| 释义 |
insignificancy|ɪnsɪgˈnɪfɪkənsɪ|
[f. as prec.: see -ancy.]
The quality of being insignificant.
†1. The quality of being without signification or meaning; meaninglessness; = insignificance 1. With an and pl., an instance of this. Obs.
1651Hobbes Leviath. iv. xlvi. 379 Which Insignificancy of language..hath a quality..to hide the Truth. 1665Glanvill Scepsis Sci. xviii. 116 The insignificancies and verbal nothings of this philosophy. 1690Locke Hum. Und. iii. iv. §10 Another Peripatetick Definition..which..betrays its Uselesness and Insignificancy.
†2. Ineffectiveness, futility. Obs.
1720Welton Suffer. Son of God II. xxviii. 729 To confess the Weakness and Insignificancy of their Attempts. 1721Strype Eccl. Mem. II. 444 Of the need of discipline, and of the danger or insignificancy of committing it to the bishops, the good King was very sensible.
3. Unimportance; contemptibility; = insignificance 2. With an and pl., An instance or example of this; an unimportant or contemptible thing or person.
1661Papers on Alter. Prayer Bk. 71 Their Arguments were..of another kind of moment, then decency, or indecency, significancy or insignificancy. 1674R. Godfrey Inj. & Ab. Physic Pref., Almost every Mass of Collections or Bundle of Insignificancies, have them [commendatory verses] to perswade the Reader to buy it. 1712Steele Spect. No. 284 ⁋1 This Affectation in both Sexes makes them Vain of being useless, and take a certain Pride in their Insignificancy. 1821–30Ld. Cockburn Mem. iv. (1874) 185 The charges..were groundless, and were at last reduced to insignificancy. 1831Carlyle Sart. Res. ii. iv, Coming forward..to tread such a one out of sight, as an insignificancy and worm. 1858― Fredk. Gt. vii. vi. (1872) II. 316 Poor old fellow, these insignificancies..are all I know of him. |