| 释义 |
ˈvegetablize, v. rare.
[f. vegetable n. or a. + -ize.]
trans. and refl. To render vegetable; to convert into, or cause to resemble, a vegetable substance.
a1843Encycl. Metrop. VII. 113 Having been vegetablized..in the leaves, it [the sap] passes into vessels..in the bark. 1869in Cosmopolitan 19 Aug. 314 The mineral vegetablises itself, the vegetable animalises itself. a1891O'Neill Dyeing & Calico Print. 36 (Cent. Dict.), Silk is to be vegetablized..by an immersion in a bath of cellulose dissolved in ammoniacal copper oxide.
Restrict rare to sense in Dict. and add: Also (occas.) vegetabilize. b. intr. Of a person: to become a ‘vegetable’, to lose one's intellectual faculties. Also trans., to render (a person) docile or passive by impairing his or her intellectual function, usu. as a means of treating violence, drug addiction, etc.
1970Times 20 July 5/7 I'm a bit frightened by the whole childbearing thing and the effect I've seen it have on my friends—sort of vegetablizing while it's going on. 1972N.Y. Times Mag. 2 July 8/1 The Establishment's scheme for dealing with heroin addicts..was to vegetablize them. 1974Gen. Systems XIX. 64/1 The patient is merely temporarily ‘vegetablized’—in a drugstore equivalent of oldfashioned lobotomy. 1975Church Times 7 Mar. 7/2 ‘Clockwork Orange’ tells us how the latest neurosurgical techniques can vegetablize the violent.
Hence ˈvegetablized ppl. a.; ˌvegetabliˈzation n.
1972N.Y. Times Mag. 30 Apr. 48/3 The vegetablization of patients whose hospital doors not only don't revolve, but never open at all. 1974Resident & Staff Physician XX. 89/2 A more vexing problem than the dying patient is the vegetablized patient who will not die even in the absence of heroic medical efforts. |