| 释义 |
▪ I. director|dɪˈrɛktə(r)|
Also 5–7 -our, 6–9 -er (6 Sc. direkkare, direckar).
[a. AF. directour = F. directeur, ad. L. *dīrector, agent-n. from dīrigĕre to direct.]
1. a. One who or that which directs, rules, or guides; a guide, a conductor; ‘one that has authority over others; a superintendent; one that has the general management of a design or work’ (J.).
director-general, a chief or supreme director, having under him directors or managers of departments.
1477Caxton in Earl Rivers' Dictes 145 Erle of Ryuyers..Defendour and directour of the siege apostolique. 1552Abp. Hamilton Catech. (1884) 47 To be ledar, techar and direckar of the same kirk. 1581Marbeck Bk. Notes 741 They use hir [the moon] as the directer of their festiuall daies. 1594Hooker Eccl. Pol. i. (1676) 74 It cannot be but Nature hath some Directer of infinite knowledge to guide her. 1614Raleigh Hist. World ii. 225 The North Starre is the most fixed directour of the Seaman to his desired Port. 1660R. Coke Power & Subj. 77 The husband is the director and ruler of his wife. 1746–7Hervey Medit. (1818) 78 Whatever thou doest, consult them as thy directors. 1839Penny Cycl. XV. 467/1 In 1769 Mozart was appointed director of the archbishop of Salzburg's concerts. 1876Bancroft Hist. U.S. V. xvi. 526 He was created director-general of the finances. 1880Grove Dict. Mus. I. 412/2 The theatre was turned permanently into an opera-house..The director was Mr. Frederick Beale. 1890W. A. Wallace Only a Sister 86 Stable-master and director-in-general of everything. 1891S. C. Scrivener Our Fields & Cities 135 It is a better knowledge of the effect produced by inevitable ‘weather’ that the director of cultivation requires.
b. spec. A member of a board appointed to direct or manage the affairs of a commercial corporation or company.
1632(title), A remonstrance of the directors of the Netherlands East India Company..touching the bloudy proceedings against the English Merchants..at Amboyna. 1673Phil. Trans. VIII. 6113 He..is still one of the chief of the Court of Committees, which a foreigner would call Directors. 1697Lond. Gaz. No. 3303/3 (Bank of Eng.), A General Court will be held for the Election of Twenty four Directors. 1711Addison Spect. No. 3 ⁋1, I looked into the great Hall where the Bank is kept, and was not a little pleased to see the Directors, Secretaries, and Clerks. 1732Pope Ep. Bathurst 117 What made Directors cheat in South-sea year? 1758Johnson Idler No. 29 ⁋6, I was hired in the family of an East India director. 1825Scott Diary 13 Dec. in Lockhart, Went to the yearly court of the Edinburgh Assurance Company, to which I am one of those graceful and useless appendages called Directors extraordinary. 1876Besant & Rice Gold. Butterfly vii, Gabriel Cassilis was a director of many companies.
c. spec. A member of the French Directory of 1795–9: see directory n. 6.
1798Canning Elegy xiii. in Anti-Jacobin (1852) 134 The French Directors Have thought the point so knotty. 1837Penny Cycl. ix. 15/1 The executive power was entrusted to five directors..The directors had the management of the military force, of the finances, and of the home and foreign departments.
d. Eccl. (chiefly in R.C. Ch.) An ecclesiastic holding the position of spiritual adviser to some particular person or society.
1669Woodhead St. Teresa i. xiii. 80 He will have great need of a Directour, if he can meet with an experienced one. 1690Dryden Don Sebastian ii. i, He prates as if kings had not consciences, And none required directors but the crowd. 1697Jos. Woodward Relig. Soc. ix. (1701) 133 That an orthodox and pious Minister should be chosen by each Society, as the Director and visitor of it. 1748Smollett Rod. Rand. iv, The parson of the parish, who was one of the executors, and had acted as ghostly director to the old man. 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. II. 648 Tillotson..as a spiritual director, had, at that time, immense authority. 1877Daily News 25 Oct. 5/7 A director is not the same as a confessor..A confessor hears avowals of sin, a director is consulted in ‘cases of conscience’.
†e. Mus. = direct n. 2. Obs.
1597Morley Introd. Mus. 20 It is called an Index or director: for looke in what place it standeth, in that place doth the first note of the next verse stand. 1667C. Simpson Compend. Musick 22 This mark {mostra} is set to direct us where the first Note of the next five Lines doth stand, and is therefore called a Directer.
f. A small letter inserted by the scribe for the direction of the illuminator in the space left for an illuminated initial.
1881Blades Caxton (1882) 230 Space is left at the beginning of the chapters with a director, for the insertion of 2 to 5-line initials.
g. One who directs a film or play, etc. (see direct v. 5 c). orig. U.S.
