| 释义 |
synthetic, a. and n.|sɪnˈθɛtɪk|
[ad. F. synthétique (1652 in Hatz.-Darm.), or mod.L. syntheticus, ad. Gr. συνθετικός, f. συνθετός, ppl. adj. of συντιθέναι (see syntheme). Cf. It. sintetico, etc., G. synthetisch.]
(In most senses opposed to analytic.)
A. adj.
1. Logic, Philos., etc. Proceeding from causes or general principles to consequences or particular instances; deductive: cf. synthesis 1.
1697tr. Burgersdicius' Logick ii. 135 Synthetic is that which proceeds from the most simple Principles, to those things which are compounded of those Principles. Ibid. 136 The Sciences Theoretical, such as Physicks, Metaphysicks, Mathematicks, &c. are disposed in Synthetick Method. 1798Hutton Course Math. (1827) I. 3 Synthesis, or the Synthetic Method, is the searching out truth, by first laying down some simple and easy principles, and then pursuing the consequences flowing from them till we arrive at the conclusion. 1832A. Johnson tr. Tennemann's Man. Hist. Philos. 33 [Philosophy] proceeds (on general topics) either from principles to consequences (the synthetic order); or from consequences to principles (the analytic order). a1862Buckle Civiliz. (1864) II. vi. 572 By reasoning from the twofold ideas of action and of sympathy, Hunter constructed the deductive or synthetic part of his pathology. 1869J. Martineau Ess. II. 184 [He] descends into phenomena by Newton's synthetic method.
2. a. Chem. Pertaining to or involving synthesis; of organic compounds, produced by artificial synthesis: see synthesis 4.
1753Chambers Cycl. Supp. 1796Pearson in Phil. Trans. LXXXVI. 430 It appears from the synthetic experiments that the grain becomes finer as the proportion of tin is increased. 1800Henry Epit. Chem. (1808) 155 A decisive synthetic proof of the nature of this acid. 1857Miller Elem. Chem., Org. (1862) i. §3. 69 Synthetic Production of Organic Compounds. 1899Allbutt's Syst. Med. VI. 491 The chromatin (nuclein) in some manner regulates the synthetic metabolism of the cell.
b. Of a substance: made by chemical synthesis in imitation of a natural product (cf. syn-2). Also, esp. of a man-made fibre or fabric: made from synthetic materials rather than natural ones (cf. man-made a.).
1874Chem. News 12 June 265/1 (heading) Synthetic cymol obtained from normal bromide of propyl and crystalline bromtoluol. 1907Chem. Abstr. I. 1179 (heading) Synthetic resins. 1907Nature 25 Apr. 614/2 Since ‘synthetic’ indigo was put upon the market in 1897, some uncertainty has existed regarding its tinctorial value as compared with the natural dyestuff. 1909, etc. [see resin n. 3]. 1932B. Hedworth Foolish Pelican ii. iv. 136 She had discovered..that synthetic stockings wore better than pure silk. 1941[see rubber n.1 11 a]. 1946A. J. Hall Stand. Handbk. Textiles i. 66 The du Pont company..commenced the manufacture of a synthetic fibre which has since become known..as nylon. 1955J. G. Davis Dict. Dairying (ed. 2) 1005 Synthetic or imitation cream. 1955,1966[see man-made a.]. 1973Materials & Technol. VI. 485 The cleaning of man-made fibres is usually a relatively simple operation which involves a treatment with a mild soap or a synthetic detergent solution. 1983Sci. Amer. Apr. 73/3 In the 19th century, before the boom in organic chemistry that followed the discovery of synthetic dyes, many prominent chemists had undertaken analyses of inorganic natural substances.
c. fig. Artificial, imitation, invented.
1930Daily Express 16 Oct. 10/5 With the synthetic idiot, Harpo, you must have a vein of the ridiculous in your laughter gland if boredom is to be kept at bay. 1932Sun (Baltimore) 29 Aug. 8/2 A printing press upon which were struck off bogus service certificates for ‘synthetic veterans’. 1934Amer. Speech IX. 101/2 Even when launched in a preliminary fashion, with say fifty or a hundred users, the synthetic language will not grow of itself. 1948‘N. Shute’ No Highway iv. 92 The synthetic, phoney film business. 1948Newsweek 10 May 34/2 He has been in London long enough to achieve a synthetic British appearance. 1949Hansard Commons 12 Dec. 2417, I have seldom heard such an outburst of indignation... It seemed to me a little synthetic. 1976E. Fromm To have or to Be? (1979) ii. iv. 92 The learned, synthetic smile of the marketplace.
d. Aeronaut. Of training, exercises, etc.: simulating on the ground what is performed in the air; also ellipt. Similarly of equipment used in such training.
