| 释义 |
▪ I. probe, n.|prəʊb|
[ad. late L. proba a proof, in med.L. also an examination, f. prob-āre to try, test, prove. Cf. Cat. proba, Pr. prova a probe, a sounding line; also med.L. tenta, Sp. tienta, f. tentāre to try (see tent).]
1. A surgical instrument, commonly of metal, with a blunt end, for exploring the direction and depth of wounds and sinuses.
1580Hollyband Treas. Fr. Tong, Vne petite Esprouvette, a small instrument wherewith Surgeons do search wounds, a probe. 1611,1656[see proof n. 15 a]. 1612Woodall Surg. Mate Wks. (1653) 8 Some use the longer sort of Probes, with eyes like needles. 1706–7Farquhar Beaux Strat. v. iii, Do, do, Daughter—while I get the Lint and the Probe and the Plaister ready. 1807–26S. Cooper First Lines Surg. (ed. 5) 413 The course of many narrow stabs cannot be easily followed by a probe. 1813J. Thomson Lect. Inflam. 405 When I passed my probe into it, I did not feel the bone bare, but only its resistance.
fig.1871Blackie Four Phases i. 66 Those whom he submitted to the operation of his ethical probe. 1876Lowell Ode 4th July iv. iii, We, who believe Life's bases rest Beyond the probe of chemic test.
2. transf.
a. The proboscis of an insect.
b. Angling. A baiting-needle.
1664Power Exp. Philos. i. 2 At his [the flea's] snout is fixed a Proboscis, or hollow trunk or probe. Ibid. 8 The Butter-Fly... The Probe (which you see lyes in her mouth in spiral contorsions). 1681J. Chetham Angler's Vade-m. xxxvii. §9 (1689) 237 Others use the Probe to draw the Arming Wire under the Skin only. [Cf.1653Walton Angler vii. 150 The better to avoid hurting the fish, some have a kind of probe to open the way, for the more easie entrance and passage of your wyer or arming.]
c. Any small device, esp. an electrode, which can penetrate or be placed in or on something for the purpose of obtaining and relaying information or measurements about it, or of exciting radiation in it.
1924Physical Rev. XXIV. 597 Potential distribution and ion concentration were investigated by Langmuir's modified probe method. 1938Proc. IRE XXVI. 1534 The electric field intensity was measured by a small probe with a crystal detector, followed by an audio-frequency amplifier and a copper-oxide meter. 1943F. E. Terman Radio Engineer's Handbk. iii. 260 Just as waves can be set up in space by straight wires and loops, so can the wave-guide modes be excited by electric probes and loops. 1965Wireless World July 31 (Advt.), A completely new transducer..utilizes the variation in capacitance between its probe and the object under investigation to provide an electrical signal. 1971Sci. Amer. Dec. 76/1 W. L. Bretz in our laboratory designed and built a small probe that could record the direction of airflow at strategic points in the respiratory system of ducks. 1972Physics Bull. Jan. 23/3 In its basic form the pulse echo apparatus..comprises a heavily damped piezoelectric transducer source, often called a probe, which is placed on the surface of the sample under test. 1977Sci. Amer. Aug. 63/1 [On the ocean floor] temperature gradients are determined by plunging a long cylindrical probe several meters into the soft sediment and measuring the temperature at one-metre intervals with fixed thermistors.
d. Aeronaut. and Astronautics. (i) A tube fitted to the nose or wing of an aircraft in order to fit into a drogue towed by another and convey fuel from it in aerial refuelling.
1949Flight 11 Aug. 178/2 Either the tanker or the aircraft to be refuelled..could be fitted with the ‘probe’. 1950C. H. Latimer-Needham Refuelling in Flight 186 On the nose of the fighter aircraft, a horizontal tubular member, or probe, approximately 4 ft. in length, is fitted, and this is aimed by the pilot at the trailing drogue so that as the fighter closes with the tanker the probe enters the drogue and thus makes contact. 1966[see drogue 3]. 1978Aeroplane Monthly Jan. 35/1 This sub-variant incorporated the necessary ‘plumbing’ to permit in-flight refuelling, achieved with the aid of a probe of gigantic proportions.
