| 释义 |
Diana|daɪˈænə, daɪˈeɪnə|
Anglicized 4– Dian |ˈdaɪən|. Also 3–6 Diane, 6 Dyane, Dean.
[a. L. Diāna in F. diane, whence Eng. Diane, Dian, retained as a poetic form.]
1. a. An ancient Italian female divinity, the moon-goddess, patroness of virginity and of hunting; subsequently regarded as identical with the Greek Artemis, and so with Oriental deities, which were identified with the latter, e.g. the Artemis or Diana of the Ephesians.
c1205Lay. 1145 A wifmonnes liche, Diana [c 1275 Diane] wes ihaten. 1382Wyclif Acts xix. 24 Makinge siluerene housis to Dian. a1400–50Alexander 2299 To Dyanaas temple. 1508Dunbar Goldyn Targe 76 Dyane the goddesse chaste of woddis grene. 1590Shakes. Mids. N. i. i. 89 Or on Dianaes Altar to protest For aie, austerity, and single life. Ibid. iv. i. 78 Dians bud or [= o'er] Cupids flower, Hath such force and blessed power. 1791Cowper Odyss. iv. 153 Dian, goddess of the golden bow.
b. poet. The moon personified as a goddess.
1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. viii. xvii. (1495) 328 The mone is callyd Dyana, goddes of wodes and of groues. 1660Shirley Andromana ii. v, Pale-fac'd Dian maketh haste to hide Her borrow'd glory in some neighb'ring cloud. 1818Byron Ch. Har. iv. xxvii, Meek Dian's crest Floats through the azure air.
†c. Alluding to Acts xix. 24: Source of gain.
1640Somner Antiq. Canterb. 237 So loth were they to forgo their Diana. 1681J. Houghton Coll. Husb. & Trade 28 April, No. 353 They..are prohibiting our wollen manufactures which is our Diana.
d. attrib. or adj. Virgin, unsullied.
1870J. Orton Andes & Amazons ix. (1876) 144 Snow of Dian Purity.
e. transf.
1784Cowper Task iv. 517 Nymphs were Dianas then, and swains had hearts That felt their virtues. 1897Westm. Gaz. 25 Oct. 2/1 Some of these fair Dianas are clad in divided skirts. 1931[see astride a.].
2. In early Chemistry a name for silver.
(By the astro-alchemists also called Luna, from the ‘silver’ light of the moon: cf. the other planetary names of the metals Sol, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, i.e. gold, quicksilver, copper, iron, tin, and lead.)
Hence Tree of Diana, Arbor Dianæ: the dendritic amalgam precipitated by mercury from a solution of nitrate of silver.
1706Phillips (ed. Kersey), Diana's Tree..whereby a Mixture of Silver, Quick-silver and Spirit of Nitre may be Crystallized in shape of a Tree, with little Balls at the end of its Branches representing Fruit. 1798G. Gregory Œcon. Nature (1804) II. 247 note, Diana's tree, from the whim of the alchemists..who appropriated silver to the Moon, or Diana. 1849J. R. Jackson Minerals 287 A pretty metallic vegetation in glass jars:..called the Tree of Diana.
3. Diana monkey, Cercopithecus Diana, a large African monkey, so named from a crescent-shaped white marking on its forehead.
1812Smellie & Wood Buffon's Nat. Hist. X. 190 This monkey..is the same animal that Linnæus has called Diana. 1860Wood Illustr. Nat. Hist. I. 49 The most conspicuous feature in the Diana Monkey is the long and sharply pointed beard. |