| 释义 |
fenceless, a.|ˈfɛnslɪs|
[f. as prec. + -less.]
1. a. Without an enclosure or hedge; unenclosed, open.
1587Turberv. Epit. & Sonnets (1837) 397 As plant shall proove upon the fencelesse land. 1649Roberts Clavis Bibl. 432 Utterly to lay this vineyard waste, fencelesse, fruitlesse. 1770Goldsm. Des. Vill. 307 Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide. 1887R. Meeker in Harper's Mag. Apr. 725/2 The fenceless, treeless landscape of the steppe.
b. Without a fortification; unfortified.
1740C. Pitt æneid xii. 789 Before him..the fenceless city lay. a1873Lytton Pausanias iv. vi. (1878) 509 The fenceless villages of Sparta.
2. Without means of defence; defenceless.
1594Carew Tasso (1881) 60 Fencelesse my brest, why stay you it to cleaue? 1667Milton P.L. x. 303 The Wall Immoveable of this now fenceless world. c1750Shenstone Love & Hon. Wks. (1764) I. 327 On my fenceless head it's phial'd wrath May fate exhaust. 1813Scott Rokeby i. xvi, O'er my friend my cloak I threw, And fenceless faced the deadly dew. 1850Blackie æschylus II. 254 The Greeks Our fenceless chiefs..Mowed down.
absol.1887Century Mag. July 334 Look what arms the fenceless wield, Frailest things have frailty's shield!
Hence ˈfencelessness, † lack of skill in fence (obs.); the condition of not being protected by a fence.
1656Trapp Comm. Matt. vii. 3 A general doctrine, not applied, is as a sword without an edge, not in itself, but to us, through our singular fencelessness. 1856Ruskin Mod. Paint. III. iv. xiv. §34 The fencelessness..of the free virtue lead[s] to the loving..order of eternal happiness. |