| 释义 |
▪ I. echo, n.|ˈɛkəʊ|
Pl. echoes, rarely echos. Also 4 ecko, 5–7 ecco, 6–8 eccho.
[a. L. ēchō, a. Gr. ἠχώ, related to ἠχή sound.
The termination -ώ was common in Gr. female names, and perh. (as in the similar case of πειθώ persuasion) the form may be due to personification, although in Gr. literature it is used in an appellative sense much earlier than the mention of Echo as a distinct mythological person.]
1. a. A repetition of sounds, which is produced by the reflexion of the sound-waves due to their incidence on something denser than the aerial medium in which they are propagated; hence concr. a secondary or imitative sound produced by reflected waves, as distinguished from the original sound caused by the direct waves.
1340Ayenb. 60 Ecko, þet is þe rearde þet ine þe heȝe helles comþ ayen and acordeþ to al þet me him sayþ. 1388Wyclif Wisdom xvi. 16 Ecco sownynge aȝen fro hiȝeste hillis. 1485Caxton Trevisa's Higden i. xxii, Ecco is reboundynge of noyse. 1571Golding Calvin on Ps. xxvii. 8 The voyce of God must resound..as it were an Eccho in holow places. 1601Holland Pliny II. 581 This miraculous rebounding of the voice, the Greekes haue a pretty name for, and call it Echo. 1678Cudworth Intell. Syst. 581 Which if considered in Audibles, then will the Second Hypostasis be look'd upon, as the Eccho of an Original Voice; and the Third as the Repeated Eccho, or Eccho of that Eccho. 1810Scott Lady of L. i. x, Round and around the sounds were cast, Till echo seemed an answering blast. 1877Bryant Lit. People of Snow 313 Like echoes softly flung from rock and hill.
b. to applaud to the echo: i.e. so vociferously as to produce echoes.
1605Shakes. Macb. v. iii. 53, I would applaud thee to the very Eccho That should applaud againe. 1840Dickens Old C. Shop (C. D. ed.) 77 The performance was applauded to the echo.
c. Telephone Engineering. (See quots.) Also attrib.
1925Electr. Commun. IV. 40/1 Echo effects are caused by reflections of voice waves which take place whenever electrical irregularities are encountered in telephone circuits. 1959Post Office Electr. Engineers' Jrnl. LII. 69/1 A problem which continually confronts the communication engineer is the avoidance of echoes. Ibid., These echoes arise from reflections occurring at unavoidable electrical discontinuities.
d. In full radio echo. A radio wave which has been reflected or otherwise returned with sufficient magnitude and delay to be perceived as a wave distinct from that transmitted (see also quot. 1941). Also attrib. and fig.
1928C. Størmer in Nature 3 Nov. 681/1 (heading) Short wave echoes and the Aurora Borealis. Ibid., On Feb. 29 of this year I received a letter from Engineer Jørgen Hals..in which he says: ‘..I repeatedly heard signals from the Dutch short-wave transmitter station... At the same time as I heard the telegraph-signals I also heard echoes.’ Ibid. 17 Nov. 768/1 (heading) Radio echoes and magnetic storms. 1930Times 25 Mar. 11/4 Neither..appear to attach very much importance to these ‘echo’ effects... The effect of these ‘echoes’ at the receiving station can..be overcome by a directive aerial system which does not accept radiation from the backward direction. Echo signals may..also be produced by radiation leaving the transmitter..and travelling more than once round the world. 1941B.B.C. Gloss. Broadc. Terms 10 Echo, (1) Repetition of a sound after an interval of time, caused for example by reflection of sound waves, or occurring as a result of propagation of electro⁓magnetic waves over more than one path. (2) Reverberation artificially added to the output from a studio or hall. 1965New Statesman 11 June 904/3 The hire-purchase controls just introduced, small enough not to induce substantial ‘echo’ effects in the future.
e. A radar wave which has been reflected from an object; also, the representation of it on a radar screen.
