| 释义 |
▪ I. harden, v.|ˈhɑːd(ə)n|
[f. hard a. + -en5: cf. ON. harðna, which is, however, only intr. Harden has taken the place of OE. heardian, ME. hard-en, to hard.]
I. trans.
1. a. To render or make hard; to indurate.
c1200Ormin 1487 Tu..grindesst itt [corn], and cnedesst itt, And harrdnesst itt wiþþ hæte. Ibid. 1567 Þu bakesst Godess laf And harrdnesst itt þurrh hæte. 1513Douglas æneis vi. xii. 55 The spot of filth hardynit [concretam labem] in the spreit. 1555Eden Decades 97 Pykes and dartes hardened at the endes with fyere. 1632J. Lee Short Surv. 12 Fishes dryed and hardened with the frost. 1710J. Clarke Rohault's Nat. Phil. (1729) I. 159 The Heat must be but moderate, to harden Bodies. 1793[see 7]. 1860Tyndall Glac. i. xi. 73 The snow was hardened by the night's frost.
transf. and fig.1733Pope Ess. Man iii. 193 Thy Reason..shall..Entangle Justice in her net of Law, And right, too rigid, harden into wrong. 1856H. Rogers Ess. II. viii. 373 The strong metaphorical language of Christ became hardened into the doctrine of Transubstantiation. 1874Green Short Hist. iv. §3. 177 The rise of a lawyer class was everywhere hardening customary into written rights. 1880Earle Philol. E.T. §405 Many of these [adjectives] are hardened into substantives, as commandant, inhabitant.
b. spec. of metals.
1797Encycl. Brit. VIII. 310/1 There are several ways of hardening iron and steel, as by hammering them, quenching them in cold water, &c. a1877Knight Dict. Mech. II. 1060/2 Iron is surface hardened by heating to a bright red, sprinkling with prussiate of potash, allowing to cool to a dull red, and cooling with water. 1957Encycl. Brit. VI. 906/2 After the blades are forged or cut out they are hardened by heating in a suitable furnace to the correct temperature and then quenched.
†2. To render bold or stout in action; to embolden, confirm; to incite to action. Obs.
c1200Ormin 1574 Itt hardneþþ all Þe gode manness heorrte, To þolenn..All þatt tatt iss unnsellþe. 13..K. Alis. 1200 He..hardneth al his men. 1375Barbour Bruce xii. 500 The horss with spuris hardnyt thai. c1470[see hardened ppl. a. 2]. 1658Cleveland Rustick Rampant Wks. (1687) 502 Greyndcob's Stubbornness hardens on the Clowns.
3. To make difficult of impression or emotion; to make callous or unfeeling.
a1300Cursor M. 5908 Þe hert o pharaon..es mar Hardend for mi sau þan ar. 1382Wyclif Ps. xciv. [xcv.] 8 Wileth not hardne ȝoure hertis. 1611Bible John xii. 40 He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart. 1712Steele Spect. No. 456 ⁋1 Men hardened beyond the Sense of Shame or Pity. 1735Berkeley Querist §390 The disbelief of a future state hardeneth rogues against the fear of death. 1825Lytton Falkland 54, I hardened my heart against his voice.
4. To make persistent or obdurate in a course of action or state of mind.
c1400Destr. Troy 9966 His hert was so hardonet all in hote loue. 1615J. Stephens Satyr. Ess. 272 Sacke and strong liquours hardens him in his custome. 1681Dryden Abs. & Achit. 145 Harden'd in Impenitence. 1826Scott Woodst. vi. He hardened himself..to the act. 1885Manch. Exam. 6 May 4/7 It would..confirm and harden her in a policy of settled hostility to this country.
†5. To maintain stiffly, affirm. Obs.
c1200Ormin 18219 Teȝȝ wolldenn bliþeliȝ Harrdnenn, ȝiff þatt teȝȝ mihhtenn, Þatt teȝȝre Bapptisstess fulluhht Wass bettre. a1300Cursor M. 12239 He hardens [Fairf. arguis; Trin. argueþ of] suilkin thing Þat i ne wat end ne beginning.
6. To make firm and tight.
1523Fitzherb. Husb. §126 For with the wyndynge of the edderynges: thou dost lose thy stakes & therfore they must nedes be dryuen newe and hardened agayne. 1769Falconer Dict. Marine (1789), Retenue, fastened, or hardened home in its place. Ibid. G b, The forelock..is thrust through a narrow hole..where it is hardened home by a hammer. 1882Nares Seamanship (ed. 6) 205 Studding-sail tacks..will..want hardening out.
