| 释义 |
individual, a. and n.|ɪndɪˈvɪdjuːəl|
Also 5 indyvyduall.
[f. med.L. indīviduāl-is, f. indīvidu-us indivisible, inseparable (see individuum) + -al1: cf. F. individuel (16th c.), It. individuale. (Formæ individuales occurs in Adhelard of Bath, c 1115 (Haureau Philos. Scolast. I. 349); the adv. indīviduāliter in Abelard Epist. i. ii. 5.)]
A. adj.
†1. One in substance or essence; forming an indivisible entity; indivisible. Obs.
c1425Found. St. Bartholomew's (E.E.T.S.) ii To the..glorie of the hye and indyuyduall Trynyte. a1619M. Fotherby Atheom. i. vii. §i (1622) 50 Some make their god of Atomes, and indiuidual moates: some of diuidual numbers; as Epicurus, and Pythagoras. 1623Whitbourne Newfoundland 56 In the name of the holy and indiuiduall Trinitie. 1641Milton Animadv. ii, This untheologicall Remonstrant would divide the individuall Catholicke Church into severall Republicks. 1678Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. iv. §36. 611 It would be liable to misinterpretation, and to be taken, in the Sabellian sense, for that which hath one and the same singular and individual essence.
†2. That cannot be separated; inseparable. Obs.
c1600Timon i. ii. (1842) 6 Where ere thou go'st I still will folowe thee An indiuiduall mate. 1623Cockeram, Indiuiduall, not to bee parted, as man and wife. c1645Howell Lett. I. iii. ix, He..is an individual Companion to the King. 1667Milton P.L. iv. 486 To have thee by my side Henceforth an individual solace dear.
3. a. Existing as a separate indivisible entity; numerically one, single. b. Single, as distinct from others of the same kind; particular, special. Also absol. in phr. † in the individual, in the particular case: opposed to in the general (general a. 11 d).
1613Jackson Creed ii. v. §5 Whether things indifferent in the general, or vnto many..be indifferent in the indiuiduall, to this or that particular man. 1651Baxter Inf. Bapt. 25 The whole Church must be so sanctified; therefore the individuall members. 1690Locke Hum. Und. iii. vi. §3 Our Idea of any individual Man would be..far different. 1729Butler Serm. Hum. Nat. iii. Wks. 1874 II. 31 Every man in his physical nature is one individual single agent. 1786Burke W. Hastings Wks. 1842 II. 227 All powers delegated from the board to any individual servant of the company. 1793A. Hamilton Wks. (1886) VII. 75 Settlement of Accounts between the United and Individual States. 1833L. Ritchie Wand. by Loire 23 The traveller takes it [the château] for a town rather than an individual edifice. 1856Froude Hist. Eng. (1858) II. viii. 244 A determination in each individual man to go his own way. 1896Duke of Argyll Philos. Belief 74 It is not in the use of individual words, alone, that this principle of explanation is adopted.
†c. Expressing self-identity: Identical, self-same, very same. Obs.
1633Prynne Histriomastix 177 To sport themselves with those individuall sinnes upon the Stage, which the parties..are condoling now in Hell? 1641J. Jackson True Evang. T. ii. 130 Polycarpus, Bishop of Smirna, and some say that Individuall Angell of the Church of Smirna, whereunto the second of those seven Asiatique Epistles are written. 1655Marquis of Worcester Cent. Inv. §i Seals..setting down..the individual place where anything was sealed. 1681–6J. Scott Chr. Life (1747) III. 228 That this Remnant still continued the same individual Kingdom of Christ with the former, tho' very much reformed and improved. 1701Wallis in Hearne Collect. 24 July an. 1705 (O.H.S.) I. 15 Which I do believe to be this individual Book. 1753Smollett Ct. Fathom (1784) 178/1 They were communicated to her by the nun, who was no other than the individual Wilhelmina. 1804C. Smith Conversations I. 132 It is more probable that the individual insect in question had been produced this Summer.
4. Distinguished from others by attributes of its own; marked by a peculiar and striking character.
1646Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. i. v. 19 A man should be something that men are not, and individuall in somewhat beside his proper nature. 1894Harper's Mag. Mar. 494 He is so quaint and so individual in his views. 1897Brit. Weekly 27 May 97 In him Nonconformity has lost one of her most conspicuous and individual figures.
5. a. Of, pertaining or peculiar to, a single person or thing, or some one member of a class; characteristic of an individual.
1605Bacon Adv. Learn. i. iii. §4 As touching the Manners of learned men, it is a thing personall and individuall. 1712S. Clarke Def. Immateriality Soul 13 The sole Reason urged..why a System of Matter cannot have a Power of Thinking or an Individual Consciousness. 1777Burke Addr. to King Wks. 1842 II. 395 We,..several of the peers of the realm, and several members of the house of commons..do in our individual capacity,..beg leave [etc.]. 1838–42Arnold Hist. Rome xliii. III. 64 Our tendency is to admire individual greatness far more than national. 1859Darwin Orig. Spec. ii. (1878) 34 The many slight differences which appear in the offspring from the same parents..may be called individual differences. 1859Mill Liberty i. (1864) 3/2 There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence. 1862Ruskin Unto this Last iv. (1880) 169 All effectual advancement..must be by individual, not public effort.
b. individual name († individual word), individual judgement (see quots.).
