| 释义 |
sterile, a.|ˈstɛraɪl, ˈstɛrɪl|
Also 6 steryl(e, -yll, 6–7 stirrill, sterill, 6–9 steril, 7 sterrile, sterrill, stirrile.
[ad. L. sterilis, cogn. w. Skr. starī, barren cow, Gr. στεῖρα barren cow, στέριϕος barren, Goth. stairō fem. adj., barren. Cf. F. stérile, It. sterile, Sp. esteril.]
Barren; not producing fruit or offspring.
1. In undetermined sense.
1552Huloet, Steryll, barayne, or fruiteles, sterilis. 1570Levins Manip. 129/11 Steril, sterilis.
2. Of soil, a country, occas. of a period of time: Unproductive of vegetation.
1572Huloet (ed. Higgins), Sterill, or barrayne grounde, terra ieiuna. 1597Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, iv. iii. 129 Like leane, stirrill, and bare Land. 1600Fairfax Tasso xv. xv, The sterill coastes of barren Rinoceere They past. 1626Bacon Sylva §525 It is certaine, that in very Sterile Yeares, Corne sowne will grow to an Other Kinde. 1635Brereton Trav. (Chetham Soc.) 119 This country..now..is so sterile of corn as they are constrained to forsake it. 1784Cowper Task i. 710 With nice incision..She ploughs a brazen field, and clothes a soil So sterile with what charms soe'er she will. 1796Morse Amer. Geog. II. 100 No country has a smaller proportion of land absolutely steril and incapable of culture. 1806Gazetteer Scot. (ed. 2) 337 Owing to the too copious use of marl,..some farms have been rendered perfectly sterile. 1828Napier Penins. War i. iv. (1878) I. 22 Catalonia, the most warlike, rugged, and sterile portion of Spain. 1836Macgillivray Trav. Humboldt xxv. 376 Causing many places to be improved which would otherwise have remained steril. 1845Darwin Voy. Nat. i. (1879) 2 The novel aspect of an utterly sterile land possesses a grandeur which more vegetation might spoil. 1890Swinburne Stud. Prose (1894) 223 A ghastly and hardly accessible wilderness of salt marshes, with interludes of sterile meadow and unprofitable vineyard.
fig.1720Welton Suffer. Son of God II. xxiii. 639 Procure me some few Drops of those Celestial Waters, to bedew this Barren Clay, this Dry and Steril Heart. 1794Ld. Auckland Corr. (1862) III. 229 Though the times are sterile in some respects, you see they have produced a plentiful crop of peers. 1855Browning Old Pictures in Florence xxxiv, Contrast the fructuous and sterile eras.
3. a. Producing no offspring; incapable of producing offspring. (Chiefly said of females.)
1558[cf. sterileness]. 1612Benvenuto's Passenger i. ii. 111 The pouder thereof is excellent for all cold infirmities of the head or ioynts, it makes the sterile plentifull. 1741Chambers Cycl. s.v. Sterility, Women frequently become sterile after a miscarriage. 1828Stark Elem. Nat. Hist. I. 147 The adult males and sterile females shed their horns in winter. 1878Browning Poets Croisic 26 Anne of Austria, Twenty-three years long sterile, scarce could look For issue. 1889J. M. Duncan Clin. Lect. Dis. Women xxi. (ed. 4) 168 A woman may be sterile with this man and fecund with another. 1890Hardwicke's Sci.-Gossip XXVI. 122/2 Sterile workers constitute the vast majority of the commonwealth [of bees].
fig.1659Pearson Creed 271 We must not look upon the divine nature as steril, but rather acknowledge and admire the fecundity and communicability of it self, upon which the creation of the world dependeth. 1678Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. iv. 546 Affirming that..Christians did not..make God a Solitary and Steril Being, before the Creation neither, as the Jews did.
†b. transf. Producing nothing living. Obs.
1602Warner Alb. Eng. xi. lxiii. (1612) 275 The sterile Lake where Heauen-fir'd Sodom was.
†c. Causing sterility. Obs.
1601Shakes. Jul. C. i. ii. 9 Our Elders say, The Barren touched in this holy chace, Shake off their sterrile curse.
4. Of a plant: Not bearing fruit.
1626Bacon Sylva §620 Those Things, which are knowne to comfort other Plants, did make that more Sterill. 1842Loudon Suburban Hort. 575 In all plantations of this variety a number of sterile plants will be found. 1845Lindley Sch. Bot. (1862) 60 b, Potentilla Fragaria (Sterile Strawberry).
5. a. Mentally or spiritually barren. Also, unproductive of results; fruitless; barren in or of (something sought or desired).