1944[see echolocation]. 1945Electronic Engin. XVII. 719/2 The measurement of interval between pulse and echo on the time base of the C.R. tube. 1947etc. [see angel n. 10]. 1953R. Chisholm Cover of Darkness iii. 36 In the air the ‘noise’ (interference) was usually worse and often the echo was less clear. On the elevation (left-hand) tube there is slightly more of the echo above than below the horizontal trace.
2. The cause of this phenomenon personified.
(In Greek mythology, Echo was regarded as an ‘Oread’ or mountain nymph.)
1592Shakes. Rom. & Jul. ii. ii. 162 Else would I teare the Caue where Eccho lies And make her ayrie tongue more hoarse. 1795Wolcott (P. Pindar) Pindariana Wks. 1812 IV. 161 And Echo, long banish'd, sweet Maid, Return'd with her stories of love. 1860Tyndall Glac. i. §2. 15 The echoes talked down to me from the mountain walls.
3. An artifice in verse, by which one line is made to consist of a repetition (such as might be given by a literal echo) of the concluding syllables of the preceding line, so as to supply an answer to the question contained in it, or otherwise to give a continuous sense. Hence, the name of the species of verse in which this was done. Also attrib., as in echo verse.
The most perfect modern example of this once fashionable device is Hugo's Chasse du Burgrave, where every alternate line throughout a long poem is an ‘echo’ of the preceding line.
1633G. Herbert Temple, Heaven, But are there cares and businesse with the pleasure? Echo, Leisure. 1663Butler Hud. i. iii. 199 Quoth he, O whither, wicked Bruin? Art thou fled to my—Eccho, Ruin! 1711Addison Spect. No. 62 ⁋3 False wit chiefly consists in the resemblance and congruity..sometimes of Syllables, as in Echos and Doggerel Rhymes. 1791–1824D'Israeli Cur. Lit. (1866) 263/2 A similar contrivance, that of Echo Verses, may here be noticed.
†4. A response received or expected as a matter of course from the nature of the address. Obs.
1642R. Carpenter Experience v. xx. 333 Give out, from the inwards of his heart and Soule, with an Eccho, Amen. 1711Shaftesbury Charac. (1737) III. 300 Now the eccho or antiphony which these elegant exclaimers hope..to draw necessarily from their audience, is that, etc.
5. fig. A repetition or close imitation, chiefly of things that can be compared to speech, voice, or sound (e.g. a writer's thoughts or style), but occas. with wider meaning; an enfeebled reproduction; an effect that continues after its cause has ceased; and the like.
1622Sparrow Bk. Com. Prayer (1661) 221 Their Services are, as it were, so many Eccho's and Reflexions upon the Mystery of Pentecost. 1632Sanderson 12 Serm. 465 God..also causeth the Eccho of that word to sound in our hearts. 1701Swift Contests Nobles & Com. Wks. 1755 II. i. 50 His folly, and his wisdom..are all of his own growth, not the eccho or infusion of other men. 1749Power Numbers Poet. Comp. 60 The Sound is still an Eccho to the Sense. 1860Farrar Orig. Lang. i. 28 A feeble echo of splendours. 1878B. Taylor Deukalion ii. ii. 60 Was it some last echo blown From ended struggles?
6. transf. A person who reflects or imitates the language, sentiments, or conduct of others; one who assents obsequiously to the opinions of another.
a1631Donne Poems (1650) 168 Then write, that I may follow, and so bee Thy debtor, thy eccho, thy foyle, thy zanee. 1691Saytr agst. French 3 These Apes, these Echo's..of Men, Shall be the present Subject of my Pen. 1732Swift Corr. Wks. 1841 II. 672 Clarendon, whom they reckoned the faithful echo of their master's intentions. 1841–4Emerson Ess. vi. Wks. (Bohn) I. 88 Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo.
7. Music. (See quot.)
1711Lond. Gaz. No. 4797/3 The lesser Organ..has in it 10 Stops and 4 Eccho's. 1876J. Hiles Catech. Organ i. (1878) 4 The Echo consisted of duplicates of some of the Treble stops of the other Manuals. 1878E. J. Hopkins in Grove Dict. Mus. I. 21 The resources for..accompaniment were extended..by the insertion of an additional short manual organ called the Echo.
