| 释义 |
invisible, a. (n.)|ɪnˈvɪzɪb(ə)l|
[a. F. invisible (13th c. in Littré), ad. L. invīsibilis, f. in- (in-3) + vīsibilis visible.]
A. adj.
1. a. That cannot be seen; that by its nature is not an object of sight.
1340Hampole Pr. Consc. 8231 How God invysible es, And unchaungeable, and endles. c1415Lydg. Temple Glas 128 Hou þat Mars was take Of Vulcanus,..And wiþ þe Cheynes invisible bound. 1509Hawes Past. Pleas. xxiii. (Percy Soc.) 106 Though that aungell[s] be invysyble, Inpalpable, and also celestiall. 1594T. B. La Primaud. Fr. Acad. ii. 137 There is yet in him another nature whose substance is inuisible, ouer and aboue this bodily nature which we see. 1638F. Junius Paint. of Ancients 19 Phidias..had a singular abilitie to imagine things invisible. 1727De Foe Syst. Magic i. ii. (1840) 49 The Devil, or some of his invisible agents, which we call evil spirits. 1880Geikie Phys. Geog. ii. 75 They collect in a visible form the ever-present invisible vapour of the air.
b. Invisible Church: see church 4 c. invisible ink (called also sympathetic ink): see quot. 1823.
1682Boyle Human Blood App. iv. ix, This liquor may..be employed as an invisible ink. 1704J. Harris Lex. Techn. s.v. Sympathetical, The Writing..which was written with the Invisible Ink. 1823J. Badcock Dom. Amusem. 35 An invisible ink, which requires heat, vapour, or some other liquid to be applied to it, to render visible what is so written. 1855Macaulay Hist. Eng. xv. III. 591 Their buttons contained letters written in invisible ink.
c. Applied to associations, etc. not having a visible, open organization, esp. as invisible college.
1646–7Boyle Let. to Tallents 20 Feb., The corner-stones of the invisible, or (as they term themselves) the philosophical college, do now and then honour me with their company. 1647― Let. to Hartlib 8 May, You interest yourself so much in the Invisible College. 1743Birch Life Boyle B.'s Wks. 1772 I. p. xlii, The Invisible College..probably refer[s] to that assembly of learned and curious gentlemen, who..at length gave birth to the Royal Society. 1884Century Mag. July 398/1 The secret history of the Invisible Empire, as the [Ku Klux] Klan was also called. 1962D. J. de S. Price Science since Babylon (new ed.) v. 99 Collaborative work now exceeds the single-author paper, and the device of prepublication duplicated sheets circulated to the new Invisible Colleges has begun to trespass upon the traditional functions of the printed paper in a published journal. Ibid., The new Invisible Colleges, rapidly growing up in all the most hard-pressed sections of the scholarly research front, might well be the subject of an interesting sociological study. 1967Garvey & Griffith in De Reuck & Knight Communication in Sci. 25 Once an author submits his manuscript the dissemination of this piece of work is small and usually only to members of his invisible college. 1971Halsey & Trow Brit. Academics xiii. 362 Here is evidence of the ‘invisible college’ having its greatest importance.
d. invisible exports, invisible imports: those items which do not appear in returns of exports and imports for which payment has to be accepted from or made to a foreign country, such as shipping services, insurance, profits on foreign investment, money spent by visitors from a country with a different currency, etc. Also invisible earnings, invisible trader, invisible transaction, etc.
1911C. G. Robertson Eng. under Hanoverians ii. iv. 344 Prior to the Industrial Revolution the seaborne and carrying trades, with their invisible exports, are an expanding source of wealth, but are not indispensable. 1919J. A. Todd Mech. Exchange (ed. 2) xiv. 174 An invisible export is something which enables a country to import goods without paying for them directly by the export of other goods, and conversely, an invisible import is something which makes it necessary for a country to export goods without receiving payment directly in other goods. 1923Westm. Gaz. 24 Feb., Depressed shipping means less insurance, less banking, and a smaller earning in freights—all the things we mean when we speak of our invisible exports. 1935Economist 12 Oct. 712/2 Among ‘invisible’ traders with Italy, the shipping lines with Mediterranean routes would suffer some inconvenience. 1957Encycl. Brit. VIII. 991/2 Invisible exports are of vital importance to countries whose limited resources..make them dependent on large imports. Italy's high percentage is due to foreign tourists' expenditure and to a steady flow of remittances from Italians living abroad. 1958Economist 18 Oct. 256/1 The..government deficit on invisible account. 1963Ann. Reg. 1962 479 Net earnings on invisible transactions improved somewhat. 1969Times 27 Nov. 6/6 The rapid growth of invisible earnings. 1971Daily Tel. 24 Apr. 2 The works of songwriters and composers are now one of Britain's major ‘invisible’ exports.
e. invisible man: used esp. with direct or implied allusion to H. G. Wells's novel The Invisible Man (1897).
