| 释义 |
acme|ˈækmiː|
Also 7 achme, achma, 8–9 acmé, acmè.
[a. Gr. ἀκµή point. Long consciously used as a Gr. word, and written in Gr. letters from Ascham 1570 to Goldsmith 1750, although spelt as Eng. by B. Jonson 1625, and commonly afterwards.]
1. gen. The highest point or pitch; the culmination, or point of perfection, in the career or development of anything.
1570R. Ascham Scholem. (1863) 93 The Latin tong, even whan it was, as the Grecians say, in ἀκµῇ, that is, at the hiest pitch of all perfitenesse. a1637B. Jonson Discov. So that he may be named, and stand as the mark and ἀκµή of our language. 1641W. Cartwright Lady Err. ii. iv. (1651) 23 I' th' heat and achme of devotion. 1655Fuller Ch. Hist. iii. 78 Date we from this day, the achme or vertical height of Abbeys, which henceforward began to stand still, & at last to decline. 1659Lestrange Alliance Div. Off. ix. The Liturgy and ceremonie of our Church, drawing nigh to its ἀκµή. 1675Ogilby Brit. Ded., In the Achma of the Three Last Empires of the World. 1765Goldsm. Ess., Taste, By the age of ten his genius was at the ἀκµή. 1790Burke Fr. Revol. Wks. V. 236 The growth of population in France was by no means at its acmé in that year. 1800Weems Washington (1877) xi. 155 Having at length attained the acme of all his wishes. 1817Malthus Population III. 57 No country has ever reached, or probably ever will reach, its highest possible acme of produce. 1835I. Taylor Spir. Despotism §5. 188 A position whence the transition was easy to the acmé of unbounded despotism. 1868Gladstone Juv. Mundi (1870) xi. 421 It is however in Achilles that courtesy reaches to its acmè. 1880Boy's Own Bk. 240 The acme of bicycle riding.
†2. esp.
a. The period of full growth, the flower or full-bloom of life. Obs.
1620Venner Via Recta viii. 174 They haue not attained vnto the Acme, or full height of their growing. 1625B. Jonson Staple of News Prol. (1631) 5 He must be one that can instruct your youth, And keepe your Acme in the state of truth. 1650Bulwer Anthropometam. §22. 245 [It] may be either in the achma or declination of our age. 1660T. Stanley Hist. Philos. (1701) 259/2 Youth is the encrease of the first Refrigerative part, Age the decrease thereof, ἄκµη, the constant and perfect Life which is betwixt both. 1664Evelyn Sylva 37 Every tree..after each seven years improving twelve pence in growth, till they arriv'd to their acme. 1844Stanley Arnold's Life & Corr. II. x. 314 The thought that the forty-ninth year, fixed by Aristotle as the acme of the human faculties, lay still some years before him.
b. The point of extreme violence of a disease, the crisis. arch.
c1630Jackson Creed viii. xiii. Wks. VII. 496 Christ Jesus..in the very ἀκµὴ of his agony..did set the fairest copy of that obedience. 1676Grew Plants, Lect. ii. i. §26 (1682) 242 We may conceive the reason of the sudden access of an acute Disease, and of its Crisis..when the Cause is arrived unto such an ἀκµὴ. 1752in Phil. Trans. XLVII. lxxiii. 586 From the beginning to the flatus or acme of the disease, they almost all die. 1837Carlyle Fr. Rev. (1872) I. v. vi. 167 Paris wholly has got to the acme of its frenzy.
Add:3. Used attrib. to designate (a screw having) a type of modified square thread whose grooves have sides inclined at an angle of 29°.
1895Amer. Machinist XVIII. 2 Mr. Handy has named the new thread the ‘Acme Standard’. 1920Ibid. LIII. 105 The Acme thread was not designed for any particular ratio of pitch for a given diameter although W. S. Dix..recommended that the ratios of pitch to diameter be in the proportion of one half the number of threads or twice the pitch of the U.S. standard screw. 1930Engineering 6 June 721/1 A narrow thread must throw up less metal in its thread than a Vee-thread, or an acme thread. 1964S. Crawford Basic Engin. Processes (1969) v. 116 Travel of the cross-slide is controlled by a screw, usually of square or acme thread form. |