| 释义 |
▪ I. prepense, a.|priːˈpɛns|
[Substituted for earlier prepenst, prepensed (orig. purpensed, OF. purpense), either by simple phonetic reduction, or after F. pa. pple. -pensé, or corresp. L. pple. -pens-us.]
Considered and planned beforehand; premeditated, purposed; intentional, deliberate. a. (a) in malice prepense (Law): malice premeditated or planned beforehand; wrong or injury purposely done.
1702Addison Dial. Medals ii. 50 Our English poets..show a kind of malice prepense in their Satires. 1752W. Miller in Scots Mag. May (1753) 232/1 Such prepense malice. 1769Blackstone Comm. IV. xiv. 202 The benefit of clergy is taken away from murder through malice prepense. 1852C. M. Yonge Cameos (1877) IV. xii. 137 This..was set down to malice prepense on his side. 1862Goulburn Pers. Relig. iii. ii. (1873) 166 To kill a man in wrath of malice prepense is murder. 1877Longfellow in Life III. 277 The article..is certainly written with malice prepense.
(b) humorously and poet.
[1792Burke Let. Sir H. Langrishe Wks. 1842 I. 543 You see by the paper I take that I am likely to be long, with malice prepense.] 1857Hughes Tom Brown ii. v, I have put in this chapter on fighting of malice prepense,..partly because of the cant and twaddle that's talked of boxing and fighting with fists now-a-days. 1874L. Stephen Hours in Library (1892) I. vii. 255 He..plunges into slang, not irreverently..but of malice prepense. 1884J. Payn Some Lit. Recoll. 98, I went up to Lakeland..with the avowed intention and malice prepense of writing my second volume of poems. 1923D. H. Lawrence Birds, Beasts & Flowers 128 Full of malice prepense, and overweening.
b. In other connexions.
1770Junius Lett. xxxix. (1797) II. 23 From that period, whatever resolution they took was deliberate and prepense. 1816Keatinge Trav. I. 268 Travelling is seldom a very prepense undertaking. 1886Swinburne Misc. 143 When least meditative with any prepense or prefixed purpose.
c. Of a person: Acting with intention, deliberate. rare.
1879G. Macdonald Sir Gibbie III. ix. 160 He was an orator wilful and prepense, choice of long words, fond of climaxes. 1919W. B. Yeats If I were Four & Twenty in Irish Statesman 23 Aug. 212/1 For he [sc. Claudel] is prepense, deliberate.
Hence preˈpense n., forethought, purpose, intention, design. rare.
1847Gilfillan in Tait's Mag. XIV. 362 Her poetry is not, of prepense and purpose, the express image of her religious thought.
▪ II. † preˈpense, v. Obs.
[Altered from earlier purpense, OF. purpenser, after words in pre-; so in early 16th c. F. prepenser to think of before: see pre- A. 1 and pense v.
In later edd. of 15th and early 16th c. documents, e.g. the Paston Letters and Acts of Parlt., purpense of the original is often altered to the mod. prepense.]
1. trans. To plan, devise, or contrive beforehand.
[c1400–1512: see purpense v.]
1509Hawes Past. Pleas. xxx. xix, Prepence [so edd. 1517–1555] nothynge vnto her dyshoneste. 1525Ld. Berners Froiss. II. clxxxvi. 232/2 It was a thing prepensed by false traitoures to put the realme to trouble. 1633T. Adams Exp. 2 Peter ii. 15 It is one thing to forsake, another to propose and prepense a forsaking.
2. To weigh or consider beforehand.
1509Hawes Past. Pleas. xi. xxix, For to reuolue vnderstande and prepence [so edd. 1517–1555]..The begynnynge and the myddle certaynly With the ende or thou put it in vre. 1531Elyot Gov. i. xxv, All these thinges prepensed and gathered together seriously. 1590Spenser F.Q. iii. xi. 14 Ever in your noble hart prepense, That all the sorrow in the world is lesse Then vertues might and values confidence. a1656Bp. Hall Via Media Wks. 1808 IX. 835 A consequent will,..whereby, all circumstances prepensed, God does simply will this or that particular event, as simply good to be.
b. intr. or absol. To meditate beforehand.
1531Elyot Gov. iii. xxiv, His [the soul's] office is, before that any thynge is attempted, to thinke, consydre, and prepence. |