| 释义 |
▪ I. † diˈstrict, a. Obs.
[ad. L. district-us severe, strict, pa. pple. of distringĕre to draw asunder, strain: see distrain and strict.]
Strict, stringent, rigorous; severe; exact.
1526Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 263 b, Impossyble to perseuer & contynue in thy district or sharpe exercyse of vertues. 1583Stubbes Anat. Abus. i. (1877) 46 Aristotle is so district in this point. 1656Sanderson Serm. Pref. (1689) 61 The most diligent, district, and unpartial search. 1700H. J. Salvab. Heathen 26 A Righteousness consisting in a Condecency of his Goodness and Mercy, and not in the Rule of his district Holiness.
▪ II. district, n.|ˈdɪstrɪkt|
[a. F. district (16th c. in Littré) ad. med.L. district-us (1) the constraining and restraining of offenders, the exercise of justice, (2) the power of exercising justice in a certain territory, jurisdiction, (3) the territory under the jurisdiction of a feudal lord; f. L. district- ppl. stem of distringĕre: see distrain.
(The explanation of the 17th c. legal antiquaries, ‘the territory within which the lord may distrain’, is much narrower than the notion involved in districtus.)]
†1. Law. The territory under the jurisdiction of a feudal lord. Obs.
1611Cotgr., District, a district; the liberties, or precincts of a place; the territorie, or circuit of countrey, within which a Lord, or his Officers may iudge, compell, or call in question, the inhabitants. [1641Termes de la Ley 125 Districtus is sometimes used for the circuit or territory, within which a man may be thus compelled to appeare.] 1670Blount Law Dict., District, is the place in which a Man hath the power of distreining, or the Circuit or Territory wherein one may be compelled to appear..Where we say, Hors de son Fee, others say, Extra districtum suum.
2. A portion of territory marked off or defined for some special administrative or official purpose, or as the sphere of a particular officer or administrative body civil or ecclesiastical; e.g. a police district, postal district, or registration district; the Metropolitan district, London postal district, that of a Local Board or Urban Sanitary Authority.
1664Jer. Taylor Dissuas. Popery i. ii. §1 (R.) The decrees of general councils bind not but as they are accepted by the several churches in their respective districts and diocesses. 1712Addison Spect. No. 403 ⁋2 The several Districts and Parishes of London and Westminster. 1834S. Gobat Abyssinia 367 As soon as the son of a great man has learned to read..his father gives him a district of a greater or less extent. 1847Act 10 Vict. c 15 §43 Any offence which shall take place within the Metropolitan Police District. 1861F. Nightingale Nursing 28 In healthy ‘registration’ districts, the mortality is low.
3. spec.
a. in England: A division of a parish, having its own church or chapel and resident clergyman, constituted under the Church Building Acts, from 58 Geo. III, c 45 onwards. Hence district chapel, district church, district parish. (See chapel 3 b.) Peel district: an ecclesiastical division formed under 6 and 7 Victoria, c. 37, ‘having a minister licensed by the bishop and vested with limited powers’.
These ecclesiastical districts originally constituted perpetual curacies; they are now mostly for ecclesiastical purposes distinct parishes, being vicarages or rectories according to the status of the benefice out of which they have been taken.
1818Act 58 Geo. III, c. 45 §21 In any case in which the said Commissioners shall be of opinion that it is not expedient to divide any populous Parish or Extra Parochial Place into such complete, separate, and distinct Parishes as aforesaid, but that it is expedient to divide the same into such Ecclesiastical Districts as they..may deem necessary for the Purpose of affording Accommodation for the attending Divine Service..to Persons residing therein. Ibid. §24 The churches and chapels respectively assigned to such Districts shall, when duly consecrated for that Purpose, become and be the District Parish Churches of such District Parishes. 1822Act 3 Geo. IV, c. 72 §10 To act on the Vestry of such District or Division, and of the Church or Chapel thereof. 1855Timbs Curiosities of London (1867), St. Peter's, Saffron-hill, a district church of St. Andrew's, Holborn. 1856J. R. Walbran Ripon, etc. 110 A district parish has..been assigned to this Church. 1866J. M. Dale Clergyman's Legal Handbk. (ed. 4) 34 Upon the new church being consecrated in the Peel district, it becomes a ‘new parish for ecclesiastical purposes’. Ibid. 35 The patronage of the Peel districts and parishes, until otherwise assigned, rests with the Crown and the bishop alternately.
