| 释义 |
tentacle|ˈtɛntək(ə)l|
[ad. mod.L. tentaculum.]
a. Zool. A slender flexible process in animals, esp. invertebrates, serving as an organ of touch or feeling; = feeler 3, palp.
1762Du Pont in Phil. Trans. LIII. 58 The fingers, or tentacles, end in a deep blue. 1835Kirby Hab. & Inst. Anim. I. v. 181 An infinity of cells..from which the tentacles issue to collect their food. 1857Wood Com. Obj. Sea Shore v. 53 On the arms, legs, feet, or tentacles of the cuttles, are arranged rows of suckers. 1866Tate Brit. Mollusks iii. 47 The head [of a snail or slug] bears two long slender tentacles or horns. 1868Owen Vertebr. Anim. I. v. 411 Tentacles depend from the rostral prolongation of the Sturgeon, and the mandibular symphysis of the Cod.
b. Bot. Applied to a sensitive filament, as the viscous gland-tipped leaf-hairs of the Sundew.
1875Darwin Insectiv. Pl. i. 5 A tentacle consists of a thin, straight, hair-like pedicel carrying a gland on the summit. 1879Lubbock Sci. Lect. i. 4 In our Common Sundew..the rounded leaves are covered with glutinous glandular hairs or tentacles.
c. fig. = feeler 2 b.
1847De Quincey Secret Societies Wks. VI. 235 This plot..stretched its horrid fangs, and threw out its forerunning feelers and tentacles, into many nations. 1883H. Drummond Nat. Law in Spir. W. viii. (ed. 2) 300 The soul.., waving its tentacles piteously in the empty air, feeling after God if so be that it may find Him. 1895Mahaffy Empire Ptolemies x, Prepared to fall easily into the tentacles of the all-devouring Republic [Rome]. 1901Scotsman 7 Mar. 7/5 One of De Wet's tentacles had been stretched out to obscure the approach of Nesbitt's horse.
d. attrib. and Comb., as tentacle-like adj.; tentacle-feeder, an invertebrate animal possessing tentacles to trap its food; tentacle-sheath, the sheath-like structure surrounding the base of the tentacles of many molluscs.
1835–6Todd's Cycl. Anat. I. 683/2 Their tentacle-like arms [i.e. of Cirripeds] resemble the antennae of lobsters. 1953J. S. Huxley Evolution in Action iii. 73 Tentacle-feeders may either float free in the water or be attached to the bottom. 1963R. P. Dales Annelids 15 The more familiar tentacle-feeders include the terebellids, which have a mass of extensile tentacles.
Hence tentacled |ˈtɛntək(ə)ld| a., furnished with or having tentacles.
1857Gosse Omphalos 119 Every individual cell,..inhabited by its tentacled Hydra, has..budded out from a branch. |