| 释义 |
ˈswan-like, a. (adv.)
[f. swan n. + -like.]
Like a swan, or like that of a swan.
1591Sylvester Du Bartas i. v. 727 White (Swan-like) wings. 1607Barley-Breake (1877) 12 Her Swan-like brest, her Alabaster hands. 1697Dryden Virg. Past. ix. 48, I..gabble like a Goose, amidst the Swan-like Quire. 1726Pope Odyss. xix. 649 Fast by the limpid lake my swan-like train I found. 1812Cary Dante, Purg. xix. 45 With swan-like wings dispred. 1838Lytton Alice ii. i, Love swelled the swanlike neck, and moulded the rounded limb.
b. esp. in reference to the fabled singing of the swan just before its death: cf. swan n. 2 b.
1592Greene Groat's W. Wit To Gentl. Rdrs., Greene..sends you his Swanne-like song, for that he feares he shal neuer againe carroll to you woonted loue layes. 1596Shakes. Merch. V. iii. ii. 44 If he loose he makes a Swan-like end, Fading in musique. 1600Breton Melancholike Hum. Wks. (Grosart) I. 9 My poore swanlike soule, (alas) hath no such power to sing. 1629Prynne Anti-Armin. (1630) 261 His last Swan like Sermon. 1678Yng. Man's Call. 10 The swan-like song of the dying martyr, ‘None but Christ! None but Christ!’ 1837Hallam Lit. Eur. (1847) I. i. §2. 2 The swanlike tones of dying eloquence.
c. adv. Like or in the manner of a swan.
1635A. Stafford Fem. Glory 166 This holy man..in a divine Rapture Swanne-like (his death being then at hand) sung this his sweetest Ditty. 1844A. B. Welby Poems (1867) 49 Who would not, Swan-like, waste his sweetest breath To..die so sweet a death? |