(ii) A projecting device on a spacecraft designed to engage with the drogue of another craft during docking.
1969Times 23 May 1/3 Ground control told the astronauts that it suspected that the ring, which serves as a mount for the docking probe, had slipped by about three degrees. 1970N. Armstrong et al. First on Moon iv. 80 The command module had at its top a ‘probe’, a triangularly shaped assembly with a pencil-like point. 1970R. Turnill Lang. of Space 34 Three tiny capture latches on the nose of the probe provide the first steadying link, and then the command module crewman fires a gas bottle which thrusts the two together so that 12 docking latches snap shut to complete the process.
e. A small, usu. unmanned, exploratory spacecraft (other than an earth satellite) for transmitting information about its environment; also, a rocket or an instrument capsule for obtaining measurements in the upper atmosphere.
1953Jrnl. Brit. Interplanetary Soc. XII. 73 The probe will arrive at Mars nine months after opposition. 1958Observer 17 Aug. 1/6 From then on the probe will be on its own for about 59 hours, coasting through space, gradually slowing down under the pull of the earth's gravity. 1959F. D. Adams Aeronaut. Dict. 132/1 Probe,..3. An instrumented research rocket, or its payload, for penetrating the upper atmosphere or beyond. 1967Technol. Week 23 Jan. 2/2 (Advt.), Motorola command receivers are ready to prove themselves again and again..in high altitude probes..and in a multitude of new tactical applications. 1968Times 15 Nov. 8/5 The Russian probe was not able to measure the lower 25 kilometres of the Venusian atmosphere. 1970R. Turnill Lang. of Space 122 A second spacecraft..is intended to go into orbit around Saturn, and drop off at least one probe. 1977Nature 8 Sept. 98/3 The 11 instruments on board include television cameras, infrared and ultraviolet spectrometers, charged particle detectors, magnetometer and plasma wave detectors and, for the first time on an interplanetary probe, radio wave detectors.
†3. A printer's proof. Obs. rare—1.
Perhaps an error for prove, proof n.
1563Grindal Let. to Sir W. Cecil 21 Jan., The thanksgiving for the queen's majesty's preservation..ye shall see in the probe of the print, and after judge.
4. a. [f. probe v.] An act of probing; a piercing or boring, a prod.
1890Athenæum 10 May 613/3 As the Agora was gradually working itself out we tried probes to the west in the adjoining fields. 1894Outing (U.S.) XXIV. 108/2 The fish felt a probe in the ribs. 1907Daily News 11 Nov. 6/1 A probe with a pin is needed to unfold it.
b. fig. A penetrating investigation. Also in other transferred senses of the vb.
1903Christendom 9 May 151/1 Few words are commoner in newspaper headlines than ‘probe’, which is newspaper English for an investigation of alleged abuses. 1930Amer. Speech VI. 119 Probe started in junk yard blaze. 1945Ann. Reg. 1944 307 With an obbligato of court injunctions, Congressional ‘probes’, Gallup polls,..the case dragged on. 1948I. Brown No Idle Words 99, I have just seen an inquiry into a fatal explosion in a factory described as a Blast Probe. 1959Listener 31 Dec. 1140/2 Such conventional forces should be capable of performing all the functions for which the troops of Nato are at present organized: to deal with frontier incidents, to distinguish between local probes and deliberate sustained attack. 1962A. Huxley Island xi. 177 Slanting down through chinks in the green vaulting overhead, the long probes of sunlight picked out here a row of black and yellow water jars, there a silver bracelet. 1962Listener 15 Mar. 477/3 The results of the so-called Berlin probe—the recent meetings between Mr Gromyko and the American Ambassador in Moscow—have been ‘no wickets and no runs’. 1971J. B. Carroll et al. Word Frequency Bk. p. vii, The AHI Corpus is..a highly informative probe of what might be called the American school lexicon. 1980R. McCrum In Secret State iv. 26 Would Hayter start an internal probe into the background to the Lister business?
5. fig. spec. in Nuclear Physics, applied to a particle which can be used to penetrate nuclei, atoms, etc., and reveal their internal structure.