b. One of the urban or rural subdivisions of a county, constituted by the Local Government Act of 1894, and having an Urban or Rural District Council.
1895Whitaker's Almanac 667 (Parish Councils Act) The whole country will be divided into districts, some of which are borough urban districts, some urban districts other than Boroughs, and some rural districts, each of which will have its own council. Rural districts in most cases comprise a large number of parishes. Ibid. 669 Rural districts are those areas which occupy the whole of the country outside London other than so much as is included in any borough or any other urban district.
c. In British India: A division or subdivision of a province or presidency, constituting the most important unit of civil administration, having at its head an officer called ‘Magistrate and Collector’, or ‘Deputy-Commissioner’. It corresponded to the Zillah of earlier times. Hist.
Generally, four or more ‘districts’ constituted a ‘division’ under a ‘commissioner’; but in Madras presidency the districts themselves were the primary divisions.
1776Trial Jos. Fowke 2/1 (Stanf.) Having a demand on the Dewan of the Calcutta District for..26,000 rupees. 1818Jas. Mill Brit. India (1840) V. 422 (Y.) In each district, that is in the language of the country, each Zillah..a Zillah Court was established. 1848G. Wyatt Revelat. Orderly (1849) 67 The Planters..in the Chumparan district. 1885Hunter Imp. Gaz. India IV. 416 Farakhábád bears the reputation of being one of the healthiest Districts in the Doáb. 1886Yule & Burnell Anglo-Ind. Gloss. 749 Zillah..is the technical name for the administrative districts into which British India is divided, each of which has in the older provinces a Collector, or Collector and Magistrate combined, a Session Judge, &c., and in the newer provinces, such as the Punjab..a Deputy Commissioner.
d. In U.S. used in various specific and local senses: e.g. a political division = election constituency, as an assembly district, congressional district, senate district.
In some States the chief subdivision of a county (civil, magisterial, militia, justice's district), called in other States townships or towns. Formerly, in South Carolina = county; elsewhere, a division of a State containing several counties. Also, a division of the country, directly under the control of Congress, and having no elective franchise, as the federal District of Columbia; the District of Alaska (formerly Russian America).
1800M. Cutler in Life, Jrnls. & Corr. (1888) II. 40 Much said about my being elected member for this district in Congress. 1802R. Brookes Gazetteer (ed. 12), Fayette, a district of N. Carolina, comprehending the counties of Moore, Cumberland, Sampson, Richmond, Robeson, and Anson. Fayetteville, a town of N. Carolina, in Cumberland county, capital of the district of Fayette. 1809Kendall Trav. I. ii. 10 The town-proper was of course the collection of dwellings; but, in the vulgar acceptation the same word embraced the entire district or township. 1890M. Townsend U.S. 138 The District of Columbia (including the national capital of Washington); the District of Alaska.
e. The portion of country or of a town allotted to or occupied by any person as the sphere of his operations; particularly, a section of a parish allotted to a lay ‘visitor’, working under the clergyman. Also, spec. the area served by a maternity hospital or a midwife for home confinements; colloq. phr. on the district: see quot. 1933.
