| 释义 |
identical, a. and n.|aɪˈdɛntɪkəl|
[f. med.L. identic-us (see prec.) + -al1.]
A. adj.
1. The same; the very same: said of one thing (or set of things) viewed at different times or in different relations. (Often emphasized by same, very.)
a1633Austin Medit. (1635) 36 The Spirit..leades not every man in the same identicall path. 1774C. J. Phipps Voy. N. Pole 13 To lend me the identical pendulum with which Mr. Graham had made his experiments. 1785Reid Intell. Powers iii. i. 305, I cannot remember a thing that happened a year ago, without a conviction..that I, the same identical person who now remember that event, did then exist. 1809Malkin Gil Blas iv. ix. ⁋4 This is the very identical man. 1832H. Martineau Demerara ii. 23 The case is wholly changed by the second and third parties being identical. 1890A. R. Wallace Darwinism 2 Descended from one pair of ancestral crows of the same identical species.
2. a. Agreeing entirely in material, constitution, properties, qualities, or meaning: said of two or more things which are equal parts of one uniform whole, individual examples of one species, or copies of one type, so that any one of them may, for all purposes, or for the purposes contemplated, be substituted for any other.
1677Hale Prim. Orig. Man. i. iv. 105 When we have to do with any thing whose very essence..consists in being greatest, there majus and minus do alter the very essence of the thing, and is identical with magis and minus. 1831Lamb Elia Ser. ii. Ellistoniana, ‘I like Wrench’..‘because he is the same natural, easy creature, on the stage that he is off.’ ‘My case exactly’, retorted Elliston..‘I am the same person off the stage that I am on’. The inference, at first sight, seems identical; but examine it a little, and it confesses only, that the one performer was never, and the other always, acting. 1860Westcott Introd. Study Gosp. iii. (ed. 5) 191 The incidents..are often identical and always similar. 1868Peard Water-farm. xiii. 129 A law..based on, and nearly identical with our present Fishery Act. 1896Duke of Argyll Philos. Belief 79 Crystals have no structure in the organic sense. They are cases of..cohesion of identical particles.
†b. Geom. Of figures: Equal and similar. Obs.
1806Hutton Course Math. I. 274 Identical figures, are such as have all the sides and all the angles of the one, respectively equal to all the sides and all the angles of the other, each to each; so that if the one figure were applied to, or laid upon the other, all the sides of the one would exactly fall upon and cover all the sides of the other.
c. identical points = corresponding points (corresponding ppl. a. 1 b).
1841W. Mackenzie Physiol. Vision xvi. 253 (heading) Corresponding or identical points of the retina. 1880L. Owen tr. Giraud-Teulon's Elem. Treat. Function of Vision i. ii. 16 The same object being depicted upon the two retinae, at homologous points, must give rise to a single sensation... This..has been called the doctrine of identical points. 1932S. Duke-Elder Text-bk. Ophthalm. I. xxvii. 1028 Points on the two retinæ from which images are projected to the same place in the common visual field are called corresponding (or identical) points.
d. identical twin, one of a pair of twins who, as a result of being monozygotic, are of the same sex and very similar to one another in appearance; usu. pl. Opp. fraternal twin. Similarly identical triplet.
1889S. Schönland tr. Weismann's Ess. Heredity vi. 381 Under conditions of nutriment which are as identical as possible, two egg-cells develope into unlike twins, one into identical twins; although we cannot yet affirm that the latter result invariably follows. 1938,1941[see fraternal a. c]. 1964M. Argyle Psychol. & Social Probl. vi. 77 The best method of studying the extent of genetic factors is by means of identical and fraternal twins. 1972A. Christie Elephants can Remember xiv. 190 There was a project on hand..to follow up the general lives of selected pairs of identical twins. 1973Oxford Times 6 Apr. 8 On Monday the first LP by the only identical triplet sisters act in British show business was released.
3. Logic. Said of a proposition, the terms of which denote the same thing; expressing an identity; as the propositions A horse is a horse; man is a human being.
1620Granger Div. Logike ii. 230 Man is man, viz. Subject to errours. Note. Identicall Axiomes. 1644Digby Two Treat. ii. ii. 18 The greatest assurance and the most eminent knowledge we can have of any thing is, of such Propositions as in the Schooles are called Identicall; as if one should say, Iohn is Iohn, or a man is a man. 1696Lorimer Goodwin's Disc. vii. 40 The Major Proposition is self-evidently false, when stript of its Identical dress. 1810Bentham Packing (1821) 247 Propositions, of the cast termed by logicians identical..which..leave every thing exactly as they find it: propositions declaring that what is right ought to be done, and what is wrong ought not to be done, and so forth. 1884tr. Lotze's Logic 63.
4. Alg.
a. Expressing identity, as identical equation, an equation which is true for all values of the literal quantities; as (x + a)2 = X2 + 2ax + a2.
b. Effecting identity, as identical operation, an operation which leaves the operand unchanged.
1875Todhunter Algebra ix. §149 An identical equation is one in which the two sides are equal whatever numbers the letters stand for; for example, (x + b) (x - b) = x2 - b2 is an identical equation.
†5. Marking identity, identifying. Obs.
1704Hearne Duct. Hist. (1714) I. 22 An Eclipse either of the Sun or Moon is such a characteristical and identical Mark of a Year, that it is easy to distinguish it among an infinite Number of others.
B. n.
1. pl. Identical things.
1696J. Sergeant Method to Sci. 264 We can as easily define their Abstract Notions as we can the other, (or rather much more easily) and consequently Reduce them to their Identicals. 1903J. Gott Lett. (1918) 195 Most of the books..worry me with endless and subtle refinements and hair-splitting distinctions between identicals. 1943W. V. Quine in Jrnl. Philos. 4 Mar. 113 One of the fundamental principles governing identity is that of substitutivity—or, as it might well be called, that of indiscernibility of identicals.
2. An identical twin.
[1932A. Huxley Brave New World i. 8 ‘Can you tell us the record for a single ovary..?’..‘Sixteen thousand and twelve; in one hundred and eighty-nine batches of identicals.’] 1938[see fraternal a. c]. 1964M. Argyle Psychol. & Social Probl. vi. 77 If it is found that identicals are more alike in some respect than fraternals, this suggests that the condition [sc. a mental disorder] is to some extent inherited.
Hence iˈdenticalism (nonce-wd.), the employment of an identical proposition.
1816Bentham Chrestom. 294 ‘Let them not be too numerous’:—this is plain identicalism..add—‘without necessity’, the identicalism is now topped by self-contradiction. |