1642H. More Song of Soul ii. i. ii. 52 Die they again? draw they in any breath? Or be they sterill? 1665J. Webb Stone-Heng (1725) 93 He seems..to be very steril of Invention. 1665Evelyn Let. to Sir P. Wyche 20 June, For our language is in some places sterile and barren. 1803W. Godwin Life Chaucer I. Pref. p. x, Antiquities have too generally been regarded as the province of men of cold tempers and sterile imaginations. 1848Gallenga Italy I. Introd. p. xxvii, Meanwhile, the land was sterile of events. 1849Murchison Siluria viii. 183 These deposits..are necessarily sterile in organic remains. 1878Jevons Primer Pol. Econ. 97 It has been objected to commerce that it is sterile and produces no new goods. 1879R. K. Douglas Confucianism iii. 84 Confucius perceived that the..ancients had for their object the worship of the one God, but he allowed this knowledge to remain sterile. 1914Daily News 23 Oct. 4/2 His adventures in search of victory are uniformly sterile.
b. nonce-use as n. A sterile person.
1870[see impracticable B.].
6. Biol.
a. Of an organ or structure that would normally contain reproductive elements: Barren, infertile.
Said, e.g., in Bot. of a flower with only male organs, a stamen without an anther, a seed without an embryo, a frond without sori.
1646Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. iv. vi. 194 This is also a way to separate seeds, whereof such as are corrupted and sterill swim. 1753Chambers' Cycl. Suppl. s.v. Sicyoides, Some of the flowers on this plant are steril, or male-flowers, having no embryo. 1777Robson Brit. Flora 30 Sterile, without antheræ, as in Rupturewort. Ibid. 215 Herniaria..five antheræ, five sterile chives. 1842Brande Dict. Sci. etc., Lepals, a term invented to denote stamens that are sterile. It is very rarely used. 1849Balfour Man. Bot. §649 Flowers having stamens only, are staminiferous, staminal, or sterile.
b. Of cells, etc. Not capable of reproduction.
1856W. Clark Van der Hoeven's Zool. I. 76 The terminal cells sterile, the axillary oviferous. 1882Vines tr. Sachs' Bot. 306 The fructification of a Fungus consists of..a sterile portion,..and of a fertile portion.
7. Free from micro-organisms. Now often of surgical instruments, etc. = sterilized.
1877Tyndall Ess. Floating Matter Air (1881) 215 The three tubes remained perfectly sterile. 1898R. T. Hewlett Man. Bacteriol. 98 Blood may be obtained..by pricking the finger..with a sterile needle or lancet. 1899Allbutt's Syst. Med. VII. 550 The diplococcus was present in all except one case, which proved sterile. 1907M. H. Gordon Abel's Labor. Handbk. Bacteriol. 160 The finger..is then rubbed with sterile wool soaked in..alcohol and ether.
8. Comb. sterile-male Biol., used attrib. to designate the technique of controlling a natural population by releasing large numbers of sterile males into it, so that females that mate only with these do not reproduce. sterile-wood, a shrub, Coprosma fœtidissima (N.O. Rubiaceæ), native of New Zealand.
1874Treas. Bot. Suppl. 1344/1. [ 1955E. F. Knipling in Jrnl. Econ. Entomol. XLVIII. 459/1 The purpose of this paper is to consider the possibility of controlling insects by releasing sexually sterile males among the existing population.] 1959Science 9 Oct. 903/1 The possibility of controlling animal populations by the sterile-male method is not necessarily limited to insects. 1975Nigerian Jrnl. Entomol. I. 181 Because of the ease of preparation, good-keeping quality and reuseability of the [bat's wing] membrane, it..may have a very important role in the control of tsetse flies in Africa by the use of the sterile male technique. 1980Adv. Vet. Sci. & Compar. Med. XXIV. 166 Screwworm populations subjected to autocidal control by the sterile-male technique.
Hence ˈsterilely adv., ˈsterileness.
1558W. Forrest Grysilde Seconde (Roxb.) 54 They laide to good Grysilde her sterylenes, Whiche she cowlde not helpe: God sendeth all increase. Ibid. 84 Consernynge the sterylnes layde vnto her. 1727Bailey vol. II, Sterilness, Barrenness. 1886Howells in Century Mag. XXXIII. 191 Many men might go through life harmlessly without realizing this, perhaps, but sterilely.
Add:[7.] b. fig. Screened or cleared by security forces; spec. of a telephone line, not tapped. orig. U.S.
1973Newsweek 7 May 88/3 The so-called sterile concourse—the long airport corridor that only ticketed, searched travelers may enter—means that a passenger must be searched each time he changes planes and concourses. 1973Harper's Mag. Oct. 79/1 A ‘sterile’ telephone in Washington (permitting them to operate without being bugged or observed by rival spies from other government agencies). 1977R. Ludlum Chancellor MS. xix. 203 Except for our taps his phones are sterile; there is no surveillance on him but our own. 1984Observer 10 June 3/7 The economic summit..had left large chunks of central London ‘sterile’ these last few days. That is police jargon for any security area out of bounds to the general public. ‘You can't go in there, guv, it's all a sterile area’. |