1854C. M. Yonge Castle Builders v. 64 The Miss Shaws..have undertaken to get..a district appointed for us to visit. Ibid. v. 66 Several excellent persons..had attempted visiting and instructing the poor in his [sc. the vicar's] district. 1863Mrs. Carlyle Lett. III. 162 Visiting about in their ‘district’, and attending all sorts of meetings. 1888A. T. Quiller-Couch in Echoes fr. Oxford Mag. (1890) 104 There's no one to visit your ‘district’ Or make Mother Tettleby's soup. a1897Mod. For this purpose the town has been divided into districts, and two canvassers appointed to each. 1933Partridge Slang To-day & Yesterday ii. iii. 191 ‘Each of the London teaching hospitals undertakes the care of the parturient poor in its own district.’.. A student engaged on his three or six months' course of such midwifery is said to be ‘on the district’. 1961Observer 7 May 35/3 The different conditions which exist in maternity hospitals and on the district. 1964G. L. Cohen What's Wrong with Hospitals? v. 87 ‘I'm me own boss on the district,’ Nurse Bailey..expounded the advantages of domiciliary work. Ibid. 109 Midwives on the District recommend bed-rest but cannot enforce it.
f. A territorial division of the Methodist communions comprising a number of circuits.
1831J. M. Peck Guide for Emigrants 258 There are three districts, the Illinois, the Kaskaskia, and the Wabash districts, over each of which is a presiding Elder. 1839[see circuit n. 6]. 1885[see district meeting, sense 6]. 1970B. Drewery in S. G. F. Brandon Dict. Compar. Relig. 440/2 The Methodist constitution..forms series of concentric circles, from the local chapels organised into ‘circuits’, each with a team of Ministers under the ‘Superintendant’, the Districts under ‘Chairman’, and the central authority of the annual Conference of 650.
g. With capital initial: short for the London Metropolitan District Railway; also pl. shares in this railway. Also attrib.
1886[see gas v. 1]. 1898Westm. Gaz. 29 Nov. 8/1 We cannot find any sufficient reason for the recent rise in Districts. 1902Ibid. 29 May 7/3 To travel on the District from Ealing to the Mansion House and back, third-class, will in the future cost 8d. 1909Ibid. 16 July 10/3 Districts were also good in tone at 175/8. 1911W. Owen Lett. (1967) 80 Transported to the other side of London by those wretched District trains. 1959Chambers's Encycl. XI. 500/1 The District owned the south side of the Inner Circle from Mansion House to South Kensington... District trains reached Uxbridge over the Metropolitan.
4. Any tract of country, usually of vaguely defined limits, having some common characteristics; a region, locality, ‘quarter’.
1712Blackmore Creation ii. (R.) These districts which between the tropics lie..Were thought an uninhabitable seat. 1776Gibbon Decl. & F. i, The most extensive and flourishing district, westward of Mount Taurus and the river Halys, was dignified by the Romans with the exclusive title of Asia. 1865Lyell Elem. Geol. (ed. 6) 79 Districts composed of argillaceous and sandy formations. 1889A. R. Wallace Darwinism 222 Species [of birds] which inhabit open districts are usually protectively coloured. a1897Mod. The roughest carriage road in the Lake district. A manufacturing district; a purely agricultural district.
†5. fig. Sphere of operation; province, scope. (In quot. 1704 used in pl. = limits, bounds.) Obs. rare.
[1677Hale Prim. Orig. Man. i. i. 28 This Principle of Life, Sense, and Intellection in Man called the Soul, hath the Body as its Province and Districtus, wherein it exerciseth these Faculties and Operations.] 1704Swift Mech. Operat. Spirit Misc. (1711) 283 The first and the last of these I understand to come within the Districts of my Subject.
