| 释义 |
▪ I. actor|ˈæktə(r)|
Also actour.
[a. L. actor, n. of agent, f. act- ppl. stem of ag-ĕre to drive, carry on, do, act. The Fr. acteur is later in Littré. The development of meaning took place in L.]
†1. A manager, overseer, agent, or factor (transl. L. actor.) Obs.
1382Wyclif Gal. iv. 2 He is vndir tutouris and actouris, til to the tyme determyned of the fadir. [1388 under keperis and tutoris. Vulg. sub tutoribus et actoribus.]
†2. A pleader; he who conducts an action at law;
a. the plaintiff or complainant;
b. an advocate in civil cases;
c. a public prosecutor. Obs. exc. as a term in Rom. law.
1413Lydg. Pylgr. Sowle i. vi. (1859) 6 That the actour be admytted to maken his compleynt, and purpoos his askynge. 1603Greenwey Tacitus, Ann. iii. xiv. (1622) 85 The publicke actor had bought Silanus bondmen, to the end they should bee examined by torture. 1625Bacon Ess. xxv. (Arb.) 247 Sometimes it is seene, that the Moderator is more troublesome then the Actor. 1649Selden Laws of Eng. i. xx. (1739) 37 The king may not..determine Causes wherein himself is actor. 1768Blackstone Comm. III. 25 In every court there must be at least three constituent parts, the actor, reus, and judex: the actor, or plaintiff, who complains of an injury done. 1875Poste Gaius i. 154 The temporary representative of a Corporation for the purpose of suing and being sued, was called Actor.
3. One who acts, or performs any action, or takes part in any affair; a doer. (In later usage nearly always with fig. allusion to 4.)
1603Shakes. Meas. for M. ii. ii. 37 Condemn the fault and not the actor of it. 1604Case is Altered in Thynne Animadv. 138 Oh wicked money, to be the Actor of such a mischiefe. 1759Robertson Hist. Scotl. I. i. 5 The characters of the actors are displayed. 1819S. Rogers Hum. Life 102 Now distant ages, like a day, explore, And judge the act, the actor now no more. 1875Poste Gaius Introd. 13 An actor is negligent when he is ignorant of the consequences of his act.
4. One who personates a character, or acts a part; a stage-player, or dramatic performer.
1581Sidney Def. Poesie (Arb.) 25 There is no Arte delivered to mankinde, that hath not the workes of Nature for his principall object..on which they so depend, as they become Actors and Players as it were, of what nature will have set foorth. 1593Shakes. Rich. II, v. ii. 24 After a well grac'd actor leaues the Stage. 1646J. Hall Horae Vacivae 19 God sends us not unto the Theater of this World to be mute persons, but actors. 1651Hobbes Leviathan i. xvi. 80 A Person, is the same that an Actor is, both on the Stage and in common Conversation. 1748J. Mason Elocution 4 The Latins by Pronunciatio and Actio meant the same thing..hence they whose Business it is to speak publickly on the Stage, are with us called Actors. 1774Burke Sp. Amer. Tax. Wks. II. 419 Another scene was opened and other actors appeared on the stage. 1876Green Short Hist. x. (1878) 730 Pitt was essentially an actor, dramatic in the Cabinet, in the House, in his very office.
5. Comb. actor-man, obs., a (theatrical) actor; actor-manager, a manager of a theatre, who is also an actor; actor-proof a., applied to a play or part in a play of which the excellence is evident apart from the standard of the actor(s). Also in other appos. uses, as actor-management, actor-playwright, actor-producer. So actor-manage(r) vbs. (nonce-wds.).
1796F. Burney Camilla ii. v. (1840), I desire to know by whose authority you present such *actormen to a young lady under my care.
1894W. Archer Theatr. ‘World’ for 1893 163 As smooth, as adequate, as they could possibly have been in any *actor-managed theatre.
1895G. B. Shaw in W. Archer Theatr. ‘World’ 1894 Pref. p. xviii, In order to bring up the list of real exceptions to the London rule of *actor-management to three. 1904P. Fitzgerald Garrick Club viii. 241 What discussions, heated and other, used there to be on this topic of actor-management!
1826F. Reynolds Life & Times II. 126, I speak of *Actor-managers both in town, and in country. 1864Reader 24 Dec. 792/1 Another mischief-working influence is that of actor-managers and manageresses.
1907G. B. Shaw Let. to G. Barker 27 Feb. (1956) 75 If I am to be *actor-managered out of all my decent leading men..I shall go and be actor-managed by Alexander.
1926Fowler Mod. Eng. Usage 644/1 The *actor-playwright is invariably the better craftsman than the literary man who commences dramatist.
1927J. P. Kennedy Story of Films viii. 181 There are seventeen *actor-producers, men and women producing dramatic films and comedies. 1938N. Marshall in R. D. Charques Footnotes to Theatre 110 Gerald du Maurier is another obvious example which can be cited against such a generalisation about actor-producers.
1895G. B. Shaw Our Theatres in Nineties (1931) I. 102 Plays good enough to be comparatively ‘*actor-proof’. 1923J. M. Murry Pencillings 206 Molière is infinitely the better dramatist... His plays are as actor-proof as Shakespeare's. 1938W. S. Maugham Summing Up 151 There is no such thing as an actor-proof part.
▪ II. actor, actour
obs. forms of author n. |