| 释义 |
▪ I. dormouse|ˈdɔːmaʊs|
[Origin obscure: the second element has been, at least since c 1575, treated as the word mouse, with pl. mice, though a pl. dormouses is evidenced in 16–17th c. The first element has also from 16th c. been associated with L. dormīre, F. dormir to sleep, (as if dorm-mouse; cf. 16th c. Du. slaep-ratte, slaep-muys); but it is not certain that this is the original composition.
(Skeat suggests for the first element ON. dár benumbed: cf. also dial. ‘dorrer, a sleeper, a lazy person’ (Halliwell). (The F. dormeuse, fem. of dormeur sleeper, sometimes suggested as the etymon, is not known before 17th c.).]
1. A small rodent of a family intermediate between the squirrels and the mice; esp. the British species Myoxus avellanarius, noted for its hibernation.
striped dormouse: Pennant's name for the chipmuck, hackee, or ground-squirrel of North America.
c1425Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 643 Hic glis, dormowse. Ibid. 700 Hic glis, Hic sorex, a dormows. 1523Skelton Garl. Laurel 1248 Dormiat in pace, like a dormouse. 1570B. Googe Pop. Kingd. ii. (1880) 19 And striue the Dormowses themselves in sleeping to excell. 1580G. Harvey in Spenser's Wks. (Grosart) I. 40 Slipperye Eles: Dormise. 1601Holland Pliny I. 233 The yong Dormice are exceeding kind and louing to their sires that begat them. 1646J. Hall Poems 9 Players lay asleep like Dormouses. 1709Brit. Apollo II. No. 55. 2/2 The..Toawd is as dull as a Dormouse. 1842Penny Cycl. XXII. 398 The Hackee of the United States..Striped Dormouse of Pennant. 1880Haughton Phys. Geog. vi. 276 note, Extinct fossil dormice have been found as far back as the Upper Eocene of Europe.
2. transf. A sleepy or dozing person.
a1568R. Ascham Scholem. (Arb.) 113 Any lurking Dorm[o]us, blinde, not by nature, but by malice. 1641Milton Animadv. (1851) 245 A swashbuckler against the Pope, and a dormouse against the Devil. 1826Scott Woodst. xx, You..attending to our patient better during your sleep, than most of these old dormice can do when they are most awake.
3. attrib. Dormouse-like, sleepy.
1601Shakes. Twel. N. iii. ii. 20 To awake your dormouse valour. 1795Phillips Hist. Inl. Navig. 108 Every individual, whose state of existence is not of the dormouse kind.
▪ II. dormouse
erron. f. dormeuse. |