1942Tee Emm (Air Ministry) II. 93 All sorts of gadgets and synthetic devices are used..from the cine-film assessor..to the Fisher trainer. 1944Horizon Jan. 49 We are now in the middle of ‘synthetic’—i.e. doing things on the ground as they will be done from the air. 1948Hansard Commons 15 Mar. 1808 If people can go for an hour or two in the evenings for synthetic training. 1949Aircraft Engin. Apr. 122/2 There is ample mathematical and electric knowledge in existence to-day to construct ‘synthetic aircraft’ to simulate the flight of any proposed aircraft from the design data. 1956U.S. Air Force Dict. 504/2 Synthetic,..artificial or simulated, as in synthetic combat mission, synthetic training device, etc. 1976R. Hurst Pilot Error 260 Complementary process of behavioural engineering and the selection and training of pilots..Performance prediction. Synthetic flight training. Performance assessment.
†3. Pertaining to grammatical construction. Obs. rare.
[Cf.1589Puttenham Engl. Poesie iii. viii. (Arb.) 168 That it [sc. speech] should cary an orderly and good construction, which they [sc. ‘the first learned artificers of language’] called Synthesis. ]
1778R. Lowth Transl. Isaiah Prelim. Diss. p. xxi, The Third sort of Parallels [in Hebrew poetry] I call Synthetic or Constructive: where the Parallelism consists only in the similar form of Construction.
4. In the philosophy of Kant, (a) applied to judgements which add to the subject attributes not directly implied in it; (b) pertaining to the synthesis of the manifold.
1819J. Richardson Kant's Logic Introd. 80 Analytic or synthetic marks. Those are partial conceptions of the actual conception.., these, partial ones of the merely possible whole conception. 1836J. W. Semple Kant's Metaphysic of Ethic p. lxvii, The synthetic unity of consciousness. 1839Penny Cycl. XIII. 175/2 All speculative à priori knowledge ultimately rests upon such synthetic or extending judgments; for though the analytical are highly important and requisite for science, still their importance is mainly derived from their being indispensable to a wide and legitimate synthesis, whereby alone a new acquisition in science can be made. Ibid. 177/2 The synthetic activity of the judgment. 1856Ferrier Inst. Metaph. (ed. 2) 25 note.
5. a. Of, pertaining to, consisting in, or involving synthesis, or combination of parts into a whole; constructive.
In quots. a 1702 and 1798 applied to the logical method properly called analytical (the opposite of sense 1); cf. quot. 1833.
a1702Hooke Disc. Earthquakes Posth. Wks. (1705) 330 The methods of attaining this end may be two; either the Analytic or the Synthetick. The first is proceeding from the Causes to the Effects. The second, from the Effects to the Causes. 1773Horsley in Phil. Trans. LXIV. 280 Both these theorems are so easily derived from the preceeding analysis of the problem, that it is needless to add the synthetic demonstration. 1798Edgeworth Pract. Educ. (1811) I. 146 There are two methods of teaching; one which ascends from particular facts to general principles, the other which descends from the general principles to particular facts; one which builds up, another which takes to pieces; the synthetic and the analytic method. c1817Fuseli in Lect. Paint. x. (1848) 523 Analytic or synthetic: from the whole to the parts, or from the parts to the whole. 1833Sir W. Hamilton in Edin. Rev. LVII. 236 Some..call this mode of hunting up the essence the Analytic; others again, regarding the genus as the whole, the species and individuals as the parts, style it the Compositive, or Synthetic, or Collective. 1873Hamerton Th. about Art xii. 181 Since painting is..work emphatically synthetic (being the union of many forms and colours and lights and darks into artistic wholes). 1887G. T. Ladd Elem. Physiol. Psychol. ii. vi. 388 Its [sc. the mind's] activity in combining the sensations into the more complex presentations of sense... This combining activity is best called ‘synthetic’, or constructive.
b. Concerned with or using synthesis.
1864Hamerton in Fine Arts Q. Rev. May 238 The synthetic habit of mind. 1877Tyndall in D. News 2 Oct. 2/4 That vague and general insight..which..was more frequently affirmed by the synthetic poet than by the scientific man.
6. Gram. and Philol. Characterized by combination of simple words or elements into compound or complex words; expressing a complex notion by a single compounded or complex word instead of by a number of distinct words. (Opposed to analytical 1 b.)
