| 释义 |
giant, n. and a.|ˈdʒaɪənt|
Forms: 3–6 geant, 4–5 ge-, jea(u)nd(e, -a(u)nt(e, 4–6 ge-, gi-, gyaunt(e, (5 ge-, gi-, gyaw(u)nt, gyand, geant, 6 geyaunt, gyane), 5–8 gyant(e, 6– giant. See also gigant.
[ME. geant (afterwards with the first syll. influenced by the Lat. form), ad. OF. géant, jéant, gaiant (mod.F. géant):—popular Lat. *gagantem, corrupted form of classical Lat. gigantem (nom. gigās), a. Gr. γίγαντ-, γίγᾱς.
The Gr. word and its Lat. transliteration appear in classical use (chiefly in pl.) as the name of a mythical race of beings of enormous stature and strength, represented as the sons of Gæa (Earth) and of Uranus (Heaven) or Tartarus (Hell), and as having warred with the Gods, by whom they were in the end destroyed. The LXX, and (hence) the Vulgate, used the word in passages of the Bible which refer to men of extraordinary stature and strength, and it thus obtained the wider sense in which it is current in the Rom. langs. and in Eng. The etymology of Gr. γίγας, like that of many other mythological names, is obscure; the hypothesis of connexion with the root *γα-, γεν- to be born, to beget, is hardly tenable.]
A. n.
1. a. One of the supposed beings in human form but of superhuman stature, who occur frequently in mythic or pseudo-historical traditions and in romantic fiction. In Greek mythology, used spec. (chiefly in plural, with initial capital) as the rendering of Gr. γίγας (see above in the etymology).
1297R. Glouc. (1724) 15 So strong..of honde, þat hym ne myᵹte no mon ne geant at stonde. c1325Chron. Eng. 54 in Ritson Met. Rom. II. 272 To wrastle wyth that foule thing, That wes the geaundene kyng. c1330R. Brunne Chron. Wace (Rolls) 1754 In þat tyme wer here non hauntes Of no men bot of geauntes. (Geaunt ys more þan man.. Lyke men þey ar in flesche & bon..Of membres haue þey liknes Þe lymes alle þat in man ys.) c1450Henryson Bludy Serk 44 The king gart seik baith fer and neir..Off ony knycht gife he micht heir, Wald fecht with that Gyand. 1500–20Dunbar Poems xxxviii. 20 He..as gyane raxit him on hicht. 1553Eden Treat. Newe Ind. (Arb.) 11 The Gyaunte Atlas beareth the worlde on hys shoulders. 1649Jer. Taylor Gt. Exemp. iii. xiv, A hundred weight to a gyant is a light burden. 1706–7Farquhar Beaux Strat. v. iii, I'm none of your Romantick Fools, that fight Gyants and Monsters for nothing. 1726Leoni Alberti's Archit. I. 7/2 Typho the Gyant being buried in the Island of Prochyta. 1810Scott Lady of L. i. iv, The Cavern, where, 'tis told, A giant made his den of old. 1838Penny Cycl. XI. 209 The fabulous stories of the giants and pygmies of antiquity, the former of whom are said to have made war against Jupiter.
b. fig. Applied to some influence or agency of enormous power. Sometimes prefixed as a title to names of personified qualities, in imitation of Bunyan's allegorical ‘Giant Despair’.
a1631Donne Poems (1650) 54 If you dare be brave..First kill th' enormous Gyant, your Disdaine. a1658Lovelace Poems (1864) 175 Is there such a trifle as honour, the fools gyant. 1880G. Meredith Trag. Com. (1881) 175 Giant Vanity urged Giant Energy to make use of Giant Duplicity. 1893Daily News 3 Mar. 5/4 Americans are now styling electricity ‘our docile giant’.
c. Econ. A large or powerful industrial company; a business that dominates its market. Freq. with indication of product, branch of industry, etc., prefixed.
1958Spectator 4 July 15/3 One of the soap giants, Unilever, is a British firm. 1969Times 6 Mar. 23/3 The bitter exchanges between the two French glass giants. 1975J. De Bres tr. Mandel's Late Capitalism x. 338 The World Bank and other international organizations have promoted common projects linking many of the most important industrial giants of the world. 1979J. Harvey Plate Shop xxiii. 111 He would become..Managing Director of a giant. 1986Economist 14 June 18/2 The government was worried about the bid..for Allied-Lyons, a British food-and-drinks giant.
