| 释义 |
urban, a. and n.|ˈɜːbən|
[ad. L. urbān-us (whence It., Sp., Pg. urbano), f. urb-s city. Rare before the 19th cent.; cf. next.]
A. adj.
1. a. Pertaining to or characteristic of, occurring or taking place in, a city or town.
1619A. Garden Bp. Elphinston (Hunt. Cl.) 2239 Vrban and tunishe [= townish] turns, Or for the land's effairs,..his wit Him fit for all declairs. c1770Erskine in Encycl. Brit. II. 912 Predial servitudes are divided into rural servitudes, or of lands; and urban servitudes, or of houses. 1821Lamb Elia i. Valentine's Day, I include all urban and all rural sounds. 1845R. W. Hamilton Pop. Educ. iii. 42 It is contended that urban labour is engrossing, unhealthy, and demoralising. 1867W. L. Newman in Quest. Reformed Parl. 121 The progressive forces of urban and agricultural life. 1877Gladstone Glean. (1879) I. 157 We..are apt to say that the influence of money..is a considerable element in the strength of urban Toryism.
b. Constituting, forming, or including a city, town, or burgh, or part of such.
1841W. Spalding Italy & It. Isl. II. 309 One uniform system of municipal government, embracing all districts, rural as well as urban. 1867A. O. Rutson Ess. Reform 297 The activity of mind and the zeal for improvement which belong to urban constituencies. 1872Act 35–36 Vict. c. 79 §3 Such urban and rural sanitary districts. 1888Bryce Amer. Commw. II. lxi. 433 A ‘town’ in New England..is a rural and not an urban area. 1894Act 56–57 Vict. c. 73 §21 Urban sanitary authorities shall be called urban district councils, and their districts shall be called urban districts.
2. a. Exercising authority, control, supervision, etc., in or over a city or town.
Used by Howell in place of his usual urbane.
1651Howell Venice 16 All Magistrats are either Urban or Forren, viz. of Town or Countrey. a1704T. Brown Walk Lond. & Westm. Wks. 1720 III. 317 The pathetick Harangue of that Urban Magistrate a R―r. 1815J. C. Hobhouse Substance Lett. (1816) II. 17 The national guard of Paris,..that urban guard whose patriotism and approved zeal [etc.]. 1872Act 35–36 Vict. c. 79 §4 Urban sanitary authorities shall be the several bodies of persons specified [etc.]. 1886Encycl. Brit. XX. 145/2 The Urban Quæstors.
b. Residing, dwelling, or having property in a city or town.
1837C. Lofft Self-formation I. 40 His urban, or sub⁓urban brother, the man of the multitude, the unit of the mob. 1849Alison Hist. Eur. I. ii. 225 Government has..found a counterpoise to the vehemence of urban democracy. 1873Morley Struggle Nat. Educ. 95 The brutalising lives that are led by the rural and urban poor in their crowded hovels. 1889Spectator 14 Dec. 834 How do they justify the absorption of the increment of value from urban landholders alone?
3. Special collocations: urban blight, the gradual unfolding or existence of slum areas, waste land, ghettos, etc., within a city or town (cf. blight n. 4 b); Urban District (Hist.): see district n. 3 b; Urban District Council, the local council of an Urban District; abbrev. U.D.C.; urban guerrilla, a guerrilla operating in cities or towns and involved in kidnapping, etc.; also attrib.; urban guerrilla warfare, irregular kidnapping, bombing, etc., by urban guerrillas; urban renewal (orig. U.S.), the clearance and redevelopment of slum areas, waste land, ghettos, etc., within a city or town; also attrib. and fig.; urban–rural adj., of or pertaining to both town and country; urban sprawl, the uncontrolled expansion of urban areas; urban village, a small self-contained district or community within a city or town (= village n. 1 e); so urban villager, an inhabitant of an urban village.
1938M. L. Walker (title) Urban blight and slums. 1975M. Bradbury History Man i. 14 A real town of urban blight and renewal, social tensions, discrimination.
1894Urban district council [see sense A. 1 b]. 1973Whitaker's Almanack 1974 617/2 Urban district councils are also highway authorities.
1967G. Jackson Let. 31 Jan. in Soledad Brother (1971) 106, I have made inroads into political economy..and when I can get hold of them some of the works on urban guerrilla warfare. 1972Guardian 17 Jan. 11/2 The army..is claiming only that it has the measure of the urban guerrilla in Belfast. 1979G. Seymour Red Fox iii. 44 The threat..posed by the rash of urban guerrilla groups.
