| 释义 |
dormant, a. and n.|ˈdɔːmənt|
Also 5–6 -and, 5–7 -ond, -ound.
[a. OF. dormant (12th c. in Hatz.-Darm.), pr. pple. of dormir:—L. dormīre to sleep.]
A. adj.
1. Sleeping, lying asleep or as asleep; hence, fig. intellectually asleep; with the faculties not awake; inactive as in sleep.
1623Cockeram, Dormant, sleeping. 1640G. Watts tr. Bacon's Adv. Learn. Pref. 16 If we have bin too credulous, or too dormant. 1681Grew Musæum (J.), His prey, for which he lies, as it were, dormant, till it swims within his reach. 1726Adv. Capt. R. Boyle 285 That he only lay dormant to meditate some Mischief to me. 1858Hawthorne Fr. & It. Jrnls. I. 132 Some Romans were lying dormant in the sun. 1869Farrar Fam. Speech iii. (1873) 104 The hitherto dormant members of the Aryan family.
b. Of animals: With animation suspended.
1772Forster in Phil. Trans. LXII. 378 It lies dormant the greater part of the winter.
c. Of plants: With development suspended.
1863Berkeley Brit. Mosses ii. 5 In dry weather they [Mosses] are often completely dormant. 1882Vines Sachs' Bot. 640 The numerous dormant buds of woody plants may long remain buried and yet retain their vitality. 1883Syd. Soc. Lex., Dormant bud, a bud which remains, it may be for years, undeveloped on a plant stem.
d. Her. Represented in a sleeping or recumbent attitude; with the head resting on the paws.
c1500Sc. Poem Heraldry 130 in Q. Eliz. Acad. etc. 98 xv maneris of lionys in armys..the viij dormand. 1646Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. v. x. 248 Yet were it not probably a Lyon Rampant..but rather couchant or dormant. 1766Entick London IV. 82 At his foot a cupid dormant. 1851R. R. Madden Shrines & Sepulchres II. 37, I would rather call the ancient figures dormant.
2. In a state of rest or inactivity; quiescent; not in motion, action, or operation; ‘slumbering’, in abeyance.
1601Holland Pliny II. 597 This riuer runneth but slowly, and seemeth a dead or dormant water. 1639Earl of Barrymore in Lismore Papers Ser. ii. (1888) IV. 39 Your lordshipps directions..must lye dormant by me. 1708Swift Abolit. Chr. Wks. 1755 II. i. 85 What if there be an old dormant statute or two against him, are they not now obsolete to a degree? 1731― Pulteney Ibid. IV. i. 166 Thy dormant ducal patent. 1766Fordyce Serm. Yng. Wom. (1767) I. vi. 257 It is possible for original talents to lie dormant. 1792N. Chipman Amer. Law Rep. (1871) 21 Plaintiffs who have since revived a dormant claim. 1806Gazetteer Scot. (ed. 2) 390 Newark..formerly gave title of Baron to the family of Leslie, now dormant. 1878Huxley Physiogr. 203 Many volcanoes..are merely dormant.
b. dormant commission, dormant credit, dormant warrant, dormant writing, etc., one drawn out in blank to be filled up with a name or particulars, when required to be used; dormant partner, a ‘sleeping’ partner, who takes no part in the working of a concern.
1551Househ. Acc. Eliz. in Camden Misc. 34 Paid..unto James Russell, by warrante dormaunte..xx. s. c1614Cornwallis in Gutch Coll. Cur. I. 148 The warrant dormant, which all Leiger Ambassadors have, to propound and discourse of all things, which they think may tend to the encreasing of amity. 1662Marvell Corr. xxxv. Wks. 1872–5 II. 80 That you would send us up a dormant credit for an hundred pound. 1679–88Secr. Serv. Money Chas. & Jas. (Camden) 101 For charge of passing a dormant privy seale, 12li 8s, and of dormant l'res patents, 30li 2s 2d. 1714Swift Pres. St. Affairs Wks. 1755 II. i. 221 A power was given of chusing dormant viceroys. 1716Addison Freeholder 36 (Seager) He likewise signed a dormant commission for another to be his high admiral. 1845Stephen Comm. Laws Eng. (1874) II. 102 Partners thus unknown to the public are said to be dormant.
c. Mechanics.
dormant-bolt, ‘a concealed bolt working in a mortise in a door, and usually operated by a key; sometimes by turning a knob’; dormant-lock, ‘a lock having a bolt that will not close of itself’ (Knight Dict. Mech.).
3. Fixed, stationary. dormant tree = B. 1.
c1440Promp. Parv. 127/2 Dormawnte tre..trabes. 1703T. N. City & C. Purchaser 128 Dormant tree. In Architecture is a great Beam lying cross a House, otherwise call'd a Summer. 1793Smeaton Edystone L. §238 The dormant wedge or that with the point upward, being held in the hand, while the drift wedge or that with its point downward, was driven with a hammer. 1798Term Rep. VII. 599 To the sleepers or dormant timbers they affixed railways or waggon ways. 1876Gwilt Archit. Gloss., Dormant-tree or Summer.
b. dormant table, a table fixed to the floor, or forming a fixed piece of furniture. arch.
c1386Chaucer Prol. 353 His table dormant in his halle alway Stood redy couered al the longe day. 1430Lydg. Chron. Troy ii. xi, Eke in the hall..On eche partye was a dormaunt table. [1448Inv. T. Morton in Test. Ebor. III. 108 De ij mensis vocatis dormoundes.] 1610B. Jonson Alch. v. v, Were not the pounds told out..vpon the table dormant. 1767Blackstone Comm. II. xxviii. 428 Whatever is strongly affixed to the freehold or inheritance..as marble chimney-pieces, pumps, old fixed or dormant tables, benches, and the like. 1851Turner Dom. Archit. I. ii. 54.
fig.a1635Naunton Fragm. Reg. (Arb.) 24 She held a dormant Table in her own Princely breast.
†4. Causing or producing sleep. Obs. rare.
1654tr. Scudery's Curia Pol. 66 The effects of Dormant and Narcotique remedies.
5. dormant window, also dormant = dormer 2.
1651Cleveland Senses' Fest. ii, Old Dormant Windows must confess Her Beams. 1727–51Chambers Cycl., Dormer or Dormant, in architecture, denotes a window made in the roof of an house. 1804Ann. Reg. 829 A dormant must break out in the roof. 1823J. F. Cooper Pioneer x, The dormant windows in the roof.
B. n.
†1. A fixed horizontal beam; a sleeper; a summer. More fully dormant tree (see A. 3). Obs.
1453Paston Lett. No. 185 I. 250 Sir Thomas Howes hath purveyed iiij. dormants for the drawte chamer, and the malthouse, and the browere. 1582Wills & Inv. N.C. (Surtees 1860) 46 In the hay barne..Certaine sawen baulkes, viz., ix dormonds and j sile 10s. 1587Harrison England ii. xii. (1877) i. 233 Summers (or dormants). 1665Vestry Bks. (Surtees) 201, 2 clasps of iron for fastning the great dormond in the church, 6 s.
†b. The part between the opening and the top of a doorway; the tympanum. Obs. rare.
1723Chambers tr. Le Clerc's Treat. Archit. I. 102 Coach-Gates..have a Dormant (i.e. the upper part of the Gate that does not open), which Dormant, where the Gate is arch'd, commences from the Spring of the Arch.
2. = dormer window: see A. 5.
3. A dish which remains on the table throughout a repast; a centre-piece which is not removed.
1845J. Bregion Pract. Cook 25 (Stanf.) A centre ornament, whether it be a dormant, a plateau..or a candelabra. |