| 释义 |
devious, a.|ˈdiːvɪəs|
[f. L. dēvi-us out of the way (f. dē = de- I. 2 + via way) + -ous.]
1. Lying out of the way; off the high or main road; remote, distant, retired, sequestered.
1599H. Buttes Dyets drie Dinner i vij, They [wild swine] pigge, in desart, streyte, craggie and devious places. 1667Milton P.L. iii. 489 A violent cross wind..Blows them transverse ten thousand Leagues awry Into the devious Air. 1771E. Griffith tr. Viaud's Shipwreck 256 Where I thought..to provide myself..better than in so devious and desolate a place as St. Marks. 1826Scott Woodst. xi, Showing..upon how many devious coasts human nature may make shipwreck. 1856Kane Arct. Expl. I. xx. 250 These devious and untrodden ice-fields.
2. Departing from the direct way; pursuing a winding or straying course; circuitous.
1628May in Le Grys tr. Barclay's Argenis 181 The foes disranked fled Through deuious paths. a1633Austin Medit. (1635) 61 Neither had they, so devious a Journey, nor so long a time, to travell in. 1727–46Thomson Summer 80 The wildly-devious morning-walk. 1817Coleridge Poems, ‘The Picture’, Alone, I rise and trace its devious course. 1874L. Morris To an Unknown Poet i, Along thy devious Usk's untroubled flow. 1887Stevenson Underwoods i. xx. 42 The river of your life I trace Up the sun-chequered, devious bed To the far-distant fountain-head.
b. Of persons or moving bodies: Following a winding or erratic course; rambling, roving.
1735Somerville Chase iii. 344 But whither roves my devious Muse? 1744Akenside Pleas. Imag. i. 197 The long career Of devious comets. 1868Lowell Willows v, A shoal Of devious minnows wheel from where a pike Lurks balanced.
3. fig. Deviating or swerving from the straight way; erring, straying.
1633Prynne Histrio-M. i. vi. xii. (R.), Whose heart is so estranged from reason, so devious from the truth through perverse error. 1638Cowley Love's Riddle iv, Yet still this devious Error draws me backward. 1650Caussin's Ang. Peace 53 Those men..precipitate themselves into devious enormities. 1847Longfellow Ev. ii. iii. 143 Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and devious spirit.
4. quasi-adv. With wandering or straying course.
1782Cowper Progr. Err. 60 Seek to..lead him devious from the path of truth. 1784― Tiroc. 309 To pitch the ball into the grounded hat, Or drive it devious with a dext'rous pat. 1848C. Brontë J. Eyre xxvii, I sought the Continent, and went devious through all its lands.
Hence ˈdeviously adv., in a devious manner or course, with deviation; ˈdeviousness.
1727Bailey vol. II, Deviousness, swervingness, or going out of the way. 1742Warburton Comm. Pope's Ess. Man Wks. 1811 XI. 34 God..deviously turns the natural bias of its malignity to the advancement of human happiness. 1791J. Whitaker Gibbon's Decl. & F. 252 (R.) No words can fully expose the astonishing deviousness of such a digression as this. 1842C. Whitehead R. Savage (1845) II. ix. 288 Money that comes deviously into a man's pocket goes crookedly out of it. 1870Lowell Study Wind., Good word for Winter (1871) 40 A nuthatch scaling deviously the trunk of some hard-wood tree. |