intr. Of persons: To wander, travel, make one's way about (now usually to walk) in a free unrestrained manner and without definite aim or direction. † Formerly sometimes conj. with be.
1620T. Peyton Paradise in Farr S. P. Jas. I (1848) 178 Hauing rambled in the sacred keele About the world. 1672R. Montagu in Buccleuch MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm.) I. 521, I go tomorrow towards Italy, where I will ramble for two or three months. 1711Steele Spect. No. 96 ⁋2, I..went out of the House to ramble wherever my Feet would carry me. 1754Warburton in W. & Hurd Lett. (1809) 165 He is rambled into Staffordshire. 1807–8W. Irving Salmag. (1824) 260 A delightful piece of wood and water, where he might ramble on a summer's noon. 1880L. Stephen Pope iv. 89 He was often rambling about on horseback.
b. fig. with ref. to mental pursuits or studies.
1650T. Vaughan Anthroposophia 2, I studied several Arts, and ramel'd over all those Inventions which the folly of man call'd Sciences. 1669Sturmy Mariner's Mag. Ep. Ded., Then I rambled over all these Mathematical Inventions. 1726Bolingbroke Lett. Stud. Hist. v. (1752) 140 We must not ramble in this field without discernment or choice, nor even with these must we ramble too long.
c. transf. of things (material and immaterial).
1665Boyle Occas. Refl. iv. i. (1848) 167 My roving Thoughts were in various Dreams, rambling to distant places. 1800Wordsw. Seven Sisters vi, The stream..As through the glen it rambles, Repeats a moan. 1858Glenny Gard. Every-day Bk. 37/1 If they [plants] be neglected until they have rambled about.
2. intr. To wander in discourse (spoken or written); to write or talk incoherently or without natural sequence of ideas.
1640[see rambling vbl. n.]. 1692Dryden St. Euremont's Ess. 27, I should then ramble from the Subject I have proposed to my self. 1710Swift Jrnl. to Stella 19 Oct., My pen is apt to ramble when I think who I am writing to. 1825Cobbett Rur. Rides 282 He rambled on in a childish sort of way. 1850Kingsley Alt. Locke xi, He rambled off into a long jumble of medical-officers.
3. trans. To wander over. rare.
1810E. Weeton Let. 4 June (1969) I. 265 If my time were my own, [I] would ramble the country over. 1825in Hone Every-day Bk. I. 291, I ramble the rough highland hills. 1930V. Woolf in Death of Moth (1942) 19 The greatest pleasure of town life in winter—rambling the streets of London.
▪ IV. ramble
variant of rammel n.2 |