| 释义 |
handmaid, n.|ˈhændmeɪd|
[f. hand n. + maid. Cf. OE. handþeᵹn personal attendant or servant, also the ME. phrase ‘to serve any one to hand’, hand n. 34 a, 56.]
1. A female personal attendant or servant:
a. in literal sense. arch.
1382Wyclif Ps. cxxii[i]. 2 As the eȝen of the hondmaide in the hondis of hir ladi. 1398Trevisa Barth. De. P.R. i. (1495) 7, I am the handmayde of the lorde. 1548Hall Chron., Hen. V, 61 b, The goddesse of warre called Bellona..hath these .iij. handmaides ever of necessitie attendyng on her, bloud, fyre, and famine. 1613Shakes. Hen. VIII, ii. iii. 72 Vouchsafe to speake my thankes, and my obedience, As from a blushing Handmaid, to his Highnesse. 1806T. S. Surr Winter in Lond. (ed. 3) I. 122 With Dinah, her sturdy handmaid, as her attendant. 1856Mrs. Browning Aur. Leigh ii. 412 To be the handmaid of a lawful spouse.
b. fig. (in common use).
1592Davies Immort. Soul v. vi, As God's Handmaid, Nature, doth create Bodies. 1779Wesley Collect. Hymns Pref. 5 Poetry..keeps its place as the handmaid of Piety. 1875Stubbs Const. Hist. III. xxi. 533 Heraldry became a handmaid of chivalry.
†c. A vessel employed to attend upon a larger one; a tender. Obs.
1599Hakluyt Voy. II. ii. 121 Vnto which 4 ships [under Sir Francis Drake] two of her pinasses were appointed as hand-maids.
2. A moth (also handmaid moth), Datana ministra, of the family Bombycidæ.
1869Newman Brit. Moths 473 The Handmaid (Naclia Ancilla).
3. attrib. and Comb. Also handmaid-like adj.
1629Milton Christ's Nat. 242 Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending. 1725Pope Odyss. xxii. 459 Full fifty of the handmaid train. 1814Mrs. J. West Al. de Lacy I. 61 With handmaid-like humility of judgment. 1855Tennyson Enid 400 [He] let his eye..rest On Enid at her lowly handmaid-work.
Hence † ˈhandmaid v. nonce-wd. Obs.
1655Fuller Hist. Camb. Ep., Natural Philosophy, which should hand-maid it to Divinity. |