| 释义 |
stepping-stone
Also 4 stoppyngston, 7 Sc. stopping stane, stapping ston.
[stepping vbl. n.]
1. A stone for stepping upon.
a. A stone placed in the bed of a stream or on muddy or swampy ground, to facilitate crossing on foot. Chiefly pl., referring to a row or line of such stones.
c1325Gloss. W. de Bibbesw. in Wright Voc. 159 S[t]eping-stones passueres. c1340Nominale (Skeat) 515 Caliow fusil et passuer. Flynt firehiron stoppyngston. 1550[see siket]. 1579Nottingham Rec. IV. 189 Steppingstones to be sett be tweene Frear Poole. 1603Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 506/1 Passand to ane grene dyk besouth the stopping stanes of the Ile-ark. 1655Lamont Diary (Maitl. Club) 91 The water..ran away some of the stapping stons at Nether Largo. 1682O. Heywood Diaries (1881) II. 303 Going over stepping stones at a brook. 1733Swift On Poetry 169 Like stepping Stones to save a Stride, In Streets where Kennels are too wide. 1815Scott Guy M. viii, Once he [the Dominie] fell into the brook crossing at the stepping⁓stones. 1833Tennyson Miller's Dau. 54 The tall flag⁓flower that sprung Beside the noisy steppingstones. 1852E. W. Benson in Life (1899) I. iii. 110, I reached the Abbey by the stepping-stones. 1899Crockett Kit Kennedy 189 Kit crossed the brook at the stepping-stones.
b. A raised stone on which the foot can be placed to facilitate a climb or ascent; spec. ‘a horse-block’ (Halliwell). rare in literal sense: see 2.
1837Dickens Pickw. xxviii, The stile..was full three feet high, and had only a couple of stepping-stones. 1841James Brigand xi, He sat down on one of the stepping⁓stones placed to aid travellers in mounting their horses.
c. transf. A place for a break of journey.
1849Noad Electricity (ed. 3 104) The intermediate clouds serving as intermediate conductors, or stepping-stones as it were for the electric fluid. 1856Stanley Sinai & Pal. xii. 398 ‘Chittim’ thus became the first stepping-stone to the isles of the West. 1880A. R. Wallace Isl. Life 274 Some islands may have intervened between them [the Galapagos] and the coast, and have served as stepping-stones by which the passage to them of various organisms would be greatly facilitated.
2. fig. Something that is used as a means of rising in the world, or of making progress towards some object; often, a position, office, or the like, that serves to afford opportunity for further advancement.
1653Baxter Christian Concord 47 Some Ministers lately put in, are young, weak, and indiscreet, and fit matter for them to contemn, and modestly to make stepping stones to their own reputation. 1715J. Chappelow Right Way to be Rich (1717) 165 She has..made them stepping-stones to her own grandeur. 1773W. Eden in Jesse Selwyn & Contemp. (1844) III. 59 His office..would suit our friend Hare exactly, as an introduction or stepping-stone to something better. 1806G. Rose Diaries (1860) II. 248 [They] would see through it too clearly to allow themselves to be made stepping-stones for their Lordships to mount into power by. 1850Tennyson In. Mem. i, I held it truth..That men may rise on stepping⁓stones Of their dead selves to higher things. 1855Macaulay Hist. Eng. xi. III. 49 Those obstacles his genius had turned into stepping stones. 1884H. Sweet in 13th Addr. Philol. Soc. 83 Such a shorthand would serve as a stepping-stone from the ordinary Roman alphabet to such a one as Bell's Visible Speech. 1891Speaker 11 July 36/1 A type of snobbery which regards the established religion as a stepping⁓stone to respectability. 1898R. B. O'Brien Parnell I. viii. 168 Agrarian revolution was to be made the stepping-stone to separation from England. |