2. a. A human being of monstrously or abnormally high stature; often used hyperbolically.
1559W. Cuningham Cosmogr. Glasse 202 Here Magelanus founde a Giaunt x. fote in length. 1571Campion Hist. Irel. vii. (1633) 22 Nemrod, worthily tearmed a gyant, as one that in bodily shape exceeded proportion. 1653H. Cogan tr. Pinto's Trav. xl. 160 They were followed by twelve huge tall men, that seemed to be Giants, clothed with Tygers skins as wild men are used to be painted of them. 1840Dickens Old C. Shop iii, His head and face were large enough for the body of a giant. 1884J. Hall A Chr. Home 176 As there are dwarfs, giants, and albinos, so there are exceptional natures.
b. transf.
1834T. Medwin Angler in Wales I. 289 The salmon, which was a giant of the species, did not..find more than depth for his huge body to swim in. 1891H. Herman His Angel x. 202 Five or six mighty elms clustered at the side of the house, hoary giants.
c. Astr. One of the class of larger diffuse stars, as distinguished from the dwarfs (see dwarf n. 2 b).
1912Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. LI. 573 The naked-eye stars of this class are all ‘giants’. 1925F. J. M. Stratton Astronomical Physics ix. 126 For a given spectral type, the giants are redder or have lower effective temperatures than the dwarfs. 1956H. S. Jones in A. Pryce-Jones New Outl. Mod. Knowl. 114 Some stars are so large that their diameters are several hundreds of times greater than the Sun's... Such stars are called giants.
3. One distinguished by the possession of intellect, strength, valour, etc. in extraordinary amount or degree.
1535Coverdale Ps. cxxvi[i]. 4 Like as the arowes in the honde of the giaunte, euen so are the yonge children. 1680–90Temple Ess., Learn. Wks. 1731 I. 159 There may be Gyants in Wit and Knowledge, of so over-grown a Size, as not to be equalled again in many Successions of Ages. 1851Robertson Serm. Ser. ii. x. (1864) 135 Many a spiritual giant is buried under mountains of gold. 1868J. H. Blunt Ref. Ch. Eng. I. 426 The schoolmen were mental giants. 1871E. F. Burr Ad Fidem xiv. 278 Giants of faith.
4. U.S. Mining. A discharge-pipe through which great volumes of water are sent for the washing of ore.
1877Raymond Mines 62, 97. 1882 Rep. Proc. Met. U.S., From the distributor the streams are piped on to the ‘monitors’, or ‘giants’.
5. attrib. and Comb.
a. simple attrib., as giant-brood, giant-land, giant-race, giant-world;
b. objective, as giant-crusher, giant-killer, giant-queller, giant-slayer; giant-killing adj.;
c. instrumental, as giant-hurled adj.;
d. similative, as giant-great, giant-huge, giant-vast adjs.;
e. appositive, as giant-hunter (passing into adj.: see B).
1612Drayton Poly-olb. xiv. 84 Since Gomer's *Giant⁓brood inhabited this Ile. 1671Milton Samson 1247, I dread him not, nor all his giant brood. 1842Sir A. De Vere Song of Faith 91 Communities are as the Giant-brood Fabled by poets old.
1891Atkinson Last of Giant-Killers 79 The Dalesfolks seldom called him anything but the Wolf-queller or the *Giant-crusher.
1871B. Taylor Faust (1875) II. iii. 171 Stalking marvellous figures *Giant-great.
1866Howells Venet. Life viii. 126 The gondoliers' spectral shadows *giant-huge.
1725Pope Odyss. xi. 704 There huge Orion of portentous size, Swift thro' the gloom a *Giant-hunter flies.
1871H. King tr. Ovid's Met. xi. 707 If..the mass Of Pindus or of Ossa, *giant-hurled, Fell sheer in middle-sea.
1726Amherst Terræ Fil. x. 46 History professors, who never read any thing..but Tom Thumb, Jack the *giant killer [etc.]. 1873Symonds Grk. Poets x. 330 Heracles, a Jack the Giant-Killer in his cradle.
