| 释义 |
agonist|ˈægənɪst|
[ad. Gr. ἀγωνιστ-ής a combatant in the games.]
1. ‘A contender for prizes.’ J. rare
1626Cockeram, Agonist, a Champion. 1859I. Taylor Nilus in Ess. etc. 1859, 161 Happiest of mothers am I, who have borne so noble an agonist.
2. A person engaged in a contest or struggle; a protagonist. (For the spec. sense in quot. 1914 cf. agon 2.)
1914F. M. Cornford Origin Attic Comedy v. 71 Three, or sometimes four, rôles are involved in the Agon... First there are the two Adversaries (as we shall call them). For the sake of convenience, we shall distinguish them as the ‘Agonist’ and the ‘Antagonist’. The Agonist is the hero, who is attacked, is put on his defence, and comes off victorious. 1921Glasgow Herald 4 Aug. 5/3 He knows too well the respective roles of agonist and spectator of life. 1933E. K. Chambers Eng. Folk-Play 23 The culminating point of the Drama is of course the Combat. It will be convenient to call the champion who falls the Agonist and his vanquisher the Antagonist. 1934Punch 14 Feb. 195/1 Since this is a novel and not an economic treatise, the high lights are naturally focussed on particular agonists.
3. One who advertises in an ‘agony column’ (see agony 1 a).
1915Chambers's Jrnl. 6 Feb. 149/1 Yet somebody must respond, or a number of the ‘agonists’ would require to retire..from the business. 1934I. Brown in Essays of Year 1933–4 p. xx, He even scours the advertisements, for the Agonists of The Times are often helpful.
4. Physiol. A muscle whose contraction is directly responsible for the movement of a part of the body. Also agonist muscle. Cf. antagonist 4.
1925Arch. Neurol. & Psychiatry XIII. 291 The splendid researches of Duchenne of Boulogne, which restate Winslow's idea in even more categorical terms by claiming a simultaneous contraction of agonist and antagonist muscles during the production of movement. 1932Jrnl. Bone & Joint Surg. XIV. 2 The increasing elastic tension of the antagonist and the decreasing elastic tension of the contracting agonist determine the neutral point of equilibrium. 1949New Gould Med. Dict. 33/1 When flexing the elbow, the biceps is the agonist and the triceps is the antagonist. 1980Conc. Med. Dict. 33/1 Antagonists relax to allow the agonists to effect movement.
5. Pharm. A chemical which can not only combine with a receptor (receptor 3 c), like an antagonist, but when it does so stimulates it, resulting in an observable effect.
1955Pharmacol. Reviews VII. 211 The term ‘reversible competitive antagonism’ is used in this review to designate that type of antagonism in which the antagonist competes with the agonist by reacting reversibly with the same receptors with which the agonist reacts. 1970Nature 10 Oct. 135/1 Trigonelline was found to have little pharmacological activity, being about 105 times less active as an agonist than acetylcholine, and with no detectable antagonist activity. 1972Burgen & Mitchell Gaddum's Pharmacol. (ed. 7) 6/2 One of the dilemmas of pharmacology is to explain just what it is that makes some members of a drug series agonists and some antagonists. 1977Sci. Amer. Mar. 44/2 All opiate agonists, or analgesically active substances, show basic similarities in their molecular architecture. 1983Fortune 24 Jan. 88/2 An agonist not only fits a receptor molecule but also activates it to initiate some operation in a cell. |