| 释义 |
‖ afanc|avaŋk|
Also 9 avanc, avangc, addanc |aðaŋk|.
[Welsh afanc beaver, f. med. Welsh adanc, afanc:― Celt. *abankos, f. *ab- water (whence, from the base *abona, Welsh afon, Bret. aven river; Ir. ab, abann river), repr. by med. Breton avancq ‘bièvre, espèce de castor’, Ir. abac beaver, dwarf. Cf. L. amnis (f. *abnis) stream, river, of Italo-Celtic origin.
It seems likely that the original sense in Welsh and Irish was ‘river animal’ which by extension came also to mean ‘water sprite’. For the semantic development of Ir. abac, an aquatic creature, beaver, dwarf, cf. the history of leprechaun (O.Ir. lu̇chorpáin small bodies, applied in the 8th c. to water-sprites).]
An aquatic monster in Celtic mythology.
[1781T. Pennant Tour in Wales II. 134 A deep, wide, and still water, called Llyn yr Afangc, or The Beavers Pool.] 1834G. Roberts tr. Theophilus Evans's View Primit. Ages (c 1864) i. v. 129 As to the Afanc, it is the common opinion that he was a kind of large water-dog, with a broad tail called a Beaver. 1838C. Guest tr. Mabinogion I. 341 The Addanc of the Lake slays them once every day. Ibid. 381 In the Triads, mention is made of the Addanc, or Avanc of the Lake, as an aquatic monster. 1859Cambrian Jrnl. VI. 146 It was a woman who enticed the avangc out of..the lake. 1923Ogden & Richards Meaning of Meaning iii. 149 Before the appearance of an image, say, of an afanc, something can be observed to occur which is often misleadingly described as ‘an intention of imagining’ an afanc. 1960Listener 29 Sept. 512/2, I hope no one revives the afanc which used to emerge from a lake near my house in Cardiganshire to devour cattle. |