1781Cowper Conversat. 244 Guy, Earl of Warwick..Or *giant-killing Jack would please me more.
1766H. Walpole Acc. Giants Wks. 1798 II. 102, I hope..that nobody will beg a million of acres of *giant-land. 1884S. E. Dawson Handbk. Dom. Canada 322 It is a veritable giant-land.
1751(title) Last Speech of John Good, vulgarly called Jack the *Giant Queller. 1813Scott Rokeby iv. i. note, Thor was the Hercules of the Scandinavian mythology, a dreadful giant-queller.
1820Keats Hyperion ii. 200 Then their first-born, and we the *giant-race Found ourselves ruling new and beauteous realms.
1879Sir G. Scott Lect. Archit. I. 38 The *giant-slayers of old romance.
a1849J. C. Mangan Poems (1859) 48 *Giant-vast [flames].
1595Shakes. John v. ii. 57 Commend these waters to those baby-eyes, That neuer saw the *giant-world enrag'd. 1889R. B. Anderson tr. Rydberg's Teut. Mythol. 132 The giant-world's wintry agents.
6. Special comb., as Giant's causeway (see causeway 1); giant-cell (see quot. 1881); hence giant-celled a., consisting of giant cells; giant cement, an extremely tenacious cement; giant-disc v. trans. (N.Z.), to cultivate by means of a machine with very large disc-cutters; † giant-dwarf, a dwarf with the power of a giant; giant fibre Zool., an enlarged and modified nerve-fibre esp. in certain invertebrates; giant's grave (see quot.); giant's kettle, one of the numerous very large pot-holes (moulins) on the coast of Norway; giant-powder, also simply giant (see quot. 1875); giant racer, a large switchback at a fun fair; also fig.; † giant rude a., rude as a giant; giant('s) stride, a gymnastic apparatus, consisting of an upright pole with a revolving head, to which ropes are attached, by holding which, one is able to take gigantic strides round the pole; (cf. quot. 1862 for B. 1 a); giant-swing (see quot.).
1779Sir W. Hamilton in Phil. Trans. LXX. 48 Lava's regularly crystallized, and forming what are vulgarly called *Giants Causeways.
1876Ziemssen's Cycl. Med. V. 644 A *giant-cell. 1881Syd. Soc. Lex., Cells, giant, large protoplasmic masses..without cell wall, and containing many roundish nuclei..They are found in tubercle. Also,..certain large ganglionic cells found in the frontal and the ascending parietal convolutions of the brain.
1886T. Holmes Syst. Surg. (ed. 3) I. 279 Myeloid or *giant-celled sarcoma.
1884R. Jefferies in Longm. Mag. IV. 258 All Brighton chimneys are put on with *giant cement.
1951Landfall V. 175 Billy's going to cut out that manuka so I can *giant-disc it and put in a crop of turnips. 1963Weekly News (Auckland) 3 July 37/2 We climbed a hill giant-disced to grey dust with chopped vegetation showing through.
1588Shakes. L.L.L. iii. i. 182 This wimpled, whyning, purblinde waiward Boy, This signior Iunios *gyant dwarfe don Cupid.
1888*Giant-fibre [see neurochord s.v. neuro-]. 1897Parker & Haswell Text-bk. Zool. I. x. 438 Running longitudinally through the ventral cord in many forms are certain giant fibres of very large size. 1963R. P. Dales Annelids vi. 111 Giant fibres have been known for some time, but their nervous nature was not at first appreciated. Ibid. 116 The giant-fibre system has been evolved for the rapid conduction of impulses.
1880Antrim & Down Gloss., *Giant's Graves, cromlechs and kistvaens.
1882Geikie Text-bk. Geol. iii. ii. ii. §5. 415 On the ice-worn surface of Norway singular cavities of this kind, known as ‘*giants' kettles’, exist in great numbers.
1872Raymond Statist. Mines & Mining 34 The company consume about 25 pounds of *giant powder weekly for blasting purposes. 1875Knight Dict. Mech., Giant-powder, a form of dynamite, consisting of infusorial earth saturated with nitro-glycerine. 1882Century Mag. XXV. 221/2 ‘They sets a kag o' that Giant on..it, and it goes off on 'em and tears everything to pieces.’