8. Whist. (See quot. 1876.) Also in Bridge, a signal to one's partner, esp. by the playing of a higher card of a suit followed by a lower, indicating how many cards of a suit are held, or requesting a specific lead.
1862‘Cavendish’ Whist. (1879) 268 The advantages of the echo are manifold. 1876A. Campbell-Walker Correct Card (1880) Gloss. 11 Echo, asking for trumps in response to your partner's ask, when but for his demand you would not have called. 1899A. Dunn Bridge 51 The plain suit echo. 1902― New Ideas on Bridge 80 A player must have either led or ‘called for’ trumps before his partner gives the ‘three-trump echo’. 1939N. de V. Hart Bridge Players' Bedside Bk. 140 High-low play as a signal to the partner is termed a peter if it occurs in a suit contract and an echo at No-Trumps. Ibid. 141 There is..no longer any difference between a peter and an echo. 1960T. Reese Play Bridge with Reese iii. 20, I should imagine that West has led from four hearts and the diamonds may well be 3–3 since no one began an echo.
9. Comb., as echo-detection, echo device, echo mixture, echo-phrase, echo-question, echo-ranging, echo-reflex, echo-word; echo-echoing, echo-giving ppl. adjs., echo-wise adv., echo box (see quot.); echo chamber orig. U.S., a confined space where sound reverberates; also attrib. and fig.; echo organ, a set of pipes in an organ, enclosed in a wooden box to give a distant sound effect; echo-plummet [echo n. 1 d], a radio sounder for measuring height above ground level or the depth of water in the sea; echo room = echo chamber; † echo-sound, a certain artifice in verse (see quot.).
1950Gloss. Terms Radar (B.S.I.) 7 Echo box, a cavity resonator, having small damping, energized by pulses of energy radiated from a nearby aerial or by a probe in a waveguide.
1937Variety Radio Directory 1937/38 341 Echo chamber, a reverberant room used to add hollow effects and actual echoes. 1953New Yorker 4 Apr. 6/3 There's free-wheeling music in the echo-chamber grill. 1955N.Y. Times 16 Jan. vi. 26/4 New York, an echo chamber of squeezed apartment buildings, is even more in need of a honking ban than..Paris. 1958Punch 22 Jan. 152/1, I was going to write about echo-chambers, which are currently giving such pleasure to all listeners by piping the broadcast voice into an empty, thirty-foot room and piping it out again with sonorous accretions of overtones.
1947Crowther & Whiddington Science at War iv. 156 The numerous break-downs in service almost caused the use of the echo-detection to be dropped by the Navy.
1933Discovery June 174/1 Use will also be made of an ‘echo’ device which measures the depth of the sea by the time which the echo takes to return from the bed.
1839Bailey Festus xx. (1848) 259 Its echo-echoing walls at a whisper fall.
a1856Longfellow Sunrise Hills 25 The echo-giving hills.
1962A. Nisbett Technique Sound Studio xi. 192 When echo is wanted on only one voice, as..in a conversation between two people, one of whom is at the bottom of a well, control over this can be exercised with the echo-mixture switch.
1855E. J. Hopkins Organ xv. 66 The Echo organ consists of a duplication of the treble portion of some of the stops found on the other manual organs, closed in a wooden box, to render their tone soft and more distant-sounding. 1884Encycl. Brit. XVII. 830/1 The fifth manual, where it occurs, is the echo organ. 1938Oxf. Compan. Mus. 659/1 In certain very large instruments there is a manual devoted to delicate stops, with a far-away sound, and this is called the Echo Organ.
1962Y. Olsson in F. Behre Contrib. Eng. Syntax 90 The echo-phrase ‘We have’.
1931Flight 27 Mar. 274/2 The echo-plummet used extensively for maritime navigation seems to encounter certain difficulties in aeroplanes. 1933Discovery Oct. 307/1 The well known acoustic echo plummet which is employed in measuring ocean depths.