6. attrib. and Comb., in sense ‘of, belonging to, or allotted to a particular district’; as district-chapel, district church, district parish: see 3 a.; district-judge, district school, district-superintendent, district-surveyor, district-visiting, district-visitor (whence district-visit v. (humorous).); district-attorney (U.S.), the local prosecuting officer of a district; district-council, the local council of an Urban or Rural District as constituted by the Parish Councils Act of 1894; hence district-councillor; district-court (U.S.), a court of limited jurisdiction, having cognizance of certain causes within a district, presided over by a district-judge; district heating, a method of supplying heat or hot water from a single source to a number of separate buildings or a whole district; district nurse, a nurse who serves a rural or urban district; so district nursing; district officer, a representative of the Government in a colonial district; district system U.S., a system of electing members to the House of Representatives by electing one member for each district of a State (see sense 3 d).
1888Bryce Amer. Commw. II. ii. xlix. 255 The local prosecuting officer, called the district attorney.
1839Act 2 & 3 Vict. c. 93 An Act of the Establishment of County and District Constables.
1894Times 19 Dec. 6/3 Returned at the head of the poll for the urban district council..The village shoe-maker heads the poll for both the parish and the rural district council. 1895Whitaker's Almanac 669 (Parish Councils Act) Urban District Councils are but urban sanitary authorities under a new name, and elected on the same system as town councils in boroughs. Rural District Councils are a new body, and take over the functions which guardians of the poor, acting as rural sanitary authorities, discharged in rural sanitary districts.
Ibid. 670 The elections of guardians, and of urban and rural district councillors, are to take place under rules issued by the Local Government Board.
1802A. Hamilton Wks. (1886) VII. 301 It abolishes the District Courts of Tennessee and Kentucky.
1908A. G. King Pract. Steam & Hot Water Heating xxiii. 288 District Heating. This type, if it may be so termed, of steam and hot-water heating owes its inception to..Mr. Birdsall Holly, of Lockport, N.Y. 1913A. M. Greene Elem. Heating & Ventil. xi. 279 District heating or heating from a central station..has been extended to heat towns or portions of towns. 1943Archit. Rev. XCIII. 102/3 The district heating pipes by which a house and a whole estate..can be centrally heated. 1970Daily Tel. 7 Dec. 8/4 District heating costs more to install than individual heating systems but running costs are substantially less.
1828Webster, District-judge, the judge of a district court. District-school, a school within a certain district of a town. New England. 1833F. J. Shore Notes Indian Affairs (1837) I. 136 There were kazees..who may be designated district judges.
1885Minutes Wesleyan Conference 370 The Chairmen of Districts in their several District meetings.
1883Cassell's Family Mag. Apr. 314/1 District Nurses.—Some seven or eight years ago, an Association was formed in London for providing a body of skilled and trained nurses to nurse the sick poor at their own homes. 1894Mrs. H. Ward Marcella II. iii. iv. 313 Marcella's Association allowed its District Nurses to live outside the ‘home’ of the district on certain conditions. 1957New Yorker 12 Jan. 28/3 Terrified of infections and vaccines, she barred the door to the district nurse.
1883Cassell's Family Mag. Apr. 314/2 She..receives training in the practice of district nursing for a period of six months. 1956in A. Pryce-Jones New Outl. Mod. Knowledge 220 So much can now be provided by way of meals, home helps, and district-nursing services.
1861Statem. Mat. & Moral Progr. India 1859–60 iv. xiv. §6 in Parl. Papers [265] XLVII, Appeal cases, exceeding in value 1,000 Rupees, do not come before the District Officers. 1931A. R. Radcliffe-Brown Method in Social Anthropol. (1958) i. iii. 92 An officer of one of the African colonies..was asked if it would be a good thing to give a training in anthropology to those who would ultimately become district officers.
1867Smyth Sailor's Word-bk., District Orders, those issued by a general commanding a district.
1793F. Asbury Jrnl. 7 Mar. (1852) II. 186 Building a house for conference, preaching, and a district school. 1854M. J. Holmes Tempest & Sunshine viii. 111 He handed him five hundred dollars, telling him..to send her for two years to the district school. 1946Partridge & Bettman As We Were 19 Only in the backward regions of the country does the district school still survive.