1955Statutes at Large U.S.A. LXVIII. i. 622 The heading of title I of the Housing Act of 1949..is hereby amended to read Title I—Slum Clearance and Urban Renewal. Ibid., A fund..known as the ‘Urban Renewal Fund’, shall be available for advances, loans and capital grants to local agencies for urban renewal projects. 1961E. A. Powdrill Vocab. Land Planning iii. 55 ‘Urban renewal’ can be defined as a generic expression or term which comprises the elements of redevelopment (demolition and rebuilding), rehabilitation (repairing, altering and remodelling), and conservation (the preservation of buildings or groups of buildings). 1966H. Nielsen After Midnight (1967) iv. 61 He heads some extremist group... Sort of an urban renewal project of the Ku Klux Klan. 1977D. M. Smith Human Geogr. v. 104 Some change such as urban renewal or the construction of a new hospital has the capacity to shift the welfare frontier. 1984Times 24 Apr. 13/4 Our delegation visited and discussed urban renewal.
1953A. E. Smailes Geogr. of Towns ii. 33 There is no longer either socially or physically a simple clear-cut dichotomy of town and country; rather it is an urban-rural continuum. 1970R. Stavenhagen in I. L. Horowitz Masses in Lat. Amer. vii. 256 There may be those who see in this situation only an ecologic relation, an ‘urban-rural’ conflict.
1958Listener 25 Sept. 448/2 The result is a disturbing incidence of crime, juvenile delinquency, road accidents, congestion, urban sprawl, ignorance, and ugliness. 1979Monitor (McAllen, Texas) 8 July 8d/3 Houston's urban sprawl is greater than that of Los Angeles.
1962H. J. Gans Urban Villagers i. 4 The West End was an urban village, located next to Boston's original and once largest skid row area, Scollay Square. 1974Times 15 Apr. 2/4 A device to create an ‘urban village’ in a predominantly middle-class area.
1962H. J. Gans (title) Urban villagers.
B. n.
1. One who belongs to or lives in a town or city.
1891Cent. Dict. Also in recent use (1922).
2. = urban district council (see sense A. 3 above). rare.
1952M. Laski Village ii. 40 ‘What do you think of this proposal to bring us under Walbridge Urban?’.. ‘Well, I suppose it might mean some street lighting.’
Hence ˈurbanism, urban character; town-planning; town-life; urbanization. [Cf. F. urbanisme.]
1889Universal Rev. Oct. 210 The local colour or detail, the sentiment or the social life, the provincialism or urbanism of the story. 1929Times 16 July 17/6 In all the opening speeches..the newly coined word ‘urbanism’ was prominent. It denotes town-planning, [etc.]. 1934A. Huxley Beyond Mexique Bay 258 Many primitive virtues are obviously incompatible with urbanism and industrialism. 1952Gerth & Martindale in Weber's Anc. Judaism p. xviii, Weber saw the civic society of Palestine as a variation of ancient Mediterranean urbanism. 1977Ecologist VII. 52/3 The dynamic of urbanism as we know it makes inevitable the syndrome of violence, alienation, high crime rates and delinquency that we associate with our cities. 1980Times Lit. Suppl. 26 Sept. 1061/5 The discussion of the Capitol's urbanism and topography.
▸ Designating a type of music (esp. street music) that originates from a city, and typically reflects or is characteristic of urban life. In later use (chiefly U.S. and Brit.): spec. = urban contemporary adj. and n. at Additions.
1941G. Chase Music of Spain Introd. 17 Including every manifestation of the musical instinct among human beings..in such hybrid manifestations as urban street music and popular theatrical music. 1965Jrnl. Amer. Folklore 78 186 Joe Turner performs a K. C. urban blues quite removed from the country variety. 1988P. Manuel Pop. Musics Non-Western World (1990) vi. 162 The longa is an urban genre adopted from Rumanian gypsy music related to, although distinct from Turkish urban music in style and modal repertoire. 1996Independent (Nexis) 26 Oct. 41 Top DJs provide a tour through the best in urban black music with ‘phat’ servings of soul, hip-hop and drum 'n' bass. 2003Baltimore Sun (Nexis) 25 Sept. 30 t, An all-night party that features the best in electronic and urban music, from drum 'n' bass and techno to hip-hop and house beats.
▸ urban contemporary adj. and n. orig. Broadcasting (chiefly U.S.) (a) adj. of, relating to, or designating a variety of subgenres of popular dance music, chiefly associated with black musicians, including R&B, hip-hop, drum and bass, house, techno, and soul music and freq. reflecting inner-city social themes and attitudes; (b) n. this type of music.
1980Washington Post 23 Oct. d10/2 Before that he was morning man at WKTU-FM, the *urban contemporary (nee disco) station that made headlines when it toppled longtime ratings kingpin WABC. 1982Washington Post (Nexis) 7 Feb. k1 One of the big areas of controversy right now centers on a new radio format called urban contemporary. 1992N.Y. Times 14 June iii. 6/3 Shipments of urban contemporary music, as a percentage of the dollar value of all music shipments made to record stores. ‘Urban contemporary’ includes rap music, but also rhythm and blues, soul, funk, Motown and reggae. 2001Quad City Times (Davenport, Iowa) 3 May (Go! section) 16/2 A flickering slice of urban contemporary.