1641Milton Animadv. xiii, It is no individuall word, but a Collective. 1843Mill Logic i. ii. §3 An individual or singular name is a name which is only capable of being truly affirmed, in the same sense, of one thing. 1864Bowen Logic v. 122 A Singular or Individual Judgment, in which a Predicate is affirmed of one thing, or of a class of things taken as one whole. 1871Public Sch. Lat. Gram. 23 Nouns or Names are Individual or Proper..which can only be applied to single persons, places, or objects.
c. Intended to serve one person; designed to contain one portion.
1889Cent. Dict. s.v., An individual salt-cellar [colloq.]. 1895Montgomery Ward Catal. 531/2 Individual Butter Plates. 1911Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 22 Apr. 2/1 (Advt.), Table Necessities..Cut Glass Individual Salts, up from 35¢. 1948Good Housek. Cookery Bk. 454 Use small individual moulds if you want jellies in a hurry. 1951Catal. of Exhibits, South Bank Exhib., Festival of Britain 52/2 Individual casserole in heat-resisting glassware. 1965T. Fitzgibbon Art Brit. Cooking 203 If made in individual small moulds they [sc. canary puddings] are called ‘Castle Puddings’. 1970K. Giles Death in Church i. 20 Node..dug his fork into the individual pudding.
d. Psychol. Relating or pertaining to the study of individuals, as opposed to that of a group or society. Also used to denote A. Adler's method of analytical psychology.
1898Amer. Jrnl. Psychol. X. 329 The systematic consideration of the problems grouped under the name of ‘Individual Psychology’ is of but recent date. Indeed, the only treatment of the whole subject for its own sake is that contained in a paper published in 1895, by Mm. Binet and Henri. Ibid. 330 Individual Psychology, on the contrary, studies those psychical processes which vary from one individual to another. 1917Glueck & Lind tr. Adler's Neurotic Constitution (1921) p. v, An empiric basis is made use of in comparative individual-psychology for the purpose of establishing a fictive standard of normality in order to enable one to measure and compare with it grades of deviation from it. 1933T. S. Eliot Use of Poetry 17, I cannot accept any such theory which is erected upon purely individual-psychological foundations. 1933W. J. H. Sprott tr. Freud's New Introd. Lect. Psycho-Anal. xxxiv. 180 In reality Individual Psychology has very little to do with analysis, but..lives a sort of parasitic existence at its expense..; we cannot assent to any interference with its correct application as meaning the opposite of Group Psychology. 1951E. E. Evans-Pritchard Social Anthropol. iii. 45 There are various and particular objections to each of these successive attempts to explain social facts by individual psychology. 1959L. Radl in Adler & Deutsch Ess. Individual Psychol. 162 At this point the close similarity between the Existentialist doctrine and Individual Psychology once again becomes strikingly apparent.
e. individual variable Logic, a variable that ranges over individuals. Cf. sense B. n. 2 b.
1937A. Smeaton tr. Carnap's Logical Syntax of Lang. 195 A 0v is called an individual variable. 1952P. F. Strawson Introd. Logical Theory v. 130 To the variable ‘x’ and other variables of the same type..we give the name ‘individual variables’. 1954I. M. Copi Symbolic Logic iv. 67 The small letter ‘x’—called an ‘individual variable’—is a mere place marker which serves to indicate where an individual constant may be written for a singular proposition to result. 1965Hughes & Londey Elem. Formal Logic xxiii. 169 We shall call such variables individual-variables (meaning thereby, of course, not that the variables are themselves individuals—whatever that might mean—but that they stand indifferently for the names of individual things).
B. n.
†1. pl. Inseparable things: see A. 2. Obs.
1627Feltham Resolves i. xix. (1628) 17 Humanity and Miserie are alwayes paralels: sometimes indiuiduals. 1661― Lusoria (1696) 44 They are here Individuals, for no Demonstrance of Duty or Authority can distinguish them.
2. a. A single object or thing, or a group of things forming a single complex idea, and regarded as a unit; a single member of a natural class, collective group, or number.
1605Timme Quersit. i. iv. 17 We shall thoroughly discuss and ransacke euery particular individuall in his kinde. 1700Dryden Palamon & A. iii. 1056 That individuals die, his will ordains; The propagated species still remains. 1715–20Pope Iliad Pref., We see each circumstance of art and individual of nature summoned together by the extent and fecundity of his imagination. 1850R. G. Cumming Hunter's Life S. Afr. (ed.2) I. 269 note, I have not unfrequently met with herds [of giraffes] containing thirty individuals. 1868Rogers Pol. Econ. vi. (1876) 54 It makes no difference whether the individual be a numerical unit, or an aggregate unit, as a partnership, company, or corporation of traffickers.
b. Logic and Metaph. An object which is determined by properties peculiar to itself and cannot be subdivided into others of the same kind; spec. in Logic: An object included in a species, as a species is in a genus. See individuum.
