| 释义 |
determinant, a. and n.|dɪˈtɜːmɪnənt|
[ad. L. dēterminānt-em, pr. pple. of dētermināre to determine: cf. F. déterminant (Trevoux 1752).]
A. adj. Determining; that determines; determinative.
1610W. Folkingham Art of Survey iv. v. 84 Determinant Valuation concludes and determines the Right and Interest of the Possident by Alienation of the Fee or Possession. 1686Goad Celest. Bodies ii. i. 152 The Sun and Moon alone..cannot be the Causes preparatory or determinant of a Showre. 1825Coleridge Aids Refl. 280 Some other Principle which has been made determinant of his Will. 1860Ruskin Mod. Paint. V. viii. iv. §8 His usual drawings from nature..being both commemorative and determinant..determinant, in that they record an impression received from the place there and then, together with the principal arrangement of the composition in which it was afterwards to be recorded. 1888J. Martineau Study of Relig. I. ii. i. 211 He rightly appropriates the word Cause to the determinant act. 1892Current Hist. (Detroit, Mich.) II. 73 A new determinant factor of unknown power.
B. n. One who or that which determines.
1. In University Hist. (repr. med.L. dētermināns). A determining Bachelor: see determine v. 13, determination 4.
[1449(2 Jan.) in Registr. Univ. Oxf. (O.H.S.) I. 2 Magistri determinantium. 15..Ibid. II. i. 52 (Title of Official List) Nomina determinantium.] 1864D. Laing in Pref. to Lauder's Dewtie of Kyngis 6 Two years later, in due course of his academical studies, this Guillelmus Lauder appears among the Determinants in that College; which shows that he had qualified himself for taking his Master's degree. 1887A. Clark Reg. Univ. Oxf. II. i. 53, 12 Mar. 1586 this Committee decided that..Whereas in times past collectors had exacted unfairly large sums from the determinants, they should in future exact only 12d. from each determinant.
2. a. A determining factor or agent; a ruling antecedent, a conditioning element; a defining word or element.
1686Goad Celest. Bodies ii. i. 150 Not because they have no determinant, but because 'tis unknown. 1809–10Coleridge Friend (1865) 173 We should..make Malta the direct object and final determinant of the war. 1825― Aids Refl. 67 His own will is the only and sufficient determinant of all he is, and all he does. 1836–7Sir W. Hamilton Metaph. xxxiii. (1859) II. 266 Considering the Representative Faculty in Subordination to its two determinants, the faculty of Reproduction, and the faculty of Comparison or Elaboration. 1882Palgrave in Grosart Spenser's Wks. IV. p. cvii, Points..taken as determinants of date. 1887F. Hall in Nation (N.Y.) XLIV. 97/3 Good usage—the sole determinant, in general, of what is acceptable in language. 1894Pop. Sci. Monthly June 180 Amphimixis alone could never produce a multiplication of the determinants.
b. Logic. = conjunct n. 5.
1887J. N. Keynes Formal Logic (ed. 2) iv. i. 335 We may speak of the elements combined in a conjunctive term as the determinants of that term. 1892W. E. Johnson in Mind I. 237 The separate constituents a, b, are called the determinants of the determinative synthesis a.b. 1949Mind LVIII. 3 We find..a marked difference between the use of the word ‘determinant’ by symbolic logicians of the late 19th century, and the medieval use of its Latin equivalent. For such writers as Schroeder and J. N. Keynes a ‘determinant’ is any one of the elements combined in a logical conjunction.
c. Philol. A limiting or qualifying expression; esp., in a compound word, the element that limits or qualifies the meaning of the other element.
1869Farrar Fam. Speech iii. 89 In Aryan the determinant precedes the thing determined. 1934Priebsch & Collinson German Lang. ii. v. 258 Composite words consisting of a determinant word (Bestimmungswort) and a nucleus (Grundwort). The determinant may be an adjective..or a substantive. 1960[see determinatum]. 1962A. Martinet Functional View Lang. ii. 51 Some determinants are lexical (an adjective like great), and others grammatical (an adjective like my, the article the, or the ‘plural’ moneme).
3. Math. The sum of the products of a square block or ‘matrix’ of quantities, each product containing one factor from each row and column, and having the plus or minus sign according to the arrangement of its factors in the block.
A determinant is commonly denoted by writing the matrix with a vertical line on each side, thus—
{vb}a1a2a3{vb}
{vb}b1b2b3{vb}
{vb}c1c2c3{vb}
Originally applied (in Latin form), in 1801, by Gauss (Disquis. Arithmet. 180 §v. §154) to a special class of these functions on the nature of which the properties of certain quadratic forms depend; thence adopted in French by Cauchy.
1843Cayley (title), On the Theory of Determinants. 1853Sylvester in Phil. Trans. CXLIII. i. 543–4 Determinant.—This word is used throughout in the single sense, after which it denotes the alternate or hemihedral function the vanishing of which is the condition of the possibility of the coexistence of a certain number of homogeneous linear equations of as many variables. 1885Salmon Higher Algebra 338 Cauchy introduced the name ‘determinants’, already applied by Gauss to the functions considered by him, and called by him ‘determinants of quadratic forms’.
4. Biol. In Weismann's theory of heredity, each of the hypothetical units in the germ-plasm supposed to determine the character and development of a cell or group of cells (hence called a determinate) in the organism; also, a gene or other hereditary ‘factor’.
1893Parker & Rönnfeldt tr. Weismann's Germ-Plasm i. i. 57, I shall designate the cells or groups of cells which are independently variable from the germ onwards as the ‘hereditary parts’ or ‘determinates’, and the particles of the germ-plasm corresponding to and determining them, as the ‘determining parts’ or ‘determinants’. Ibid. 59 A determinant is always a group of biophors. 1905Westm. Gaz. 30 Mar. 2/1 Selection acts on the determinants and produces the variations once so plausibly attributed to the Lamarckian principle of acquired characters. 1920Cambr. Bulletin Feb. 16 Germ-cell Determinants. 1944C. D. Darlington in Nature 5 Aug. 165/1 How far are we justified in assuming the same kind of determinant in the cytoplasm where determinants are not fastened to the immediate products of their activity? 1971Nature 19 Mar. 185/1 Factors in the cytoplasm of many eggs can influence the development of the cells, part of which they eventually constitute. This is most clearly seen in the case of the germ cell determinants. |