1934G. Greene It's Battlefield iv. 203 Marriage was the switchback, the *giant racer,..the guarantee that one would never be alone. 1949‘J. Tey’ Brat Farrar ix. 79 Lost in contemplation of the Giant Racer.
1600Shakes. A.Y.L. iv. iii. 34 Womens gentle braine Could not drop forth such *giant rude inuention.
1863Crown Princess of Prussia Let. 11 May in R. Fulford Dearest Mama (1968) 210 Having a swing, a see-saw and a *giant stride put up for little and big children. 1883Pall Mall G. 14 Nov. 1/2 Give them a giant's stride, give them a climbing or leaping pole, and see what a change you will bring into their life. 1906M. H. Baillie-Scott Houses & Gardens 121 The woodwork of the swing and giant's stride is painted in gay colours. 1963C. Mackenzie My Life & Times II. 29 A giant-stride is a column of wood from a revolving horizontal wheel at the top of which depend about a dozen ropes with small wooden bars at the end of them.
1889Century Dict., *Giant-swing, in gymnastics, a revolution at arm's length around a horizontal bar.
B. adj. [developed from the attrib. and appositive use of the n.]
1. a. Of extraordinary size, extent, or force; gigantic, huge, monstrous.
1480Caxton Descr. Brit. 17 Grete palayses, gyantes toures, noble bathes. 1602Marston Antonio's Rev. ii. iii, Pigmie cares Can shelter under patience shield; but gyant griefes Will burst all covert. 1613Shakes. Hen. VIII, i. ii. 199 A gyant Traytor [l. 216 hee's Traytor to th' height]. a1649Drummond of Hawthornden Poems Wks. (1711) 45 Such gyant moods our parity forth brings, We all will nothing be, or all be kings. 1699Bentley Phal. xi. 225 He was a Gyant Tragedian, rather than a Fairy one. 1725Pope Odyss. ix. 374 His giant voice the echoing region fills. 1747Collins Odes, Liberty 19 With heaviest Sound a Giant-statue fell. 1777Warton Poems 43 More horrible and huge her giant-shape she rear'd. 1812Byron Ch. Har. ii. xxii, Mauritania's giant-shadows frown. 1851Helps Comp. Solit. ix. (1874) 155 Near the land some giant reeds rose up from the water. 1852Robertson Serm. Ser. iii. xvii. 220 Passion in its giant might. 1861Gen. P. Thompson Audi Alt. III. clxvii. 189 Adam Smith, a giant authority. 1862Mrs. H. Wood Mrs. Hallib. iii. xviii. (1888) 409 When old age approaches then time moves with giant strides. 1888F. Hume Mad. Midas i. Prol., Above which could be seen giant mountains with snow-covered ranges.
b. In the names of plants and animals.
[1578–1848: see fennel-giant.] 1845Florist's Jrnl. 29 The sort of asparagus at present most generally grown is known under the name of the Giant. 1861Miss Pratt Flower. Pl. III. 339 Campanulaceæ..(Giant Bell⁓flower). 1864–5Wood Homes without H. i. 42 The Giant Armadillo (Priodonta gigas) is so determined a burrower that [etc.]. Ibid. v. 109 The Giant Teredo (Teredo gigantea)..produces a shell more than five feet in length. 1882Garden 4 Feb. 75/3 The Giant Orache (Atriplex hortensis) attains a height of 6 ft. or upwards. Ibid. 20 May 353/2 For planting by the side of water..there are few..equal to the Giant Fennels. 1897Daily News 9 Sept. 8/7 Giant seed rye is scarce and firm. 1911C. E. W. Bean ‘Dreadnought’ of Darling xiii. 130 The giant emu, giant kangaroo, alligator, tortoise, and giant wombat. 1937Discovery Jan. 27/1 The first Giant Panda to be captured alive was taken by Mrs Ruth Harkness, on a recent expedition into the frontier country between South-Western China and Tibet. Ibid. Oct. 308/2 The giant squid is certainly the largest invertebrate animal. 1947I. L. Idriess Isles of Despair xxxv. 234 We must show you the giant clam. 1947J. Stevenson-Hamilton Wild Life S. Afr. xxxiv. 300 The giant kingfisher (Megaceryle masima), attains a total length of close on eighteen inches. 1969Nature 21 June 1126/1 In the wild, giant pandas are usually alone; except for mothers with cubs they have rarely been seen in company.
c. Applied to a star (see the n., sense 2 c).