7. a. To render hardy, robust, or capable of endurance. Chiefly of the physical constitution. to harden off: to inure (plants) to cold by gradually reducing the temperature of a hot-bed or forcing-house or by increasing the time of exposure to wind and sunlight.
1577B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. i. (1586) 6 b, Being hardened with labour in peace, they might the better be able to abyde the travayle of warres. 1601R. Johnson Kingd. & Commw. (1603) 4 The sharpenes of the place which doth harden them. 1793Beddoes Calculus 162 It is not true..that cold hardens children as it hardens steel. 1852Beck's Florist Aug. 174 The principal secret of preserving half-hardy plants over the winter with indifferent accommodation, lies in their being rooted early and gradually hardened afterwards. 1873Young Englishwoman May 238/1 Everything which has been kept in the house during the winter for summer planting, or raised in a frame..should be gradually hardened to endure the changes of life in the open air... This ‘hardening off’, as the gardeners term it [etc.]. 1875Ruskin Hortus Inclusus (1887) 34 [They] never put me through any trials to harden me, or give me decision of character. 1905Terms Forestry & Logging 13 Harden off, to prepare seedlings in the seedbed for transplanting by gradually exposing them to wind and sunlight. 1909Daily Chron. 5 June 9/5 This cool treatment or ‘hardening off’ process. 1912Chambers's Jrnl. Dec. 848/1 Plants raised in this frame require no hardening off. 1933Jrnl. R. Hort. Soc. LVIII. 117 Such young plants are generally well hardened-off, and receive but little check when transferred to their new quarters. 1970C. Lloyd Well-Tempered Garden ii. 54 When they [sc. the cuttings] have rooted, they can be..returned to a close atmosphere but then gradually hardened off by the admission of more air.
b. To render (a nuclear missile or base) hard (see hard a. 14 f).
1958R. D. Bowers in Air Univ. Q. Rev. X. 90 Another possibility..might be to harden our sites. Ibid. 92 Repeating the analyses and assigning various values to the parameters should provide a good feeling for the payoff in hardening missile sites. 1960Times 11 Feb. 11/6 Though land-based missiles can be ‘hardened’ by burying them and surrounding them with concrete they are still vulnerable to..nuclear attack. 1972Sci. Amer. June 15/3 Attempts to ‘harden’ such fixed missile-launchers (that is, to increase their resistance to the effects of nuclear explosions) are in the long run doomed to futility.
8. Phonetics. To make a sound ‘hard’. Cf. hard a. 16.
1871Public Sch. Lat. Gram. §12. 8 Poets sometimes..harden v- vocalis into v- consonans: as, gen-va for ge-nu-a.
II. intr.
9. To become hard.
c1420Liber Cocorum (1862) 37 In playand water þou kast hit schalle, To harden. 1596Dalrymple tr. Leslie's Hist. Scot. I. 47 A mater that wirkis out of the stanes, and hardnes throuch the calde nature of the Sey. 1796Morse Amer. Geog. II. 114 As they are of a petrifying quality, they harden..into various forms. 1833Lardner Manuf. Metal II. 314 Pure iron may..be superficially converted into steel, so as to harden, temper, and receive a fine polish. 1847Tennyson Princ. iii. 254 That we might..watch The sandy footprint harden into stone.
fig.1863Geo. Eliot Romola iii. xiv, That cold dislike..was hardening within him. 1891Eng. Illustr. Mag. Oct. 65 The weather was hardening into what promised to be half a gale. 1891Law Times XCII. 99/2 This natural sequence hardened first into custom and then into law.
10. To become hard in feeling, emotion, constitution, etc.
1667Milton P.L. i. 572 Now his heart Distends with pride, and hardning in his strength Glories. 1780Cowper Progr. Err. 590 There hardening by degrees, till double steeled, Take leave of nature's God, and God revealed. 1865Kingsley Herew. ii. 64 He hardened into a valiant man. 1873Miss Thackeray Old Kensington xii. 105 Though he might have softened to Lady S., he now hardened to himself. 1884Pae Eustace 62 He said they would soon harden to the work.
11. Comm. Of prices: To become higher, to rise; to stiffen. Cf. hard a. 15.
1674–91Ray N.C. Words 24. s.v., The Market Hardens, i.e. Things grow dear. 1828Craven Dial., Harden, to advance in price; ‘t' corn rayther hardens’. 1882Daily Tel. 4 May, Prices are hardening on the Continent.
Hence ˈhardening vbl. n. and ppl. a.
