| 释义 |
intangible, a. and n.|ɪnˈtændʒɪb(ə)l|
[ad. med.L. intangibil-is, f. in- (in-3) + L. tangibilis tangible: cf. F. intangible (1508 in Godef. Compl.).]
A. adj.
a. Not tangible; incapable of being touched; not cognizable by the sense of touch; impalpable.
1640Wilkins New Planet ii. (1684) 148 A Man should be still in danger of knocking his head against every Wall and Pillar; unless it were also intangible, as some of the Peripateticks affirm. 1717Clarke Leibnitz Papers Reply iv. §45. 151 The Means by which Two Bodies attract each other, may be invisible and intangible. 1845McCulloch Taxation iii. iii. (1852) 476 The proportion of monied and other moveable and all but intangible property..has increased ten-fold, since the accession of George I. 1871Tyndall Fragm. Sc. (1879) I. iii. 76 The assumption of this wonderful intangible aether. 1880Muirhead Gaius ii. §14 Incorporeal [things] are those that are intangible..such as an inheritance, a usufruct.
b. fig. That cannot be grasped mentally.
1880Mem. John Legge 127 To the irreligious man all this is intangible, unintelligible. 1898Ramsay Was Christ born in Bethlehem? 20 This abstract and rather intangible argument must yield to the demonstration of hard facts.
B. n. Anything intangible; spec. (in pl.) = intangible assets, i.e. assets (e.g. goodwill, rights, etc.) which cannot easily or precisely be measured.
1914Cycl. Amer. Govt. III. 496/1 The term ‘personal property’..includes..visible property and intangibles. 1930Economist 29 Mar. 710/1 Net tangible assets may be defined as total assets less ‘intangibles’ (goodwill, patents, etc.), current liabilities, and funded debt. 1933Discovery Oct. 313/2 Scientific changes were coming in so thick and fast that other factors in social life—the intangibles of credit, the improvements in political and international ideas—were unequal to the task of accommodating them. 1949Here & Now (N.Z.) Oct. 30/3 The intangibles—the many local developments—being not reducible to statistics, the food of all bureaucracy, count for nothing. 1957Economist 19 Oct. (Suppl.) 1/2 The success of individual motor producers will depend mainly upon intangibles such as the success of their design policy.
Hence inˈtangibleness; inˈtangibly adv., so as to be intangible.
1678Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. v. 769 That which is extended also, but penetrably and intangibly which is space or vacuum. 1828Webster, Intangibleness, the quality of being intangible. 1887E. F. Byrrne Heir without Heritage II. v. 91 The most intangibly delicate sense of duty. |