| 释义 |
rapid, a., (adv.), and n.|ˈræpɪd|
[ad. L. rapid-us, f. rapĕre to seize, carry off, etc.: see -id1. Cf. F. rapide (1611 in Cotgr.).]
A. adj.
1. Moving, or capable of moving, with great speed; swift, very quick.
1634T. Carew Cœlum Brit. iv. 29 Be fix'd you rapid Orbes, that beare The changing seasons of the yeare On your swift wings. 1667Milton P.L. ii. 532 Part..shun the Goal With rapid wheels. c1742Gray Ignorance 34 Her rapid wings the transient scene pursue. 1791Cowper Iliad xvii. 847 On rapid feet Sped to Achilles. 1832H. T. De la Beche Geol. Man. (ed. 2) 213 This river was at first by no means rapid, and afterwards acquired considerable velocity. 1866G. Macdonald Ann. Q. Neighb. xxvii. (1878) 466 A space..sufficient to show the persons even of rapid riders.
2. Characterized by speed:
a. of motion.
1697Dryden Virg. Georg. iv. 533 With rapid Course [Po] seeks the sacred Main. 1730–46Thomson Autumn 683 Turn we a moment Fancy's rapid flight To vigorous soils. 1815Shelley Alastor 522 With rapid steps he went Beneath the shade of trees. 1860Tyndall Glac. i. xxvii. 212, I observed a rapid movement on the part of the remaining three men.
b. rapid eye movement, a type of jerky, binocular movement of the eyes of a sleeping person that is associated with a distinctive kind of sleep (REM sleep: see REM n.2).
1916[see saccadic a. 1]. 1953Aserinsky & Kleitman in Federation Proc. XII. 6/2 Rapid eye movements..were observed to appear from 2 to 5 hr...after the onset of sleep in 10 subjects. 1955― in Jrnl. Appl. Physiol. VIII. 3/1 As a nomenclature..is lacking, the first type of movement will be referred to as slow eye movement and the second type as rapid eye movement. 1968Brit. Med. Bull. XXIV. 257/1 There is a reduction in the amplitude of the evoked response during rapid eye-movement sleep as compared with slow wave sleep. 1971J. Z. Young Introd. Study Man x. 134 In man phases of sleep somewhat similar to the paradoxical ones of the cat are accompanied by rapid eye movements. 1977Listener 16 June 787/2 What he calls ‘active sleep’ (which used to be called ‘rapid eye movement’ sleep). 1980Brit. Med. Jrnl. 29 Mar. 896/1 Only one of the..patients had an episode of sleep apnoea during stage II sleep as opposed to rapid eye movement sleep.
c. of speech: Extremely quick.
1761Sterne Tr. Shandy V. iii, My father's eloquence was too rapid to stay for any man. 1835Browning Paracelsus v, I heard my name among those rapid words.
3. a. Quick in action, discourse, etc.
1791Cowper Iliad ii. 136 On that he leaned, and, rapid, thus began. 1818Shelley Rev. Islam iii. vii, Ere with rapid lips and gathered brow I could demand the cause. 1826Disraeli Viv. Grey v. iv. 180 He saw the student was a rapid drinker. 1861M. Arnold Translating Homer i. 11 Homer is eminently rapid.
b. techn. Said of photographic lenses, plates, or subjects, requiring only a short exposure.
1878Abney Photogr. (1881) 292 A magnifying lens, which takes the form known as ‘the rapid rectilinear’. 1890Anthony's Photogr. Bull. III. 28 When I speak of subjects impossible to the draughtsman, I do not mean merely very rapid subjects. 1892Photogr. Ann. II. 38 Your long exposure was not on the most rapid plate you had with you.
4. a. Taking place with speed; accomplished, attained, etc., within a short time; coming quickly into existence or to completion.
1780Harris Philol. Enq. Wks. (1841) 479 The rapid victories of these Eastern conquerors soon carried their empire from Asia even into the remote regions of Spain. 1796H. Hunter tr. St.-Pierre's Stud. Nat. (1799) III. 166 As it's growth is very rapid, it attained three years after to the height of twenty feet. 1809–10Coleridge Friend i. vii, Bristol has, doubtless, been injured by the rapid prosperity of Liverpool. 1874Green Short Hist. viii. §5. 504 Charles had good ground for this rapid confidence in his new minister.
b. Of a slope: Descending quickly.
1890Gd. Words 133/2 The slope [is] so rapid that you can scarcely find footing when once off the beaten road.
5. quasi-adv. Rapidly, with rapidity.
1791Cowper Iliad viii. 381 Ajax,..advancing rapid, stalk'd Around him. 1810Splendid Follies II. 59 The hours winged away uncommonly rapid with Freelove.
6. Comb., as rapid-footed, rapid-mannered; rapid-breeding, rapid-closing, rapid-firing, rapid-flowing, rapid-growing, rapid-hardening, rapid-running, rapid-selling, rapid-travelling adjs.; rapid-fire (used attrib.); rapid-transit (usu. attrib.) orig. U.S., (a system of) carriage of persons by fast public transport, esp. within a heavily built-up area.
1922T. S. Eliot in Dial (Chicago) Dec. 662 The encouragement of the cheap and rapid-breeding cinema.
1969Jane's Freight Containers 1968–69 238/3 An interior rapid-closing floor valve NW 32.