1956Kenyon Rev. XVIII. 433 Rising juncture..signals an ‘echo question’. 1961New Scientist 11 May 304 To point the beam out from the side of the ship (echo-ranging) and tilt it down a few degrees below the horizontal.
1957D. L. Bolinger in Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. xxviii. 26 The difference between yes–no echo-reflex and how-why echo-reflex.
1933‘R. Stranger’ Dict. Wireless Terms 59 Echo Room, a term used in broadcasting to indicate the place where echoes are produced artificially in order to give a more life-like effect to broadcasting.
1589Puttenham Eng. Poesie (Arb.) 210 Ye make one worde both beginne and end your verse, which therefore I call the slow retourne, otherwise the Eccho sound.
a1626Bp. Andrewes Serm. xix. (1661) 385 If it come..from Him to us first, and from us then to you (echo-wise).
1922O. Jespersen Lang. xvi. 313 Fr. pisser—an echo-word if ever there was one. 1938Michigan Daily 14 July 1/1 In general, an ‘echo-word’, Dr. Emeneau elucidated, is formed by the reduplication of a part of the word after an inserted pattern syllable that has no meaning of its own.
Hence ˈechoism, the formation of words imitative of natural sounds; echoist, one who repeats like an echo; ˈechoize v., † to repeat as does an echo (obs.); to form words imitative of sounds.
1600Tourneur Transf. Met. Prol. Wks. 1878 II. 187 The ecchoized sounds of horrorie. 1880J. A. H. Murray Addr. Philol. Soc. 20 Onomatopœia..I prefer to call echoism. Ibid. note, Echoism suggests the echoing of a sound heard, and has the useful derivatives echoist, echoize, and echoic.
Add:[6.] b. With capital initial. As the name or part of the name of a newspaper or journal.
1729(title) The Echo; or Edinburgh weekly journal. 1868(title) The Echo. An evening newspaper. 1874(title of newspaper) Western Echo. 1885List of Subscribers (United Telephone Co.) p. xv, The Company are now supplying Instruments to..the ‘Times’,..‘Echo’, ‘Observer’, ‘Graphic’, and other Newspapers. 1902G. B. Shaw Mrs. Warren's Profession Author's Apol. p. xxxi, Can anything be more absurd than the copy of The Echo which contains a notice of the performance of my play? 1958Times 6 Sept. 8/5 On September 16 the so far mythical Borchester Echo will, in fact, appear on the bookstalls. The B.B.C. have decided to mark ‘The Archers’ 2,000th broadcast on September 26 by producing just one edition. 1987Sunday Tel. 23 Aug. 14/8 Another of Rowntree's papers, the Northern Echo, also provided a service for punters.
▸ A fluctuation in economic or population statistics caused by a similar occurrence a generation earlier. Now: spec. an increase in birth rate between the late 1970s and early 1990s due to the children of the post-Second World War baby boom becoming parents (cf. echo boom n.); (also as a mass noun) the people born during this period.
1915D. H. Robertson Study of Industr. Fluctuation ii. 43 We shall then see..in the losses of 1903–5 the echoes of the great output of 1888–9; and in those of 1908–10 the echoes of 1891–2. 1938J. Einarsen Reinvestm. Cycles in Norwegian Shipping Industry ii. i. 39 In capital production just as in populations large generations will be followed by echos. 1966R. A. Easterlin in Amer. Econ. Rev. 56 1086 The dramatic baby boom [has] set up an echo effect, currently being felt in the form of a sharp upsurge in the young adult population. 1991Futurist May–June 11/1 In addition to the baby boomers..three age groups are influencing the shifting structure and composition of the work force: 1930s Depression babies (1929–1940); the baby-bust cohort (1965–1978); and the baby-boom echo (1979 (plus)).
▪ II. echo, v.|ˈɛkəʊ|
[f. the n.]
1. a. intr. Of places: To resound with an echo. Also fig.
