| 释义 |
hummock|ˈhʌmək|
Forms: α. 6 hammok, 6–9 hammock. β. 6 hommoke, hoommocke, 8 hommock. γ. 7 hummack, humock, 8 hummoc, 7– hummock, (9 -uck). δ. 7–8 hommac(c)o.
[Orig. a nautical term: source obscure.
The ending in -ock suggests a dim. like hillock. But the stem ham-, hom-, hum-, remains unexplained. Assuming it to be hum-, it may be compared with hummie, LG. humpel, hümpel, hümmel, a small height or eminence, a hump, Sc. dial. humplock ‘little rising ground’, and Eng. hump. But hummock could not be derived from hump, since the latter does not appear till 140 years later. The earliest form recalls another nautical word hammock; but comparison of the two words will show that neither form- nor sense-history favours any connexion (exc. perh. that the factitious homacco, hummock, may have been in imitation of hamacco, hammock).]
1. A protuberance or boss of earth, rock, etc., usually conical or dome-shaped, rising above the general level of a surface; a low hillock or knoll.
a. orig. ‘A name given by mariners to a hillock, or small eminence of land resembling the figure of a cone, and appearing on the sea-coast of any country’ (Falconer Marine Dict., 1769, s.v. Hommoc).
α1556W. Towrson in Hakluyt Voy. (1589) 104 Right above that into the land a round hammock and greene which we took to be trees. 1599Hakluyt Voy. II. ii. 58 The sayd land seemed vnto vs as if it had bene a great number of shippes vnder saile, being in deed nothing els but the land which was full of Hammoks, some high some lowe, with high trees on them. 1622R. Hawkins Voy. S. Sea (1847) 180 Wee came to an anchor in the bay of Atacames, which on the wester part hath a round hammock.
β1555R. Gainsh in Eden Decades 351 Vppon the mayne are foure or fyue hygh hylles rysynge..lyke round hoommockes or hyllockes. 1556W. Towrson in Hakluyt Voy. (1589) 105 A round green hommoke which commeth out of the maine. 1645G. Boate Irel. Nat. Hist. (1652) 38 Horn⁓head, being a Hill with two hommocks at the top, in fashion somewhat like unto two horns.
γ1608W. Hawkins in Hawkins' Voy. (1878) 378 A hummocke..boare of us N.E. 1622R. Hawkins Voy. S. Sea (1847) 238 This iland..is a round humock, conteyning not a league of ground, but most fertile. 1748Anson's Voy. ii. ix. 228 On this land we observed two remarkable hummocks, such as are usually called paps. 1834M. Scott Cruise Midge (1863) 110 Do you see your marks now? Yes, I have the two trees on with the hummock. 1840F. D. Bennett Whaling Voy. I. 295 note, This island has the appearance of a very lofty..rock..with a hummock on each side of its base.
δ1670Narborough Jrnl. in Acc. Sev. Late Voy. i. (1711) 114 These Islands made in four Hommaccoes, like Hay-cocks, when I saw them. 1743Bulkeley & Cummins Voy. S. Seas 15 High Land, with Hillocks, and one remarkable Hommacoe like a Sugar-loaf.
b. (In Colonial and U.S. use.) A piece of more or less elevated ground, esp. in a swamp or marsh; spec. in the southern U.S., an elevation rising above a plain or swamp and often densely covered with hardwood trees; a clump of such trees on a knoll.
The local form in Florida and adjacent states is hammock.
α1765J. Bartram Jrnl. 28 Dec. in Stork Acc. E. Florida (1766) 13 The hammocks of live-oaks and palmettos are generally surrounded either with swamp or marsh. 1766Ibid. 24 Jan. 49 We observed on the north-end of the lake a hammock of oak. 1775Romans Florida 283 A few spots of hammock or upland, are found on this island. 1884Times 15 Apr. 8 Florida lands are ordinarily classified as pine lands, hammocks (lands covered with hard woods), and swamp lands.
β1636Boston Rec. (1877) II. 9 A parcell of marsh land in which there stands 3 homocks, with Pyne trees upon the south side of the marsh neare the water. 1775Romans Florida 229 note, Excepting the few hommocks near the sea, which are oak land. 1791W. Bartram Carolina 117 Twenty miles of these green fields, interspersed with hommocks or islets of evergreen trees. 1839–40W. Irving Wolfert's R. (1855) 220 When Florida was ceded by the Spaniards..the Indians..retired..[into the] intricate swamps and hommocks, and vast savannahs of the interior.
