| 释义 |
dominant, a. and n.|ˈdɒmɪnənt|
[a. F. dominant (13th–14th c. in Hatz.-Darm.), f. L. dominānt-em, pr. pple. of dominārī to dominate.]
A. adj.
1. Exercising chief authority or rule: ruling, governing, commanding; most influential.
c1532G. Du Wes Introd. Fr. in Palsgr. 1073 The qualytes principall domynant in the same. 1652Gaule Magastrom. 243 Few live who, when they are born, have Saturne dominant in their horoscope. 1680Wood Life (Oxf. Hist. Soc.) II. 497 An odde feaverish sickness dominant in the Universitie. a1796Reid (Mason) There are different orders of monads..the higher orders Leibnitz calls dominant; such is the human soul. 1813Southey in Q. Rev. X. 102 The dominant party persecuted both in duty and in self-defence. 1871Darwin Desc. Man I. ii. 60 Dominant languages and dialects..lead to the gradual extinction of other tongues.
2. Occupying a commanding position.
1854J. S. C. Abbott Napoleon (1855) I. xxxvi. 561 To take possession of the dominant points of the globe. 1860Tyndall Glac. i. xi. 81 We were dominant over all other mountains. 1871― Fragm. Sc. (1879) I. vi. 205 Lying in..a bay, sheltered by dominant hills. 1891Nature 23 July 267 Dominant trees, with their head well above the others.
3. Rom. Law. dominant land, dominant tenement: ‘the tenement or subject in favour of which a servitude exists or is constituted’ (Bell Dict. Law Scot.).
1754Erskine Princ. Sc. Law (1809) 225 If the rent be payable in meal, flour, or malt, the grain of which these are made must be manufactured in the dominant mill. 1871W. Markby Elem. Law §371 Adopting the language of the Roman Law, English lawyers call the land to which the easement is attached the dominant land, and the land over which it is exercised the servient land. 1875Poste Gaius ii. (ed. 2) 166 Right of way for beast and man..over the servient tenement to the dominant tenement.
4. Mus. [attrib. use of B. 1 b.] Belonging or relating to the dominant or fifth of the key; having the dominant for its root, as dominant chord, dominant seventh, etc.
1819Pantologia s.v., The dominant or sensible chord is that which is practised upon the dominant of the tone. 1875Ouseley Harmony ii. 16. 1880 Stainer Composition §26 The third of the minor scale is commonly treated as a dominant discord. 1880C. H. H. Parry in Grove Dict. Mus. I. 674 The modern Dominant Harmonic Cadence..defines the key absolutely.
5. Math. dominant branch of a tree, one containing half or more of all the knots of a ‘tree’.
6. Forestry. Overtopping other trees; said esp. of those trees in a forest which have their crowns free to light on all sides.
1893J. Nisbet Sel. Trees Woodland Crops 21 Four classes of stems become distinguishable, viz., (1) predominating, (2) dominant, (3) dominated, and (4) suppressed. 1908A. M. F. Caccia Gloss. Techn. Terms Ind. Forestry, Dominant, a tree which has raised its crown above the level of the surrounding trees. 1930Indian Forest Rec. XV. i. 2 Dominant Trees, including all trees which form the uppermost leaf canopy and have their leading shoots free.
7. Biol. [tr. G. dominierend (Mendel 1866, Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden in Verh. d. Naturforsch. Ver., Brünn 1865 IV. 10).] Of a hereditary character: appearing to the exclusion of another character in a heterozygous organism containing alleles for them both. Hence of an allele or gene: expressed to the exclusion of another allelic gene. Const. to, over.
1900W. Bateson in Jrnl. R. Hort. Soc. XXV. 58 In the case of each pair of characters there is thus one which in the first cross prevails to the exclusion of the other. This prevailing character Mendel calls the dominant character, the other being the recessive character. 1925C. C. Hurst Exper. in Genetics 246 In each pair, when crossed, Mendel found the first-named character dominant over the other. 1925T. H. Morgan Evol. & Genetics 151 The genes that arise by mutation have been found to be largely recessive to the genes already present in the original type which are said, therefore, to be dominant to the new genes. 1953W. Braun Bacterial Genetics i. 9 When a gene derived from one parent differs from the corresponding gene contributed by the other parent, the effect of only one of the two genes may dominate, covering up the detectable effects of the other. Such genes are called dominant. 1965Bell & Coombe tr. Strasburger's Textbk. Bot. (new ed.) ii. ii. 332 It is also possible for one gene to suppress the functioning of the other, i.e. one is dominant while its allele is recessive.
