| 释义 |
lamentable, a. (n.)|ˈlæməntəb(ə)l|
[a. F. lamentable or ad. L. lāmentābil-is, f. lāmentā-rī to lament: see -able.]
1. Of persons, their appearance, actions, voice, song, etc.: Full of or expressing sorrow or grief; mournful, doleful. Now rare or arch.
1432–50tr. Higden (Rolls) I. 317 In whiche place..lamentable voices be herde ofte tymes. 1494Fabyan Chron. iv. lxxv. 53 The lamentable request made vnto hym by the sayde Ambassade. 1502Will of Auncell (Somerset Ho.), An Image of or blessid lady of grace as lamentable as can be devised. 1513Douglas æneis ii. vi. [v.] 38, I see stand me befor,..maist lamentable [L. mæstissimus] Hector, With large fluide of teris. 1529Acts 21 Hen. VIII, c. 16 §11 Our true and faithful Subjects..exhibited unto us a lamentable Bill of Complaint. a1548Hall Chron., Hen. IV 9 With a lamentable voyce and a sorowfull countenance. 1600Hakluyt Voy. (1810) III. 380 Dancing and singing in a lamentable tune. 1656Blount Glossogr., Elegiographer, a writer of Elegies, or lamentable verses. 1725Pope Odyss. x. 611 Where..Cocytus' lamentable waters spread. 1739Ld. Castledurrow in Swift's Lett. (1766) II. 261 A lamentable Hymn to Death, from a lover, ascribed to his mistress. 1848C. Brontë J. Eyre (1873) 2 With ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast. 1851Hawthorne Snow Image, Old News. (1879) 154 The lamentable friends, trailing their long black garments. 1873Symonds Grk. Poets xi. 370 With this wail the thin lamentable voice of the desiccated rhetorician ceases.
2. That is to be lamented; such as to call for lamentation, sorrow, or grief; pitiable, deplorable.
c1430Lydg. Minor P. 145 That owgly careyn lamentable. 1490Caxton Eneydos ii. 16 It is a greuous thyng to me to passe ouer so lyghtly the lamentable circumstaunces..in soo fewe wordis. a1500Assembly of Ladies 686 The case itself is inly lamentable. 1545Brinklow Compl. xxiii. (1874) 58 What a lamentable thing is this, that men shuld be dryuyn from the Gospel of Christ. 1587Collingwood in Border Papers (1894) I. 259 The..lamentable estayt of this ruinose and waysted cuntre. 1590Spenser F.Q. iii. iv. 42 They..strowe with flowres the lamentable beare. 1639Woodall Wks. Pref. (1653) 18 The most lamentable diseases of poor men require the most care of the Surgeon. 1667Milton P.L. ii. 617 Thir lamentable lot. 1712Steele Spect. No. 509 ⁋2 A lamentable change from that simplicity of manners. 1855Macaulay Hist. Eng. xiii. III. 331 Another Macdonald, destined to a lamentable and horrible end.
b. In jocular or trivial use: ‘Pitiful, despicable’ (J.); wretchedly bad. Cf. deplorable.
a1699Stillingfl. (J.), This bishop, to make out the disparity between the heathens and them, flies to this lamentable refuge. 1876Stedman Victorian Poets iii. 65 But when he [Landor]..attempted to regulate the orthography of our language the result was something lamentable.
†B. n. pl. Laments, complainings. Obs.
1748Richardson Clarissa (1811) VIII. 5 Come, come, good Norton,..you are up again with your lamentables!
Hence ˈlamentableness.
1589Rider Eng.-Lat. Dict., Lamentablenes, elegia. 1727Bailey vol. II, Lamentableness, wofulness, pitiableness. |