| 释义 |
valetudinarian, n. and a.|vælɪtjuːdɪˈnɛərɪən|
[See valetudinary a. and -ian.]
A. n. A person in weak health, esp. one who is constantly concerned with his own ailments; an invalid.
1703W. Dampier Voy. III. i. 81 Many of our English Valetudinarians have gone from Jamaica..to the I. Caimanes,.. to live wholly upon Turtle that abound there. 1746R. James Health's Improv. Introd. 45 Such who have very strong Constitutions, are more liable to pestilential Disorders, and putrid Fevers, than Valetudinarians. 1787Gentl. Mag. Dec. 1056/2 Every one knows how hard a task it is to cure a valetudinarian. 1832J. A. Heraud Voy. & Mem. Midshipman vi. (1837) 102 The hot springs and medicinal vapours..must at a very early period have excited the attention of valetudinarians. 1880L. Stephen Pope iv. 92 Naturally, he fell into many of the self-indulgent and troublesome ways of the valetudinarian.
fig.1712Budgell Spect. No. 395 ⁋10 These are a kind of Valetudinarians in Chastity. 1777Sheridan School for Scand. i. i, True, madam! there are Valetudinarians in reputation as well as constitution. 1873Goulburn Pers. Relig. ii. v. 81 The man becomes a valetudinarian in religion, full of himself, his symptoms, his ailments, the delicacy of his moral health.
B. adj. = valetudinary a.
1713Derham Phys.-Theol. iii. iv. (1727) 72 An admirable Easement..to the valetudinarian, feeble Part of Mankind. 1740Cheyne Ess. Regimen i, The Scorbutic, Gouty, Consumptive, or Nervous Valetudinarian-low-livers. 1751Earl of Orrery Rem. Swift (1752) 113 His fortune exempted him from care and sollicitude. His valetudinarian habit of body from intemperance. 1856R. A. Vaughan Mystics (1860) II. 118 The valetudinarian devotee becomes more and more the puppet of his spiritual doctor. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) III. 283 Asclepius did not instruct his descendants in valetudinarian arts.
Hence valetudiˈnarianism, the condition of a valetudinarian; tendency to be in weak health or to be much concerned about one's own health.
1839Fraser's Mag. XIX. 52 Those traces of laborious valetudinarianism and nervous sensibility. 1868W. R. Greg Lit. & Soc. Judgm. 490 The bolder spirits.., perhaps over-recklessly, despise such egotistic valetudinarianism. 1892Speaker 30 July 141/2 The schoolmistress has had to forget her valetudinarianism and patent medicines in the struggle for existence. |