1912Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. LI. 571 The existence of these two series was first pointed out by Hertzsprung, who has called them by the very convenient names of ‘giant’ and ‘dwarf’ stars—the former being of course the brighter. 1913Observatory Aug. 328 Giant stars must either have low density or great surface-brightness, and the reverse is true of the dwarf stars. 1959Listener 3 Dec. 971/1 We have red giant stars which are accompanied by bluish-green companions.
2. Comb., as giant-bodied, giant-factoried, giant-treed adjs.
1624R. Davenport City Nt. Cap iii. (1661) E 1, Her little pedling sins..will shew in my book as foils to her *giant⁓bodied vertues.
1864Tennyson Sea Dreams 5 The *giant⁓factoried city gloom.
c1865O. W. Holmes Hunt after ‘Captain’ in Pages Old Vol. Life (1891) 76 Springfield, the wide-meadowed..*giant-treed town.
b. Special collocation. giant order Archit., an order whose columns extend through more than one storey; also called colossal order.
1945J. Summerson Georgian London vi. 72 Gibbs adopted the reverse policy of starting with a *giant order. 1961N. Pevsner Northamptonshire 269 The giant order of pilasters, a motif derived from Delorme's St Maur of 1541–4 and illustrated in his Architecture in 1567. 1979E. H. Gombrich Sense of Order vii. 178 ‘The giant orders’ which Michelangelo introduced in his design of the Capitol..presented such a bold departure because normally each storey of a building was assigned its own order.
▸ giant branch n. Astron. a region extending above and to the right of the main sequence, where giant stars are plotted in a Hertzsprung–Russell diagram.
[1922Sci. Monthly May 491/2 We thus have the so-called giant and dwarf subdivisions of stars, a grouping which shows most clearly among the stars of lowest temperature.] 1928J. H. Jeans Astron. & Cosmogony vi. 176 A sudden shrinkage occurs when a star reaches the unstable edge of the *giant branch and suddenly drops down to the main sequence. 1989M. Longair in P. Davies New Physics vi. 111/1 Extending from about the location of the Sun on the luminosity-temperature diagram up towards the top right is what is known as the giant branch. 2001Nature 5 July 51/1 There is also clear evidence of a large metallicity spread in the giant branch, with a mean just below solar, supporting a prolonged star-forming epoch.
▸ giant planet n. Astron. one of the four largest planets in the solar system (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune), which are composed mostly of gaseous hydrogen and helium thought to surround a solid core; a large planet, esp. one with this type of composition and structure; cf. gas giant n. at gas n.1 Additions, terrestrial adj. 2f.
1868Littell's Living Age 14 Nov. 422/1 He [sc. Whewell] drew..a dismal picture of the climatic relations presented by the *giant planet Jupiter, an orb which exceeds our earth more than thirteen hundred times in volume. 1871J. N. Lockyer & R. A. Proctor Guillemin's Heavens (ed. 4) i. ii. 170 He found that this widely extended path, by which the meteors are carried beyond the orbit of Uranus, and subjected to the perturbations of the giant planets outside the zone of asteroids, accounts perfectly for the observed motion of the node. 1942Science 25 Dec. 13/1 Science developments of the year 1942... Discovery of a giant planet outside our solar system, a satellite of a star in Cygnus. 1978J. M. Pasachoff & M. L. Kutner University Astron. xix. 477 These giant planets, or Jovian planets, not only are much bigger and more massive, but are also less dense... This suggests that the internal structure of these giant planets is entirely different from that of the four terrestrial planets. 2001Nature 1 Feb. p. ix/3, The Oort cloud, a reservoir of planets beyond the orbits of Pluto and Neptune, was formed by ejection of icy planetismals from the giant planets region of the solar nebula. |