1596Shakes. Tam. Shr. iii. ii. 181 Kist her lips with such a clamorous smacke That..all the Church did eccho. 1684Bunyan Pilgr. 105 And at every Roar it gave, it made all the Valley Eccho. 1747Hervey Medit. & Contempl. (1818) 163 All eternity [will] echo to their triumphant acclamations. 1870Yeats Nat. Hist. Comm. 93 Larks and nightingales make the sky echo with song.
b. Of a sound: To be repeated by echoes, give rise to echoes, reverberate, resound; hence fig. of rumours, fame, etc.
a1559Sackville in Mirr. Mag. Induct. xiii. (1563) 116 b, With dolefull shrikes, that eckoed in the skye. 1690Lond. Gaz. No. 2532/2 This was followed by Long Live King Joseph, which quickly eccho'd all over the City. 1725De Foe Voy. round W. (1840) 253 That sound echoed and reverberated from innumerable cavities among the rocks. 1801Southey Thalaba v. xxxii, Now the deaden'd roar Echoed beneath.
2. trans. Of places or material objects: to repeat (a sound) by echo.
1855Bain Senses & Int. ii. ii. §7 (1864) 215 A sound echoed from many sides is made voluminous.
¶ Used for: To reflect (light).
1822Beddoes Rom. Lily, Poems 145 Fair as..The last dim star, with doubtful ray..Echoed to the eye on water.
3. fig.
a. Of persons: To repeat (sounds, words) in the manner of an echo; to repeat the words of, imitate the style or sentiments of (another person); to play the echo to, flatter with servile assent. Of language, compositions, etc.: To imitate, resemble (an earlier model).
1604Shakes. Oth. iii. iii. 107 Othel. What do'st thou thinke? Iago Thinke, my Lord? Othel. Thinke, my Lord? Alas, thou eccho'st me. 1649W. Blithe Eng. Improv. Impr. (1653) 111 All which I Eccho with thee that possibly it may be so. 1759Franklin Ess. Wks. 1840 III. 254 This language was never echoed at home. 1839Keightley Hist. Eng. II. 32 Posterity have echoed these censures. 1876Green Short Hist. vi. §6 (1882) 333 In England Colet and More echoed, with greater reserve, the scorn and invective of their friends.
b. absol. To repeat words like an echo.
1880Mrs. Forrester Roy. & Viola I. 7 Dreams, indeed, my dear, echoes Netta lightly.
c. intr. To play the echo to.
1637Heywood Dialogues ii. 29 Now echo vnto me, and sing, Thou myne. 1702Rowe Tamerl. iv. i. 1705, I will Eccho to thee, thou Adulterer, Thou dost profane the name of King and Soldier. 1767H. Kelly Babler II. 209 She constantly echoed to his groans.
4. a. In Whist.
1862‘Cavendish’ Whist (1879) 268 You should not echo a call unless you have at least four trumps.
b. absol. Also in Bridge (cf. echo n. 8), to indicate how many cards of a suit are held, or to request a specific lead.
1885R. A. Proctor How to Play Whist 96 You cannot readily echo, as you can signal, by the discard. 1900A. Dunn Bridge (ed. 3) 53 The ‘trump suit echo’ is played to inform a partner that the player who ‘echoes’ originally held four, or more, trumps. Ibid. 54 He should take the first opportunity of echoing in a plain suit, which will inform the leader that he has still one trump remaining. 1959Reese & Dormer Bridge Player's Dict. 77 It is possible to echo by playing a three followed by a two. Ibid. 78 In the next example a defender echoes with four cards. Ibid. 236 If East had held a slightly different hand..he would not have echoed in trump.
Add:5. trans. Electronics and Computing. Of a computer system: to send a copy of (an input signal) back to its source for display; to cause (a keyed character) to appear on a monitor screen as it is keyed.
1965Proc. AFIPS Conf. XXVII. 239 An alternative to a terminal lock on terminals producing their own local copy of the input is to operate them full-duplex and to have the computer system echo or retransmit the input back for display. 1979T. Housley Data Communications & Teleprocessing Syst. iii. 96 The computer then retransmits (or echoes) the character back along the communication line to the terminal. 1985Practical Computing Aug. 68/1 Line spacing is echoed correctly on-screen, though justification is not reproduced. |