▸ urban folklore n. orig. and chiefly U.S. the folklore of contemporary industrialized societies; urban legends collectively.
1960Jrnl. Negro Hist. 45 199 As examples of *urban folklore, another field deserving deeper study, tales like ‘The Ghostly Hitchhiker’ and ‘The Death Car’ are traced in some detail. 1986Campaign (Nexis) 6 June Urban folk-lore (which for once seems to be rooted in solid fact) has it that London is carved up between two gangs. 2000Rocky Mountain News (Denver, Colorado) (Electronic ed.) 28 Oct. ‘It's urban folklore completely,’ he says of the ghost stories. ‘You can't prove any of this.’
▸ urban jungle n. orig. U.S. a bewilderingly complex, dangerous, or fast-paced urban area; an urban area characterized by ruthless competition, struggle, or exploitation.
1926N.Y. Times Mag. 14 Mar. 2 (heading), Wild *urban jungle has no terrors for man: Humanity adjusts itself quickly to the cliff-dwelling life here and learns to survive its dangers. 1968Internat. Migration Rev. 2 12 In the cities the chain communities had the character of the settled ‘urban village’ rather than the unsettled delinquency-prone atmosphere of the ‘urban jungle’, so often formed in the U.S.A. in the days of mass immigration. 1997Time Out N.Y. 31 July–7 Aug. 8/3 My urban-jungle pulse slowed to half its rate as I entered this cool, pillowed, otherworldly Korean oasis.
▸ urban legend n. orig. U.S. a sensational but apocryphal story which through repetition in varying versions has acquired the status of folklore, esp. one lent plausibility by its contemporary setting, or by the purported involvement of someone known to the teller.
1968R. M. Dorson in T. P. Coffin Our Living Traditions xiv. 166 Ubiquitous *urban legends deal with the ghostly hitchhiker,..the stolen grandmother,..and the death car. 1971Amer. Lit. 43 119 (note) My colleague, Professor Patrick B. Mullen,..has examined a number of contemporary newspaper stories which reflect this phenomenon. His recent paper on ‘Urban Legend and Rumor Theory’ has been of invaluable assistance to me. 1981J. H. Brunvand (title) The vanishing hitchhiker: American urban legends and their meanings. 1986Times (Nexis) 10 Aug. The myths [about radiation from microwave ovens] are called ‘urban legends’ by the Department of Trade. 2001Washington Times (Electronic ed.) 9 Jan. Recent cyberspace myths have included..the urban legend about prospective gang members who drive with their headlights off and shoot any driver who signals them to turn them on.
▸ urban myth n. orig. U.S. = urban legend n. at Additions.
1982N.Y. Times 19 May b3/1 Flaherty is chief of design in the New York City Bureau of Sewers, but he is also the resident expert on the most durable *urban myth in the history of cities, reptiles or waste disposal... ‘There are no alligators in the New York City sewer system.’ 1986Toronto Star (Nexis) 18 Apr. d23 Urban myths..are welded together as the story unfolds. 2001Western Gaz. (Electronic ed.) 11 Jan. A Somerset Women's Institute branch has issued a warning to its members about a telephone scam being operated by jail birds—but telecommunications bosses have dismissed it as an urban myth.
▸ urban sportswear n. a style of casual clothing associated with urban culture and often regarded as stylish and contemporary; (now freq.) spec. such a style originally associated with U.S. hip-hop culture and typically featuring baggy T-shirts with prominent logos, hooded tops, training shoes, and clothing associated with sports teams.
1983Working Woman Feb. 92/2 Pat Ashley is the vice-president of design and a designer at John Meyer of Norwich, a clothing company..turning out *urban sportswear that is neither avant-garde nor too safe. 1992Black Enterprise (Nexis) June 186 (caption) Carl Jones and Thomas Walker have made Solo Joint's Cross Colours urban sportswear line, a runaway success. 2003Internat. Herald Tribune (Paris) (Electronic ed.) 11 Feb. His invention has been to take urban sportswear, meaning the oversized hip-hop clothes born of the disenfranchised and disaffected poor black rappers, and turn them into aspirational clothing for his generation.
▸ urban regeneration n. the process of improving derelict or dilapidated districts of a city, typically through slum clearance and redevelopment.
1850S. Judd Richard Edney & Governor's Family xlix. 450 A part of the system of *urban regeneration. 1960Proc. Acad. Polit. Sci. 27 10 They [sc. the new facilities] should have been strategically placed around the city to serve as the nuclei of new urban regeneration. 2005Guardian 25 Jan. i. 10/1 But her attempt to graft the concept of regional ‘supercasinos’ on to the bill as a vehicle for urban regeneration prompted a backlash. |