1628T. Spencer Logick 44 It is not possible to know vntill wee come vnto indiuidualls..vntill we ataine vnto those things which doe not admit division. 1658Phillips s.v., An individual..in Logick..signifies that which cannot be divided into more of the same name or nature, and is by some called Singulare. 1727–41Chambers Cycl. s.v., The usual division in logic is made into genera..those genera into species, and those species into individuals. 1833J. H. Newman Arians ii. iv. (1876) 185 οὐσία..being, substance..‘that which has existence in itself, independent of every thing else to constitute it’: that is, an individual. 1858Whewell Hist. Sci. Ideas (ed. 3) II. 148 (L.) Our idea of an individual is, that it is a whole composed of parts, which are not similar to the whole, and have not an independent existence, while the whole has an independent existence and a definite form. 1860Abp. Thomson Laws Th. §56. 86 An individual is that which cannot be divided without ceasing to be what it is.
c. Zool. and Bot. A single member of a species; a single specimen of an animal or plant.
1859Darwin Orig. Spec. ii. (1873) 34 No one supposes that all the individuals of the same species are cast in the same actual mould. 1880Gray Struct. Bot. ix. §i. 315 Individuals are the units of the series which constitute species..Each individual is an independent organism, of which the component parts are reciprocally means and ends. 1885G. L. Goodale Phys. Bot. (1892) 425 In scientific as well as popular language the term individual is commonly applied to each and every plant.
d. Biol. An organism regarded as having a separate existence.
Sometimes used specifically of a single member of a colony of organisms, (as a leaf-bud, or a polyp of a cœlenterate); by others defined as ‘the whole product of a single fertilized ovum’; more strictly: an organism detached from other organisms, composed of coherent parts, and capable of independent life.
1776Withering Brit. Plants (1796) I. 159 Blossom general, regular. Individuals of 1 petal, tubular. 1847Carpenter Zool. §46 In the Polypes..a number of individuals, each capable (like a leaf-bud) of living by itself, are arranged on one common plant-like structure. 1864H. Spencer Princ. Biol. §74 I. 207 A biological Individual is any concrete whole having a structure which enables it, when placed in appropriate conditions, to continuously adjust its internal relations to external relations, so as to maintain the equilibrium of its functions. 1870Nicholson Zool. 25 In zoological language, an individual is defined as ‘equal to the total result of a single ovum’. 1888Rolleston & Jackson Anim. Life 231 The proglottides..are supposed to be produced..by posterior germination of the scolex, from which they are detached in many instances either singly or in groups..But the facts do not appear to necessitate the view that the proglottis is an individual.
3. a. A single human being, as opposed to Society, the Family, etc.
1626J. Yates Ibis ad Caesarem ii. 12 margin, The Prophet saith not, God saw euery particular man in his bloud, or had compassion to say to euery Indiuiduall, Thou shalt liue. 1641J. Jackson True Evang. T. iii. 213 Peace..is the very supporter of Individualls, Families, Churches, Commonwealths. 1776Adam Smith W.N. (1869) I. Introd. 2 Among the savage nations of hunters and fishers, every individual..is..employed in useful labour. 1868M. Pattison Academ. Org. v. 141 We are most jealous of the rights of individuals, and careless of the common welfare. 1899J. Monro Gibson in Expositor Feb. 144 It will not be as Churches but as individuals that we shall all stand before the Judgment seat of Christ.
b. Without any notion of contrast or relation to a class or group: A human being, a person. (Now chiefly as a colloquial vulgarism, or as a term of disparagement.)
1742Johnson Debates (1787) II. 172 Only one individual was injured by another. 1771Goldsm. Hist. Eng. III. 125 These she bequeathed to different individuals. 1781S. Peters Hist. Conn. 74 The People of Massachusetts..conceived the idea of exalting an individual of their own Province. 1828Scott F.M. Perth xxiv, The three individuals entered the boat with great precaution. 1856Kane Arct. Expl. II. x. 111 The individual whom I desired to meet. 1888F. Hume Mad. Midas i. Prol., He appeared to be an exceedingly unpleasant individual.
†4. Short for individual person; person, personality, self. Obs.
1655Sir E. Nicholas in N. Papers (Camden) 305 As to what concerns my owne poore indiuiduall, I am armed against all euents and deffy fortune to her teeth. 1678Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. v. 674 They could not propagate their kind by generation, as neither indeed preserve their own individuals. 1771Smollett Humph. Cl. 15 July, A transient compliment made to his own individual in particular, or to his country in general. 1774Lee Let. to Burke B's Corr. 1844 I. 513 Even the appearance of their individuals is totally changed since I first knew them. 1800Godwin in C. Kegan Paul W. Godwin (1876) II. 5 Driven back..to consider of my own miserable individual. |