1955C. G. Darwin in W. Pauli Niels Bohr i. 5 The α-particle was always Rutherford's favourite. He could see that its great mass and its great energy made it the most effective of all probes to show what was in the atom. 1971S. Kaufman in L. C. L. Yuan Elem. Particles iv. 160 Extremely high-energy..projectiles are required to produce the mass equivalent of these strange particles and to provide probes of short enough wavelength to ‘see’ any internal structure. 1972DePuy & Chapman Molec. Reactions & Photochem. v. 78 Quenching is another useful probe for determination of mechanism. 1974I. E. McCarthy Nuclear Reactions i. i. 6 The invention of accelerating machines promised new probes, for example protons, deuterons, and even heavier ions. 1975Spiro & Loehr in Clark & Hester Adv. Infrared & Raman Spectroscopy I. iii. 135 To manipulate the composition of the sample, Oseroff and Callender employed a ‘pump’ laser beam, to establish the photo-stationary state, coaxial with a ‘probe’ beam, which produced the Raman spectrum. 1975Nature 5 June 459/1 This effect in α-phenylethylamine was first noticed by Hug et al., who realised that it originated in the two degenerate asymmetric deformations of the methyl group and could function as a new probe of chirality.
6. attrib. and Comb., as probe-end, probe-point; probe-and-drogue, used attrib. with reference to (a) a method of aerial refuelling (see 2 d (i) above), or (b) a method of docking spacecraft (see 2 d (ii) above); probe microphone (see quot. 1955); also (colloq.) probe mike; probe-needle, a needle used in the manner of a probe (cf. probe-scissors); probe-pointed a., having a blunt point, like that of a probe; probe-scissors, scissors used for opening wounds, having a button on the point of the blade.
1951Engineering 27 Apr. 491/1 In the *probe-and-drogue system, the tanker trails a hose..to the end of which is attached a conical metal drogue..with the open end facing rearward. 1959Times 8 Sept. 4/2 The range of the Vulcan V bomber will be increased significantly by the use of the probe and drogue aerial refuelling system. 1970R. Turnell Lang. of Space 34 Docking tunnel... So called because it contains the interlocking probe and drogue system for linking up the two craft in space.
1863–76T. B. Curling Dis. Rectum (ed. 4) 105 Using the *probe end of the director as a guide, the surgeon may make an external artificial opening.
1955Gloss. Acoustical Terms (B.S.I.) 24 *Probe microphone, a microphone or device incorporating a microphone for measuring sound pressure at a point in a sound field without significantly altering by its presence the sound field in the neighbourhood of the point. 1976K. Benton Single Monstrous Act iii. 37 ‘What is it?.. A *probe mike?’ ‘That's it... It's shaped like a spike.’ 1979‘J. Le Carré’ Smiley's People (1980) xxi. 257 They'd like to run a couple of probe mikes into the ground floor.
1676Wiseman Chirurg. Treat. iii. v. 231, I prepared a Ligature, and with a *Probe-needle passed it up into the Gut.
1879St. George's Hosp. Rep. IX. 787 The puncture is visible,..*probe-point inserted into it.
1783Pott Chirurg. Wks. II. 155 The extremity of the *probe-pointed knife. 1869G. Lawson Dis. Eye (1874) 59 Into this opening I insert a pair of small probe-pointed scissors.
1676Wiseman Chirurg. Treat. vi. iv. 418 The sinus..may be..snipt open by a pair of *Probe-scissors. 1783Pott Chirurg. Wks. II. 155 The probe-scissors..is in this case particularly hazardous and improper.
▪ II. probe, v.|prəʊb|
Also 7 proab.
[f. probe n.: in some uses perh. influenced by L. probāre to try, test: see prove v.]
1. trans. To examine or explore (a wound or other cavity of the body) with a probe. Also with the person as obj.
1687Dryden Hind & P. iii. 80 Yet durst she not too deeply probe the wound, As hoping still the nobler parts were sound. 1758J. S. Le Dran's Observ. Surg. (1771) 266, I probed him carefully, and found no Stone. 1828Scott F.M. Perth xxii, The leech,..when the body was found, was commanded by the magistrates to probe the wound with his instruments.
2. fig.
a. To search into, so as thoroughly to explore, or to discover or ascertain something; to try, prove, sound; to interrogate closely. Cf. probe n. 4 b.
