| 释义 |
‖ lamia|ˈleɪmɪə|
Forms: 4 lamya, 4– lamia. pl. 4 lamie, 7, 9 lamiæ, 9 lamias. Also (anglicized) 4 lamȝe, 4, 6 lamye, 8 lamie.
[L. lamia a witch who was supposed to suck children's blood, a sorceress, also, a kind of flatfish, a species of owl, a. Gr. λάµια a fabulous monster, also, a fish of prey. Cf. F. lamie.]
1. A fabulous monster supposed to have the body of a woman, and to prey upon human beings and suck the blood of children. Also, a witch, she-demon.
The word is used in early translations of the Bible in Isa. xxxiv. 15 and Lam. iv. 3, where the A.V. has respectively ‘shrichowle’, marg. ‘Or, night-monster’, and ‘sea monsters’, marg. ‘Or, sea calues’.
1382Wyclif Isa. xxxiv. 15 There shal lyn lamya..and he fyndeth to himself reste. ― Lam. iv. 3 The cruel beestis clepid lamya, nakeden ther tetes, ȝeeuen ther whelpus souken. 1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xviii. xlviii. (1495) 809 In Sicia ben beestys wyth shape of men and fete of horses: and suche wonderfull beestys ben callyd Lamie amonge many men. 1621Burton Anat. Mel. iii. ii. i. i. (1660) 438 Apollonius..by some probable conjectures, found her out to be a Serpent, a Lamia. [Hence 1820 Keats (title) Lamia.] 1622Massinger Virg. Mart. iv. i, Where's the lamia That tears my entrails? 1674Cotton Compl. Gamester (1680) 13 For here you shall be quickly destroy'd under pretence of kindness, as Men were by the Lamiæ of old. 1757E. Perronet Mitre i. xi, As plump as Lamies fed with fawn. 1865Baring-Gould Werewolves xv. 255 Troops of lamias, female evil spirits. 1871B. Taylor Faust (1875) II. ii. iii. 113 They are the Lamiæ, wenches vile, With brazen brows and lips that smile.
†2. Ichth. In Willoughby's and some later classifications, a genus of sharks. Obs.
1727–41Chambers Cycl. s.v. Fish, The canis carcharias, or lamia, the white shark. 1776J. Neill Serm. 214 Whatever kind of fish it was, whether it was a whale or a lamia,..where is the occasion for..condemning this passage of Holy Writ as fabulous?
3. Ent. A genus of longicorn beetles (J. C. Fabricius, 1775).
In recent Dicts. |