| 释义 |
▪ I. dimidiate, a.|dɪˈmɪdɪət, daɪ-|
[ad. L. dīmidiātus, pa. pple. of dīmidiāre to halve, f. dīmidium half, f. di-, dis- asunder + medius mid, medium middle.]
1. Divided into halves; halved, half.
1768–74Tucker Lt. Nat. (1852) I. 475 The dimidiate platform of your staircase. 1825Lamb Elia Ser. ii. Pop. Fallacies, He..allows his hero a sort of dimidiate preeminence:—‘Bully Dawson kicked by half the town, and half the town kicked by Bully Dawson’. 1847Sir W. Hamilton Let. to A. De Morgan 43 Dimidiate quantification. 1854Hooker Himal. Jrnls. I. iii. 61 When the tree is dimidiate, one half the green, the other the red shades of colour.
2. Bot. and Zool.
a. Of an organ: Having one part much smaller than the other, so as to appear to be wanting.
b. Split in two on one side, as the calyptra of some mosses.
c. Zool. Relating to the lateral halves of an organism: applied to hermaphrodites having one side male and the other female.
1830Lindley Nat. Syst. Bot. 322 The dimidiate calyptra. 1846Dana Zooph. (1848) 432 Dimidiate, a tubular calicle bisected vertically nearly to its base. 1855Owen Comp. Anat. 18 (L.) Insects, like crustaceans, are occasionally subject to one-sided or dimidiate hermaphroditism. 1863Berkeley Brit. Mosses Gloss. 312 Dimidiate, the same with cucullate. 1880Gray Struct. Bot. vi. §6. 255 The anther of Gomphrena is completely unilocular by abortion..of the companion cell. Thus losing one half, it is said to be dimidiate, or halved.
3. Comb. in botanical terms, as dimidiate-cordate, said of a dimidiate leaf (see 2 a) of which the full-grown part is cordate; so dimidiate-oblong, dimidiate-obovoid. (Sometimes written dimidiato-cordate, etc.)
1866Treas. Bot., Dimidiato-cordate, when the larger half of a dimidiate leaf is cordate. 1870Hooker Stud. Flora 329 Euphorbia peplis..leaves dimidiate-cordate. Ibid. 435 Leersia oryzoides..Spikelet dimidiate-oblong.
▪ II. dimidiate, v.|dɪˈmɪdɪeɪt, daɪ-|
[f. ppl. stem of L. dīmidiāre: see prec.]
1. trans. To divide into halves; to halve; to reduce to the half.
1623Cockeram, Dimediate, to part into two parts. 1652W. Sclater Civ. Mag. (1653) 42 Who dimidiate Christ, would have him onely by halfes. 1652Sparke Prim. Devot. (1663) 321 Dimidiated, as 'twere by forked tongues. 1789S. Parr Wks. (1828) VII. 412, I hope he had a complete service, not mutilated and dimidiated, as it was for poor Johnson at the Abbey.
2. Her. To cut in half; to represent only half of (a bearing), esp. in one half of a shield party per pale: see dimidiated, dimidiation. Hence diˈmidiating vbl. n.
1864Boutell Heraldry Hist. & Pop. xiv. §1 (ed. 3) 146 This was styled Impaling by Dimidiation or Dimidiating. 1880Warren Book-plates xii. 128. 1893 E. Howlett in Reliquary July 160 The arms of the Cinque Ports, England dimidiating azure three ships' hulls in pale or. |