γ1650R. Williams Lett. (1874) 195 A moose which was killed upon one of your hummocks by Fisher's Island. 1681R. Knox Hist. Ceylon (1817) 25 By marks of great trees, hummacks, or rocks, each man knows his own. 1766H. Laurens in Darlington Mem. (1849) 438, I thrice visited the River St. John..exploring the swamps and hummocks, pine barrens, and sand barrens. 1775Romans Florida App. 12 The island Amelia, which is..to be known by a detached hummock of trees on the south side. 1869in Coues Birds N.W. 478 The nest was a simple hollow in the ground, in a grassy hummock, in the centre of a marshy spot. 1872C. J. Maynard Birds Florida 29, I was walking in a narrow path through a hummock, which lies back of the old fort at Miami [Florida].
c. A sand hill on the sea shore.
1793Smeaton Edystone L. 197 In 1773 the..boundary of the Sand Hommacks remained nearly the same..but now..the sand hommacks had established themselves. 1819Rees Cycl., Hommacks, in Engineery, are used by Mr. Smeaton to denote sand hills thrown up by the tide. 1888Boston (Mass.) Transcript 7 July 5/5 This chart gives height of sand hills [on Sable Island] as 150 feet, when in no instance could Mr. Macdonald find a hummock having an elevation of eighty feet.
d. Geol. An elevated or detached boss of rock.
‘Navigators use the word hummock to express circular and elevated mounts, appearing at a distance; I adopt the word from them’ (Richardson, 1808, as below).
1808Richardson in Phil. Trans. XCVIII. 218 To these may be compared the stratified basaltic hummocks so profusely scattered over our area. Ibid. 221 It will hardly be asserted that these hummocks were originally formed solitary and separate as they now stand. 1829Glover's Hist. Derby I. 51 Detached portions or hummocks of coal measures. 1839Murchison Silur. Syst. i. xxxvi. 500 The trap..reappearing here and there in hummocks. 1878Huxley Physiogr. 162 The flat-domed hummocks of rock, produced in this way are termed sheep-backs.
e. ‘A protuberance raised upon any plane of ice above the common level’ (Scoresby); ‘a lump, thrown up by some pressure or force, on an ice field or floe’ (Sir J. Ross).
1818Edin. Rev. XXX. 17 A portion of ice rising above the common level, is termed a hummock. 1823Scoresby Whale Fishery 51 Many of the hummocks of the ice were at least twenty feet high..Some of these hummocks seemed to be of recent production. 1835Sir J. Ross Arctic Exp. xxix. 404 We proceeded over the level of the sea of ice, and, passing some hummocks, arrived at the desired cape. 1853Kane Grinnell Exp. x. (1856) 74 At the margins of the floes, where their ragged edges have come into grinding contact, the ice is piled up into ridges... These are the ‘hummocks’. 1878A. H. Markham Gt. Frozen Sea xxii. 308 The hummocks proved most formidable impediments to our advance.
f. gen. A boss-like protuberance rising irregularly from any surface; a knoll, hillock, or small piece rising abruptly above the general level, and causing inequality of the surface.
1845Darwin Voy. Nat. xxi. (1873) 493 The lava streams are covered with hummocks. 1854Thoreau Walden, Spring (1863) 339 Jumping from hummock to hummock. 1859Tennent Ceylon ix. v. II. 503 The ground..was thrown into hummocks like great molehills. 1867Musgrave Nooks Old France I. vii. 255 Hummocks of hard earth varying between two and three feet in height.
g. transf. A hummock-like mass or lump.
1864Lowell Fireside Trav. 186 One of those yellow hummocks [polar bears] goes slumping up and down his cage.
2. attrib., as hummock-land (see 1 b α, quot. 1884, and hummocky 1, quot. 1766), hummock-ridge, hummock-soil, etc.
1775Romans Florida 15, I shall then treat of them by the names of pine land, Hammock land, savannahs, swamps, marshes, and bay, or cypress galls. Ibid. 17 The hammock land so called from its appearing in tufts among the lofty pines. Ibid., The true hammock soil is a mixture of clay and a blackish sand, and in some spots a kind of ochre. 1856Kane Arct. Expl. I. xxii. 274 To avoid the accumulation of snows and hummock-ridges. Ibid. xxvi. 338 Such ice I have seen 36 feet in height; and when subjected..to hummock-squeezing, 60 and 70 feet. Ibid. II. i. 16 Under the hospitable lee of an inclined hummock-slab.
Hence ˈhummocked |ˈhʌməkt| ppl. a., thrown into hummocks; hummocky, uneven. ˈhummocking, the forming of hummocks on an ice field.
1853Kane Grinnell Exp. xvi. (1856) 122 The elastic material corrugated before the enormous pressure: then cracked, then crumbled, and at last rose... This imposing process of dynamics is called ‘Hummocking’. 1856― Arct. Expl. I. xxxii. 447 It is a rugged, hummocked drive. |