1630R. Johnson's Kingd. & Commw. 234 By hardning and custome. 1725Pope Odyss. ix. 292 Half the white stream to hard'ning cheese he prest. 1823J. Badcock Dom. Amusem. 138 The plate..has received an injury in the hardening. 1885J. J. Manley in Brit. Alm. Comp. 18 The butter is placed in a Danish cooler or hardening box. 1877Encycl. Brit. VI. 734/1 The hardening is accomplished by heating the blade to a cherry-red heat and suddenly quenching it in cold water. 1902Daily Chron. 18 Jan. 5/4 The hardening of new-arrived drafts [of troops] is most noticeable. 1902A. Bennett Anna of Five Towns viii. 176 The ‘hardening-on’ kiln, a minor oven where for twelve hours the oil is burnt out of the colour in decorated ware. 1908Westm. Gaz. 15 Apr. 1/3 The inexorable and hardening passage of twenty years. Ibid. 21 Aug. 5/4 There has been a great hardening on the part of the merchants, who were formerly placing the stones [sc. diamonds] on the market for anything they could fetch. 1930Economist 5 Apr. 758/2 The hardening of bill rates, which put a further reduction of the Bank Rate out of court for the time being. 1936Forestry X. 124 By exposure to suitable, but not damagingly low, temperatures plants are rendered more resistant to frost; this is the process known as hardening, and takes place naturally during the autumn. 1940Economist 6 Jan. 12/2 These difficulties have already had as their effect a general hardening of prices. 1959Chambers's Encycl. X. 686/2 Most fixing solutions also contain a tanning or hardening agent which unites with the gelatin of the emulsion layer, increases its melting-point and reduces its swelling in water. 1970New Yorker 17 Oct. 171/1 These maneuvers have all added up to what one astute observer of the talks has described as ‘a hardening of the arteries’.
▪ II. harden, herden, hurden, n. and a. local.|ˈhɑːd(ə)n, ˈhɜːd(ə)n|
Forms: α. 5–7 hardin, -yn, 5–9 harden, 6– 9 harding. β. 5–9 herden, 6–9 hurden.
[Belongs to hards n.; it is prob. a derivative in -en rather than the OE. heordan, ME. herden n. pl., and may have been orig. adj., although the n. use appears earlier in our quots. Harden appears to be northern and eastern; herden, hurden midl. and western; some northern dialects have the form harn, q.v.]
A. n. A coarse fabric made from the hards of flax or hemp.
c1430Durham MS. Cell. Roll, Pro viij uln. panni vocati Herdyng, ij s. 1462J. Paston in P. Lett. No. 449 II. 101 Nat withstandyng, ther herden at Wyggenalle shall be don this day. 1495Nottingham Rec. III. 38 Duo parea linthiaminum de harden. 1570Bury Wills (Camden) 156 One payer of sheets of hurden. 1615Markham Eng. Housew. ii. v. (1668) 134 That which comes from the flaxe being a little towed again in a pair of Wooll Cards, will make a course harding. 1708T. Ward Eng. Ref. ii. (1716) 235 (D.) A shirt he had made of coarse harden, A collar-band not worth a farthing. 1881D. C. Murray Joseph's Coat II. xxiv. 257 The tumbled herden which did duty for linen.
b. attrib. and Comb.
1601Holland Pliny xix. i, After the stalkes of the Flax be wel dried, they are to be beaten and punned..with an hurden mallet or tow-beetle. a1652Brome City Wit iv. ii. Wks. 1873 I. 348 You hurden smock'd sweaty sluttery.
B. adj. Made of harden.
1522Test. Ebor. (Surtees) V. 147 A hardyn apperon. 1542Richmond. Wills (Surtees) 31 Item vij score of lyn garne, and iiij score of hardyng garne vijs. viijd. 1545R. Ascham Toxoph. (Arb.) 118 An herden or wullen cloth waxed. 1641Best Farm. Bks. (Surtees) 67 A course hempe or harden cloath. a1652Brome New Acad. iii. i. Wks. 1873 II. 47 The hurden smock with lockram upper-bodies. a1763Shenstone Ess., On Dress (1765) 124 The country-fellow..appears genteel..when he is hedging in his hurden frock. 1824Mrs. Sherwood Waste Not ii. 2 They wore a linsey petticoat and herden apron. 1887D. C. Murray Old Blazer's Hero (1889) 87 With a corner of her herden apron.
†b. Clothed in harden. Obs.
1658Cleveland Rustick Rampant Wks. (1687) 453 The..Ring-leaders of the hurden rustick Raggamuffins. |