1890Noble in Rep. Brit. Assoc. 944 The increased importance of rapid-fire guns. 1900F. P. Dunne Mr. Dooley's Philos. 61 Th' paapers says th' rapid fire gun'll make war in th' future impossible. Ibid. 185 In him th' counthry loses a valu'ble an' acc'rate citizen, th' state a lile an' rapid firin' son. 1925C. Connolly Let. 27 June in Romantic Friendship (1975) 94 Will you start a rapid fire of postcards etc. if I do, just for a bit? 1969Times 25 Mar. 9/1 The new play relies for its theatrical effect on rapid-fire repartee. 1976All about Games (Com. Org. des Jeux Olympiques) 76 The competition now includes..small-bore rifle shooting, rapid-fire pistol shooting. 1976New Yorker 15 Nov. 120/2 The classic symptoms of stuttering..include rapid-fire repetitions of consonant or vowel sounds.
1896Daily News 28 Apr. 3/2 Loaded with rapid-firing and machine guns.
1848Buckley Iliad 265 The rapid-flowing current of eddying Xanthus.
1749G. West tr. Pindar (1753) I. 6 If..the rapid-footed Steed Could with joy thy Bosom move.
1907Westm. Gaz. 22 Mar. 2/3 These creatures..are chickens fed so generously that they are marketable..three weeks before the most rapid-growing Aylesbury duckling is saleable.
1964A. Battersby Network Analysis v. 58 For example, even if expensive rapid-hardening cement is used for laying foundations, they must have at least a day to harden. 1967Gloss. Highway Engin. Terms (B.S.I.), Rapid-hardening Portland cement, a Portland cement which has the property of attaining a high early strength.
1820G. Hake Mem. 80 Yrs. lxiii. 262 A young Bavarian officer of the rapid-mannered kind.
1797T. Bewick Birds I. Pref. 6 Its business being..among rapid-running streams.
1962E. Godfrey Retail Selling & Organization ii. 20 Generally speaking, rapid-selling stock is placed on open fixtures.
1873Daily Graphic (N.Y.) 26 Mar. 3/3 In addition to the accommodations which are afforded the citizen of New York in the way of rapid transit..our elevated road will be the great ‘accommodator’. 1904N.Y. World Mag. 21 Aug. 5/1 But the cars buzz on, heedless, as they do at the beck of a private citizen, and the great General must feel, unless his nerves are iron, that rapid transit gloria mundi. 1961L. Mumford City in Hist. xiv. 425 Señor Soria y Mata..boldly proposed to make the new city a function of a spinal rapid-transit system. 1968Economist 2 Nov. 50/3 There will also be 75 per cent grants available for big new passenger projects (e.g. new rapid transit system, such as the one investigated at Manchester). 1976Illustr. London News Nov. 29/2 A rapid transit system is essentially one with an exclusive right of way. 1977Chicago Tribune 2 Oct. ii. 30/1 Closed by the strike were two Pullman-Standard plants in Hammond, which manufacture railroad freight and passenger cars, and the plant at 720 E. 111th St., which manufactures rapid-transit cars.
1932World Today Feb. 213/2 By ten o'clock the narrow strip of timber some three miles long and an eighth of a mile wide was well aflame and had arrived at the rapid-travelling stage.
B. n.
1. A part of a river where the bed forms a steep descent, causing a swift current. (Originally U.S. and usually in pl.; cf. F. rapides.) Also fig.
1765G. Croghan Jrnl. 2 June in R. G. Thwaites Early Western Trav. (1904) I. 136 What is called the Fall here, is no more than rapids. 1776C. Carroll Jrnl. (1845) 84 Took boat and went down Hudson's river, through all the rapids, to Albany. 1803Gouv. Morris in Sparks Life & Writ. (1832) I. 483 In this condition we descend the rapid. 1820Shelley Witch xli, Mortal boat In such a shallow rapid could not float. 1856Stanley Sinai & Pal. vii. (1858) 282 It plunges through twenty-seven rapids, through a fall of a thousand feet. 1900G. B. Shaw Let. 11 Apr. (1972) II. 157 We steered the Society safely through a rapid in which it might have been wrecked. 1911Chesterton Innocence of Father Brown x. 265 She was already in the rapids of an ethical tirade about the ‘sickly medical notions’. 1979P. L. Sandberg Stubb's Run xxvii. 174 They were in the middle of the rapid, picking up speed.
2. Usu. pl. Rapid-fire shooting.
1913A. G. Fulton Notes on Rifle Shooting 20 A man who is a good deliberate shot can, with very little practice, become good at ‘rapids’. 1923Kipling Irish Guards in Gt. War II. 142 They indulged the enemy..with five minutes' ‘rapid’ of Lewis-guns or rifles. 1932J. A. Barlow Elements of Rifle Shooting v. 62 It is this conflict between the desire to have the aim correct before firing, and the desire to let the round off before too much time is wasted, which is the most usual cause of bad rapids.
▸ rapid-response adj. that gives a quick response; spec. designating a team or unit of people who are deployed to deal with an incident or situation as soon as possible.
1955Geogr. Jrnl. 121381 Another striking method also using a form of echo-sounding is to fly an aircraft fitted with a narrow-beam *rapid-response radar altimeter at about 150 feet above the sea. 1979Summary World Broadcasts Pt. 1: U.S.S.R. (B.B.C.) (Nexis) 13 Aug. SU/6192/A4/2 A 100,000-strong rapid response corps is being created, which..could be sent if necessary to the oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf. 1995L. Tullis Unintended Consequences iv. 106 A rapid-response team of specialized federal judicial police agents who interdict airborne South American cocaine traffic. |