8. Ecology. Designating or pertaining to the predominant species in a plant community.
1923[see dominance 3]. 1950Jrnl. Ecol. XXXVIII. 108 Plant associations have been classified according to the ‘dominant’ species of the vegetation; that is, those which occur in a high proportion of quadrats.
9. dominant wavelength, the wavelength or hue of a colour that determines the other colours with which it will match.
1913W. de W. Abney Res. Colour Vision 415/2 Dominant wave-lengths. 1957R. W. G. Hunt Reproduction of Colour viii. 79 Subjective Term: Hue. Objective Term: Dominant Wavelength. Ibid. 193 Where θ is a correlate of the hue (in terms of dominant wavelength, for instance).
B. n.
1. Mus.
†a. In the ecclesiastical modes: ‘The predominating sound in each mode, the note on which the recitation is made in each Psalm or Canticle tone’ (Helmore in Grove Dict. Mus.); usually a fifth above the ‘final’ in the authentic modes, and a third above it in the plagal. Obs.
1823Crabb Technol. Dict. s.v. 1880T. Helmore in Grove Dict. Mus. I. 626 To the 4 Authentic, St. Gregory added 4 ‘Plagal’..modes..The Dominants of the new scales are in each case a third below those of the old ones, C being however substituted for B♮ in the Hypo-mixo⁓lydian.
b. In modern Music: The fifth note of the scale of any key; which is of special importance in relation to the harmonies of that key. (Also fig.)
1819[see 4 above]. 1855Browning Toccata of Galuppi's viii, Hark—the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to! 1861D. Greenwell Poems 133, I would find My soul's true Dominant. 1867Macfarren Harmony i. 24.
2. Math.: see quot.
1881Sylvester in Educat. Times XXXIV. 100 The dominant of a set of numbers meaning the greatest one of them without respect to sign.
3. Biol. A dominant allele or character; an individual in which a particular dominant allele is expressed.
1900W. Bateson in Jrnl. R. Hort. Soc. XXV. 58 In this generation the numerical proportion of dominants to recessives is..as three to one. 1905R. C. Punnett Mendelism 10 There are dominants which breed to the dominant character, and are therefore pure. 1913Oxf. Univ. Gaz. 4 June 948/2 Hypolimnas..dubius, Beauv., proved to be a Mendelian dominant, and H. anthedon, Boisd., recessive. 1930R. A. Fisher Genet. Theory Nat. Selection iii. 50 If..the mutant genes are dominant just as often as they are recessive, selection will be far more severe in eliminating the disadvantageous dominants than in eliminating the disadvantageous recessives. 1965H. E. Sutton Introd. Human Genetics xvii. 213 Dominants that cannot be transmitted therefore cannot be distinguished from environmentally induced traits. 1967Listener 6 Apr. 450/2 A predisposition towards depression is probably an inherited characteristic—biologically inherited, that is, as a Mendelian dominant, and not just acquired from the family environment.
4. Ecology. The chief constituent of a plant community.
1913Tansley & Adamson in Jrnl. Ecology I. 83 It is difficult to resist the conclusion that beech is the natural dominant in the magnificent series of woods. 1916[see association 12]. 1933Forestry VII. 122 There is little difference between the various stem-classes—dominants, co-dominants, and sub-dominants—as regards the distribution of form-classes. 1938Weaver & Clements Plant Ecol. (ed. 2) iv. 91 The visible unity of the climax is due primarily to the dominants or controlling species.
Hence ˈdominantly adv., in a dominating way; so as to dominate or sway.
1868Contemp. Rev. VII. 155 A vital factor which has dominantly entered into..national life. 1869Ibid. XI. 447 The dominantly Jewish character of the population. |