1649Lovelace Poems 28 She proabed it [sc. my heart] with her constancie, And found no Rancor nigh it. 1732Berkeley Alciphr. i. §5 Stand firm, while I probe your prejudices. 1804Wellington in Gurw. Desp. (1837) II. 667, I was anxious to find out to what countries they had claims, and probed them particularly upon that point. 1818Scott Rob Roy viii, A rascally calumny, which I was determined to probe to the bottom. 1875Helps Soc. Press. iii. 53 If they were probed as to their motives. 1884N.Y. Weekly Tribune 12 Mar. 1/2 The Senate Committee did not probe the Public Works Department in vain. 1915C. Mackenzie Guy & Pauline 228 If he could only probe by some remark a generous impulse. 1953Manch. Guardian Weekly 5 Mar. 3/1 The press exhaustively probed the unpublished agenda and was then kept..firmly out of earshot. 1977F. Branston Up & Coming Man xiv. 150 Headlines were mostly variations of ‘CID probe M-Way Rolls death mystery’.
b. To ask or inquire probingly. rare.
1839Lady Lytton Cheveley (ed. 2) II. x. 334 ‘Anything about Denham in it?’ probed Herbert.
c. To find out by probing or similar action. rare.
1699Wanley in Lett. Lit. Men (Camden) 284 But I made shift to probe out a few of them myself.
3. transf.
a. To pierce or penetrate with something sharp, esp. in order to test or explore.
1789G. White Selborne vi. (1853) 25 Which the owners assured me they procured..by probing the soil with spits. 1841Emerson Addr., Meth. Nat. Wks. (Bohn) II. 222 As soon as he probes the crust, behold gimlet, plumb-line, and philosopher take a lateral direction. 1863Lyell Antiq. Man ii. 31 The bog or peat was ascertained, on probing it with an instrument, to be at least fifteen feet thick. 1904Brit. Med. Jrnl. 17 Sept. 660, I counted thirty-eight [tsetse flies] probing the body of a large monitor I had shot.
b. To thrust (a piercing instrument) for the purpose of examination or exploration. rare.
1889Gretton Memory's Harkb. 109 One of the soldiers probed his bayonet between the logs under which he was lying, and just pricked him.
4. intr. To perform the action of piercing with or as with a probe; to penetrate, as a probe.
1835–6Todd's Cycl. Anat. I. 311/2 Which [birds] have occasion to probe for their food in muddy or sandy soils. 1878Geo. Eliot Coll. Breakf. P. 201 Your question..has probed right through To the pith of our belief. 1887M. Corelli Thelma II. iv. 66 Lady Winsleigh..had..the cleverness to probe into Thelma's nature and find out how translucently clear and pure it was. 1906G. Meredith Let. 5 Apr. in Amer. N. & Q. (1973) XI. 69/2 ‘Beauchamp's Career’ does not probe so deeply, but is better work on the surface. 1923Times Lit. Suppl. 4 Jan. 9/3 The only instrument by which his fin-de-siècle soul..could probe to something solid to live by. 1959Listener 14 May 827/1 If an aggressor were to try a probing action it's just as likely that he would probe on the sea, or even under the sea, as on land or in the air. 1962Ibid. 5 July 3 (heading) Anthony Crosland and Donald MacRae probe into the state of the nation.
Hence ˈprobing vbl. n.; also ˈprober, one who or that which probes.
1680Otway Orphan iv. vi. 1540 Every probing pains me to the heart. 1890Pall Mall G. 27 Nov. 3/1 That greatest prober of the secrets of science, the microscope. 1894Athenæum 12 May 624/2 Probers of feminine hearts. 1948I. Brown No Idle Words 99 They [sc. sub-editors] are probers to a man. 1954L. MacNeice Autumn Sequel 75 The probing mind begins to fail the prober. 1958Listener 20 Nov. 822/2 If the probing [of the moon] is carried out recklessly..then the extra-terrestrial bodies will be contaminated. 1970Times 26 Feb. 4/6 Rescue workers today delved with probing rods into a mass of snow. 1974State (Columbia, S. Carolina) 15 Feb. 1-a/4 (heading) White House refuses material for probers. |