| 释义 |
wood-sear, -seer, -sere Obs. or dial.|ˈwʊdsɪə(r)|
Also 9 erron. -sour.
[? f. wood n.1 + sere a.]
1. A frothy exudation on plants, produced by an insect: = cuckoo-spit2 1; also, the insect itself.
1585Higins Junius' Nomencl. 72/1 Attelabus,..the smallest sort of locustes that be wingless: ye woodseare. 1589[? Lyly] Pappe w. Hatchet B ij, Such a warming, as shall make all his deuices as like wood, as his spittle is like wood-sere. 1600Surflet Country Farm i. viii. 39 Spiders, wormes, woodseere and other such like vermine. 1664Power Exp. Philos. i. 28 That spumeous froth or dew (which here in the North we call Cuckow-Spittle, and, in the South, Woodsear..) looks like a heap of glass-bubbles. 1821Clare Vill. Minstrel I. 135 Insects of mysterious birth..Hid in knots of spittle white..‘Wood seers’ call'd, that wet declare, So the knowing shepherds say. 1825Hone Every-day Bk. I. 535 The abundance of woodseare and honey dew on herbs indicates fine weather.
attrib.1599Cutwode Caltha Poet. lviii. C 2 b, I will not (as the creeping canker) waste thee, nor as the worm in wodsear time bespew thee.
2. The season in which a tree or shrub will decay or die if its wood be cut.
Erroneously explained as ‘the season for cutting wood’.
1573Tusser Husb. (1878) 111 From Maie til October leaue cropping, for why? In wood sere, whatsoeuer thou croppest wil dy. Ibid. 119 The bushes and thorne..In woodsere or sommer cut downe to destroy. 1603Sir C. Heydon Jud. Astrol. ii. 43 If wood be cutte after the sunne decline from vs till he come to the equinoctiall, (which time they call woodsere) it will neuer growe againe. 1610W. Folkingham Feudigr. i. ix. 22 All sappie weedes cut downe in Wood⁓seare, and often mowne againe.., their roots will putrifie and rotte. 1851Gloss. Essex 14 Woodsere, decayed or hollow pollard, also the season for felling wood.
3. attrib. or adj. Applied to ‘loose, spungy ground’ (Lisle). Hence ˈwood-ˌseary a., in same sense.
1670Aubrey in Miscell. Cur. Subj. (1714) 24 Let us imagine..what Kind of Country this was..by the Nature of the Soil, which is a Soure, Woodsere Land, very natural for the Production of Oaks especially. a1722Lisle Husb. (1757) 27 Chalk fills up the vacuities of sandy, or wood-seary ground. Ibid. 79 Cold, loose, hollow, wood-sear land. 1759tr. Duhamel's Husb. i. viii. (1762) 37 Chalk laid on sandy or wood-seary ground. 1811T. Davis Agric. Wilts 112 The red strong land on the high level parts of the Downs, which was once woodland, and sometimes expressly called ‘wood-sour land’. |