| 释义 |
irreversible, a.|ɪrɪˈvɜːsɪb(ə)l|
Also 7–8 -able.
[ir-2.]
That cannot be reversed.
1. That cannot be undone, repealed, or annulled; unalterable, irrevocable.
1630Prynne Anti-Armin. 114 The euerlasting, the irreuersible Decrees of Election. 1649Bp. Hall Cases Consc. iv. vi. 457 That since marriage once passed, is irreversible, we may have some breathing-time betwixt our promise and accomplishment. 1677W. Sherlock Answ. T. Dawson 23 He is under an irreversible Decree. 1728R. Morris Ess. Anc. Archit. 7 The irreversable Decree of Fate. 1867Bright Sp., Amer. 29 June (1876) 144 A triumph which has pronounced the irreversible doom of slavery. 1885Law Times LXXVIII. 183/2 It was so taken [to the House of Lords] and the previously irreversible decisions of the Queen's Bench were reversed.
2. That cannot be turned backwards, upside down, or in the opposite direction. (In quot. 1821, That cannot be upset or overturned.)
1821Lamb Elia Ser. i. Valentine's Day, Delightful eternal commonplaces..having your irreversible throne in the fancy and affections. 1864Bowen Logic xii. 398 It is Causal relation, and, as such, is absolute and unchangeable, for it is irreversible even in thought. 1870Yeats Nat. Hist. Comm. 28 The irreversible order of deposits.
3. Physical Chem. Of a colloid or colloidal system: incapable of being changed from a gelatinous state into a sol by a reversal of the treatment which turns the sol into a gel or gelatinous precipitate. Of a change of state: characterized by this property.
[1899Jrnl. Physiol. XXIV. 180 (heading) Colloidal mixtures which form irreversible molecular aggregates when they pass into the gel state.] 1900Proc. R. Soc. LXVI. 110 A large number of colloidal solutions..belong to the class of irreversible colloidal mixtures. 1915M. H. Fischer tr. Ostwald's Handbk. Colloid-Chem. 40 When a change in the state of a colloid may be reversed by reversing the conditions which brought that change about, it is said to be ‘reversible’. Thus when a colloid which has been precipitated by a salt goes back into solution on removal of the salt, the colloid change is said to be ‘reversible’. On the other hand, if this does not occur it is ‘irreversible’. 1930J. C. Ware Chem. Colloidal State ix. 204 When a reversible colloid is evaporated to dryness and later stirred into the fluid which constituted the external phase, a very complete dispersion will again result. With an irreversible colloid, a suspension will not result by mixing with the solvent but one of the regular methods for the preparation of the colloidal state must be applied. 1930Engineering 18 July 61/1 Gels which cannot be converted into sols are ‘irreversible’. 1959K. J. Mysels Introd. Colloid Chem. iv. 82 These different behaviors are quite generally called reversible and irreversible flocculations.
Hence irreversiˈbility, irreˈversibleness, the quality or character of being irreversible.
1625Donne Serm. lxvi. 673 In the anguish of that dissolution, in the sorrows of that valediction, in the irreversiblenesse of that transmigration. 1678J. J[ones] Brit. Ch. 441 The perpetuity and irreversibleness of this decree. 1732Stackhouse Hist. Bible v. ii. (T. Suppl.), A precedent of the irreversibleness of oaths. 1824Blackw. Mag. XV. 520 The irreversibility of the judgments. 1873B. Stewart Conserv. Energy v. 142 The irreversibility of the process puts a stop to all this. |