1816P. S. Duponceau in Trans. Hist. & Lit. Comm. Amer. Philos. Soc. (1819) I. 401 The third class [of languages] would..be that in which the principal parts of speech are formed by a synthetical operation of the mind, and in which several ideas are frequently expressed by one word. Such are what are called the Oriental languages, with the Latin, Greek, Slavonic, and others of the same description. These I would call synthetic. 1835G. C. Lewis Ess. Rom. Lang. i. 26 By this change the Latin language of western Europe passed from the synthetic to the analytic class. 1845Proc. Philol. Soc. II. 168 Synthetic forms are not necessarily strictly parallel with the analytic ones of the same import. 1869Farrar Fam. Speech i. (1870) 27 The synthetic character of ancient languages, compared with the analysis which distinguishes their modern representatives. 1875Whitney Life Lang. vi. 105 The loss of formal grammatical distinction by synthetic means.
7. Biol. Combining in one organism different characters which in the later course of evolution are specialized in different organisms; having a generalized or undifferentiated type of structure.
1859tr. Agassiz's Ess. Classification 178 Sauroid Fishes and Ichthyosauri are more distinctly synthetic than prophetic types. 1872H. A. Nicholson Palæont. 482 Synthetic or generalised plants, having rhizomata resembling those of some ferns, stems having the structure of Lycopodium [etc.].
8. Math. Applied to ordinary (as distinct from analytical, i.e. algebraic) geometry.
1889N. F. Dupuis (title) Elementary Synthetic Geometry of the Point, Line and Circle in the Plane.
9. Special collocations: synthetic aperture, a simulated aperture obtained by moving an aerial or detector transversely during reception so as to increase its effective length; usu. attrib., esp. designating radar employing this; Synthetic Cubism, a type of Cubism involving the combination or reorganization of forms, rather than their analysis (see Cubism); hence Synthetic Cubist adj.
1962IRE Trans. Military Electronics VI. 111 (heading) Some early developments in synthetic aperture radar systems. Ibid. 113/2 Differences between physical and synthetic apertures. 1977Sci. Amer. Oct. 89/1 Since resolution is proportional to the length of the antenna but inversely proportional to the range, for synthetic-aperture radar the two effects compensate for each other... Synthetic-aperture radar thus makes it possible to obtain high-resolution images of terrain many miles away. 1979McGraw-Hill Yearbk. Sci. & Technol. 224/2 Holography has also been applied, in the form of synthetic-aperture techniques, to the B-scan acoustic reflection systems to provide greater detail in the body areas located near the acoustic transducer.
1947D. Cooper tr. Kahnweiler's Juan Gris ii. vi. 89 Synthetic Cubism was built on a lasting foundation. Gris..finally gave up presenting the beholder with a great variety of information..about the objects which he displayed. He now offered a synthesis: that is to say, he packed his knowledge into one significant form, an emblem. 1981Times Lit. Suppl. 9 Jan. 24/3 When constructed sculpture came, along with Synthetic Cubism in 1912, it did so with suddenness, éclat, and in quantity. Ibid. 24/4 It is often forgotten that Synthetic Cubist space without collage was potentially the most flexible and exciting pictorial space since the Baroque.
B. n. A product obtained by artificial synthesis rather than from natural sources; esp. a synthetic fibre or fabric. Chiefly pl.
1934in Webster. 1940New Statesman 16 Mar. 361/1 The scientists could see in such synthetics [sc. plastics]..the threat of maladjustments in industry. 1943Sun (Baltimore) 10 Feb. 4/2 The company built the new plant at its own expense in an effort to increase supplies of the badly needed synthetic. 1951P. Z. Bedoukian (title) Perfumery synthetics and isolates. 1957Times 12 Nov. (Canada Suppl.) p. v/3 Trapping becomes less and less profitable as synthetics displace furs. 1972D. Bloodworth Any Number can Play ii. 10 Lightweight suits cut from one of those shiny Japanese synthetics. 1982Sunday Times 9 May 54/5 There was a sudden scramble to get out of synthetics—those expensive ‘fuels of the future’.
▸ synthetic rubber n. any of various synthetic materials, typically polymeric hydrocarbons, having some properties of natural rubber.
1906Times 7 Aug. 11/2 It will only remain to cheapen the cost of production to make the manufacture of *synthetic rubber a purely practical problem. 1959Times 27 Apr. (Rubber Industry Suppl.) p. ii/4 These basic synthetic rubbers, buna S, neoprene and perbunan, developed in the 1930s, were the forerunners of the main synthetic rubbers we use to-day. 1973T. Pynchon Gravity's Rainbow i. 95 He wears a false cunt and merkin of sable.., the mock labia and bright purple clitoris molded of..synthetic rubber. 2006Build It May 79/2 An increasingly popular new form of waterproofing is a synthetic rubber called EPDM (ethylene propylene diene monomer). |