1889G. Findlay Eng. Railway 14 In the more important districts the District Superintendents are relieved of the management of the goods business by ‘District Goods Managers’.
1823P. Nicholson Pract. Build. 368 The District-Surveyors are elected by the Magistrates. 1855Act 18 & 19 Vict. c. 122 §49 There shall be paid to the district surveyors..such other fees..as may from time to time be directed by the Metropolitan Board of Works.
1816Deb. Congress U.S. 20 Mar. (1854) 214 Under the district system,..the weight of Pennsylvania, great as she is, dwindled down to a solitary vote. 1902Encycl. Brit. XXXIII. 581/2 The House of Representatives is composed of members elected by popular vote... Each State is at liberty under the Constitution to adopt either the ‘general ticket’ system, i.e., the plan of electing all its members by one vote over the whole State, or to elect them in one-membered districts (the ‘district system’).
1854C. M. Yonge Castle Builders vi. 78, I read to him about your plans for district visiting. 1935Scrutiny IV. 116 No amount of observation of the district-visiting kind..will produce a convincing substitute for adequate response to the quality of the working-class life.
1850Kingsley A. Locke II. xii. 183 Katie had never heard of her before—‘some district visitor’ or other? 1870M. Bridgman Ro. Lynne I. iv. 43 ‘What are the duties of a district-visitor?’..‘She scolds the men for frequenting public-houses, abuses the women for being idle and slatternly.’ Ibid. 44 When I am ill, I shall..be ‘district-visited’.
Add:[6.] district auditor, (a) one appointed by the Poor Law Commissioners to audit the accounts of a District Board of Guardians (now Hist.); hence (b) until 1983, a civil servant responsible for auditing the accounts of local authorities; subsequently, an auditor employed in this capacity by the Audit Commission, and (since 1990) also responsible for auditing the accounts of health authorities and other bodies within the National Health Service (no longer a statutory title).
[1844Act 7 & 8 Vict. c. 101 §49 The Poor Law Commissioners shall appoint some person..who shall be the Auditor of such District, and shall be empowered and required to audit the Accounts of each District Board.] 1868Act 31 & 32 Vict. c. 122 §24 So much of the Poor Law Amendment Act, 1844..as provides for the Election of *District Auditors, shall be repealed. 1879District Auditors Act 42 Vict. c. 6 §2 All payments to district auditors out of any local rate shall cease, and the whole of the..remuneration..shall be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament. 1907A. E. Lauder Municipal Manual vi. 209 In all ordinary urban districts, in some half-dozen boroughs..and in all boroughs as far as income and expenditure on education are concerned, the accounts are audited by the district auditors of the Local Government Board. 1985R. Jones Local Govt. Audit Law (ed. 2) i. 18 A by-product of the [1982 Local Government Finance] Act was that the historic title of ‘district auditor’ disappeared from the statute book... The district auditor still lives, however, the [Audit] Commission having..retained the title in the appointment of its officers.
▪ III. ˈdistrict, v. orig. and chiefly U.S.
[f. prec. n.]
trans. To divide or organize into districts. Hence ˈdistricting vbl. n.
1792Mass. Acts & Laws (1895) 184 Resolve for districting the commonwealth, for the purpose of choosing federal representatives. 1828Webster, Districted, divided into districts or definite portions. Districting, dividing into limited or definite portions. 1855Motley Dutch Rep. Introd. xii. (1866) 40 The Netherlands like other countries are districted and farmed. 1869Daily News 2 Sept., The town is in the hands of certain groups of lawyers, and is districted by them. 1882Ibid. 16 June 5/4 Towns must be districted between them [electric-lighting Companies] as London is between gas and water Companies. 1888in Bryce Amer. Commw. II. App. 648 Until such districting as herein provided for shall be made. 1891W. K. Brooks Amer. Oyster 195, I believe that the districting plan is neither a real remedy nor the best method for arresting the destruction. |