| 释义 |
reliable, a.|rɪˈlaɪəb(ə)l|
[f. rely v.1 + -able.]
1. a. That may be relied upon; in which reliance or confidence may be put; trustworthy, safe, sure.
In current use only from about 1850, and at first perhaps more frequent in American works, but from 1855 freely employed by British writers, though often protested against as an innovaton or an Americanism. The formation has been objected to (as by Worcester in 1860) on the ground of irregularity, but has analogies in available, dependable, dispensable, laughable (Webster 1864). The question has been fully discussed by F. Hall in his work On English Adjectives in -able, with special reference to Reliable (1877).
1569Reg. Privy Council Scot. I. 667 Thair deliverance..and jugement to be als raliabill..as gif the samyn wer gevin..be the Lordis of Sessioun. 1624Bp. R. Montagu in Cosin's Corr. (Surtees) I. 34, I knowe not two honester, abler men, and reliable indeed of their ranke and state. 1792B. S. Barton in M. Cutler's Life, etc. (1888) II. 288, I have lately used the root, and find it a very reliable medicine. 1800Coleridge Ess. own Times (1850) II. 296 The best means and most reliable pledge of a higher object. 1850W. Irving in Life & Lett. (1864) IV. 70 You have built it up with a care that renders it reliable in all its parts. 1851Hinton in Hopkins Life & Lett. (1878) 87, I think your feelings on subjects of religion are infinitely more reliable than Mr. ―'s views. 1857Gladstone in Oxford Ess. 49 He seems to think that the reliable chronology of Greece begins before its reliable history. 1876Trevelyan Life Macaulay (1883) II. 431 Macaulay may not have been a reliable guide in the regions of high art.
b. absol. as n. A reliable person, animal, or thing.
1890Anthony's Photogr. Bull. III. 133 Experiment with all the new things that appear, but do not ‘lose your grip’ on the old reliables. 1908[see peacherino]. 1910W. M. Raine Bucky O'Connor (1920) ii. 20, I hate to have you take that gun, though. I meant to run you down with that same old Colt's reliable. 1911R. D. Saunders Col. Todhunter xii. 171 ‘You never can tell about these old reliables,’ said Tom. ‘Solomon might take it into his head to get frisky any minute.’ 1950Western Folklore Apr. 138 The cowboy's six-shooter speaks a language universally understood. Familiar epithets for the revolver were equalizer, shootin' iron,..Old Reliable. 1970E. Snow Red China Today (1976) 33 The ‘three-way alliance’ of mass organizations, Party ‘reliables’, and army political work teams which had completed the Party purging. 1972Village Voice (N.Y.) 1 June 19/3 One of the Governor's old reliables, Assemblyman Robert Kelly, sponsored the bill in the lower house and told everyone how great it was.
2. Statistics. Yielding concordant results when repeated.
[1892Analyst XVII. 228 When the Babcock test is made according to the instruction given with the machine, strictly reliable results are obtained.] 1932Jrnl. Gen. Physiol. XVI. 23 Under such conditions it might be expected that volumetric measurements be somewhat less reliable than in the simple case first examined. 1942J. P. Guilford Fundamental Statistics in Psychol. & Educ. xiv. 273 By a perfectly reliable test, we mean one that is free from errors of measurement. 1970D. W. Matheson et al. Introd. Exper. Psychol. ii. 26 A sampling technique is reliable if several samples from the same population yield similar data. Ibid. vi. 66 If a test is reliable, a subject will receive approximately the same score each time he takes the test. |