单词 | ursids |
释义 | Ursids in British English (ˈɜːsɪdz) plural noun a shower of meteors apparently originating from near the constellation Ursa Minor and lasting for about a week from December 17th to the 25th Ursids in American English (ˈɜːrsɪdz) noun (used with a plural v.) Astronomy a collection of meteors comprising a meteor shower (Ursid meteor shower) visible around December 22 and having its apparent origin in the constellation Ursa Major Word origin [urs(a major) + -id1 + -s3]-id is a suffix of nouns that have the general sense “offspring of, descendant of,” occurringoriginally in loanwords from Greek (Atreid; Nereid), and productive in English on the Greek model, esp. in names of dynasties, withthe dynasty’s founder as the base noun (Abbasid; Attalid), and in names of periodic meteor showers, with the base noun usually denoting theconstellation or other celestial object in which the shower appears (Perseid); -s an ending marking nouns as plural (boys; wolves), occurring also on nouns that have no singular (dregs; entrails; pants; scissors), or on nouns that have a singular with a different meaning (clothes; glasses; manners; thanks). The pluralizing value of -s is weakened or lost in a number of nouns that now often take singular agreement,as the names of games (billiards; checkers; tiddlywinks) and of diseases (measles; mumps; pox; rickets); the latter use has been extended to create informal names for a variety of involuntaryconditions, physical or mental (collywobbles; giggles; hots; willies). A parallel set of formations, where -s has no plural value, are adjectives denoting socially unacceptable or inconvenientstates (bananas; bonkers; crackers; nuts; preggers; starkers) |
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