1911Chesterton Innocence of Father Brown v. 120 (title) The invisible man. 1940‘G. Orwell’ in Horizon Mar. 191 The one theme that is really new is the scientific one. Death-rays, Martians, invisible men, robots. 1959N. Polsky in N. Mailer Advts. for Myself (1961) 313 Even in the world of the hipster the Negro remains essentially what Ralph Ellison called him—an invisible man. 1963D. B. Hughes Expendable Man (1964) v. 139 He's safe only so long as he's the invisible man. I'm going to have to..find out who he is. 1966J. Wainwright Evil Intent 123 He isn't The Invisible Man. Somebody must have seen him. 1973E. Berckman Victorian Album 144 Dancey'll work out how to be the invisible man, it's just up his street.
f. invisible mending: repair of material, clothing, etc., so carefully executed that little or no sign of the repair can be seen. So invisible mender, one who undertakes such repairs; invisibly-mend v. trans.
1921Dict. Occup. Terms (1927) §419 Invisible mender,..repairs tears, by hand, using stoating, finedrawing, or rentering process, according to kind of tear and material. 1931W. Holtby Poor Caroline i. 33 She complained of the price of invisible mending. 1937E. Price Enter—Jane i. 1 Until you have paid the invisible-mending bill..you shan't have your threepence a week pocket-money! 1959G. Freeman Jack would be Gent. i. 16 Sitting in the shop window invisibly-mending nylons with a little hook. 1969D. Francis Enquiry xv. 201 My coat would cost a fortune at the invisible menders. 1970― Rat Race xv. 199 My coat was soaked... Have to get it cleaned, and the slit invisibly mended.
2. Not in sight; not to be seen at a particular place or time, or by a particular person.
1555Eden Decades 239 The starre of the pole Artike, is there inuisible. 1655Sir E. Nicholas in N. Papers (Camden) II. 266 The letter is invisible, and hee keepes it as close as hee doth [etc.]. 1781Gibbon Decl. & F. xvii. II. 52 The degenerate grandsons of Theodosius, who were invisible to their subjects. 1840Lady C. Bury Hist. of Flirt vii, Langham called every day..but I was invisible.
3. a. Too small to be discerned; imperceptible.
1665Hooke Microgr. 97 Insinuating themselves into the invisible pores of the stone. 1794Blake Songs Exper., Sick Rose 2 O rose,..The invisible worm..Has found out thy bed. 1834E. E. Perkins Lady's Shopping Manual 103 Invisible Wire for Lace and Nett Caps. 1873R. Broughton Nancy I. i. 6 The thinnest legs,..the invisiblest nose, and over visiblest ears [etc.]. 1881Queen 12 Mar. (Advt.), Invisible fringe nets made of hair. 1895Montgomery Ward Catal. 87/1 Invisible Hairpins, about 50 in a box. 1897Sears, Roebuck Catal. 322/2 Invisible Hair Pins made of Good Wire. 1901Invisible stitch [see stoat v.]. 1964McCall's Sewing ii. 30/1 Invisible stitch, used for hems and attaching facings and interfacings in tailoring. 1966J. S. Cox Illustr. Dict. Hairdressing 83/2 Invisible pins, very fine hairpins which are difficult to see when placed in the hairdress. 1967J. Caird Murder Scholastic xiv. 190 Mabel Glossop had worn her thick, beautiful white hair in a bun, over which she put a fine ‘invisible’ net. 1973Times 19 Oct. 3/1 (Advt.), Without these foils such modern marvels as ‘invisible’ hearing aids or heart pacemakers simply could not exist.
b. invisible green, ‘a very dark shade of green, approaching to black, and not easily distinguished from it’ (Webster, 1864). (Remembered in 1844.)
B. n.
1. a. An invisible thing, person, or being.
1646Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. v. xxi. 268 The practise of those pencils, that will describe invisibles. 1742H. Baker Microsc. ii. i. 68 There are as many, or even more kinds of these Invisibles (if I may use the Term) than of those whose Size is discernable by the naked Eye. 1781Cowper Conversat. 738 Such a jest as filled with hellish glee Certain invisibles as shrewd as he. 1823Lamb Lett. to Southey v. 39 You are as familiar with these antiquated monastics, as Swedenborg..with his invisibles.
b. the invisible, the unseen world; the Deity.
1781Cowper Retirement 61 The Invisible in things scarce seen reveal'd, To whom an atom is an ample field. 1868Fitzgerald tr. Omar (ed. 2) lxxi, I sent my Soul through the Invisible Some letter of that After-life to spell. 1892Gladstone in Pall Mall G. 13 Apr. 7/1 The maintenance of faith in the Invisible..And by that I mean a living faith in a personal God.
2. One who denies the visible character of the Church (Blunt Dict. Sects 1874); spec. in pl. certain German Protestants of the 16th c.
1852Hook Ch. Dict. (1871) 400 Invisibles is a distinguishing name given to the disciples of Osiander, Flacius Illyricus, Swenkfeld, &c.
3. Usu. in pl. Invisible exports and imports. Cf. sense 1 d of the adj.
1958Economist 18 Oct. 256/1 Net earnings from commercial services ranked as invisibles also rose. 1962H. O. Beecheno Introd. Business Stud. xv. 143 These ‘invisibles’ arise mainly from services which we supply to other countries. 1964New Statesman 3 Apr. 514/1 Angola and Mozambique provide one-third of all Portuguese exports, valued at {pstlg}50 million, and this sum does not include invisibles from tourism, shipping and railways. 1973Daily Tel. 13 July 19 The average deficit for the latest three months, excluding invisibles, is {pstlg}22 million lower than in May at {pstlg}133 million. |