1911Moving Picture World 22 July 108/2 The director explains to the players the action of a..scene. 1914R. Grau Theatre of Science 362 The world-famous director, D. W. Griffith. 1915E. A. Dench Making Movies i. 1 Good actors, authors and photographers are indispensable, but unless they are guided by a talented director, results will be disappointing. 1933Punch 30 Aug. 234/2 Mr. Herbert Wilcox, its [sc. the film's] director, has skilfully overcome the difficulties of adaptation. 1938W. S. Maugham Summing Up 107 The director shouts ‘curtain up’. Ibid., I use the American word director rather than the English one, producer, because I think it better describes what should be the function of the person in question. 1944Sunday Times 16 Jan. 2/6 In the meantime I pity the poor director, as we are beginning to call the producer. 1963[see directorial a. 1 b].
†2. The dedicator of a book or the like. Obs.
1553Douglas' æneis (1710) 481 Here The Direkkare and Translatare of this Buke direkkis it.
3. a. One who or that which causes something to take a particular direction.
1646Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. ii. ii. 62 [The] Needle.. will not hang parallel, but decline at the north extreme, and at that part will first salute its Director.
†b. One who aims a missile. Obs. rare.
1632W. Lithgow Trav. vii. 300 The best director may mistake his ayme.
c. Surg. A hollow or grooved instrument for directing the course of a knife or scissors in making an incision.
1667R. Lower in Phil. Trans. II. 544 Take it [the Incision-knife] out, and put in a Director, or a small Quill made like it. 1767Gooch Treat. Wounds I. 383 Carefully introduce a very small director, to avoid injuring the intestines. 1851–60Mayne Expos. Lex., Director..grooved instrument for guiding a bistoury, etc., in certain operations.
d. ‘A metallic rod in a non-conducting handle connected with one pole of a galvanic battery, for the purpose of transmitting the current to a part of the body.’ Syd. Soc. Lex. 1883.
1795Cavallo Electr. II. (ed. 4) 122 Each of these instruments, justly called directors, consists of a knobbed brass wire. 1816J. Smith Panorama Sc. & Art II. 267 The other extremities of the wires must be fastened to the wires of the instruments YZ, which are called directors. 1846Joyce Sci. Dial. xv. 394 (Electricity).
e. An apparatus for directing a torpedo.
1889C. Sleeman Torpedoes & Torp. Warf. (ed. 2) 252 The Torpedo director..consists of a brass circular casting..faced out and graduated.
f. Perspective. (See quots.)
1876Gwilt Archit. Gloss., Director of an Original Line, the straight line passing through the directing point and the eye of a spectator. Director of the Eye, the intersection of the plane with the directing plane perpendicular to the original plane and that of the picture, and hence also perpendicular to the directing and vanishing planes.
g. Geom. = director circle: see below and cf. directrix 2 b.
1852Gaskin Geom. Constr. Conic Sect. Pref. 6 There are several remarkable properties of this locus, which, as far as the author is aware, have not been hitherto noticed, and he has found it convenient to denominate it the ‘director’ of the conic section, which in the case of the parabola coincides with the directrix.
4. attrib. and Comb. director-circle (of a conic), the locus of intersection of tangents at right angles to each other; so also director-sphere (of a surface of the second degree); director-plane, a fixed plane used in describing a surface, analogous to the line called a directrix; director-tube (= sense 3 e).
Director-circle is also sometimes used to denote the circle described about a focus of an ellipse or hyperbola with radius = major axis. See Taylor Anc. & Mod. Geom. of Conics (1881) 90. (H. T. Gerrans.)
1864Webster, Directer plane. 1867R. Townsend in Quart. Jrnl. Math. VIII. 11 For the paraboloid..the director sphere opens out into a plane. Ibid. The director plane of the paraboloid. 1876Catal. Sci. App. S. Kens. §99 The director planes..of these conoïds are at right angles to one another. 1882Daily News 8 June 5/8 Equation to the Director Circle of a Conic, [by] Professor Wolstenholme. 1887Pall Mall G. 25 Mar. 5/1 Director tube..is the telescopic apparatus through which aim is taken at the enemy's vessel, and by means of which the torpedo is fired.
▸ director's cut n. Film (orig. U.S.) the version of a film submitted by its director, which is then usually re-edited by the studio before release; (now) spec. a version of a film reflecting the director's intentions, released after the original studio version.
1980Entertainm. Law Reporter 15 May 3/1 Merrick agreed to pay Hunt $150,000 in 10 weekly installments..with the final $50,000 payment to be made on delivery of the *director's cut. 1995i-D Aug. 95/1 The big news this month is that the director's cut of Blade Runner (Beyond Vision) is finally available on sell-through 13 years after it was first mangled by nervous studio execs. 2002Empire Dec. 152/2 For DVD, not a ‘director's cut’ replacing the theatrical version, but an alternative extended edit.
▪ II. diˈrector, v. nonce-wd.
[f. prec. n.]
trans. To manage as a director.
1892Pall Mall G. 5 May 2/1 Another typical mine..the Langlaagte, which is directored by Mr. G. B―. |