| 释义 |
endemic, a. and n.|ɛnˈdɛmɪk|
[f. Gr. ἐν in + δῆµ-ος people + -ic.]
A. adj. Constantly or regularly found among a (specified) people, or in a (specified) country: esp.
a. [ad. Fr. endémique (A. P. de Candolle 1820, in Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles XVIII. 412).] Of plants or animals: Having their ordinary habitat in a certain country; opposed to exotic. Now used spec. of plants and animals that are indigenous only in a specified area.
b. Of diseases: Habitually prevalent in a certain country, and due to permanent local causes.
1759Goldsm. Bee No. 1 A deformity which, as it was endemic..it had been the custom..to look upon as the greatest beauty. 1776Adam Smith W.N. I. i. viii. 77 note, Famines are periodical or endemic in Hindostan. 1802Med. Jrnl. VIII. 450 The author..proceeds..to show in what sense the plague may be termed endemic. 1830–2Lyell Princ. Geol. (1875) II. iii. xli. 413 The endemic, and other species of animals and plants in the Atlantic Islands. 1876Darwin Cross-Fertil. xi. 415 Bees..visit many exotic flowers as readily as the endemic kinds. 1905F. E. Clements Res. Methods Ecol. iv. 227 (heading) Endemism... Since its first use by De Candolle, the term endemic has been employed..by phytogeographers with the meaning of ‘peculiar to a certain region’. Ibid. 228 In its proper sense, endemic refers to distribution, and not to origin. 1937Discovery July 204/1 Of the Carabidae, 169 genera are represented, of which 63 are endemic. 1951Jrnl. Ecol. XXXIX. 215 The term ‘endemic’ is relative in that it means, as now generally used in biology, a taxon or an ecological group limited in range to the geographical area under consideration.
c. fig.
1852Blackie Stud. Lang. 1 An unreflecting habit of routine that seems endemic among official men in our country. 1905Westm. Gaz. 15 Nov. 2/1 The same endemic series of murders of a more or less political character as in Macedonia. 1969Times 15 Jan. 7/2 Until a few years ago warfare was endemic. 1970Daily Tel. 14 Apr. 16 That bane of British economic policy-makers—an endemic tendency for imports to rise more rapidly than exports.
B. n.
1. An endemic disease. Also fig.
1662J. Chandler Van Helmont's Oriat. 191 It is not manifest, that Endemicks or things proper to people in the Countrey where they live, are drawn by the Arteries. 1809W. Irving Knickerb. vii. viii. (1849) 417 That talking endemic, so prevalent in this country. 1857Buckle Civilis. I. 118 European diseases, some of which, such as smallpox, have passed from epidemics into endemics. 1859Sat. Rev. viii. 261/2 Snobbishness is an insidious endemic.
2. A plant native to a certain limited area.
1932Fuller & Conard tr. Braun-Blanquet's Plant Sociol. xi. 282 The original dry sod, untouched by fire, is composed exclusively of the old Mascarene Tertiary endemics. 1947R. Good Geogr. Flowering Plants iii. 48 While one part of a large region possesses a high proportion of endemics another and adjacent region may have considerably fewer. 1960N. Polunin Introd. Plant Geogr. vii. 206 Some endemics are confined to very limited areas. |