释义 |
Laputan, a. and n.|ləˈpjuːtən| In Swift Laputian. [f. Laputa, the flying island in Gulliver's Travels, whose inhabitants were addicted to visionary projects: see -an, -ian.] A. adj. Of or pertaining to Laputa; hence, chimerical, visionary, absurd. B. n. An inhabitant of Laputa.
1726Swift Gulliver iii ii. (heading), The Humours and Dispositions of the Laputians described. 1866Herschel Fam. Lect. ii. 62 After all, Swift's idea of extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which he attributes to his Laputan philosophers, may not be so very absurd. 1870O. W. Holmes Mechanism in Th. & Mor. in Old Vol. of Life (1891) 293 note, It is curious to compare the Laputan idea of extracting sunbeams from cucumbers with George Stephenson's famous saying about coal. So Laˈputically adv. (nonce-wd.), after the fashion of the Laputans.
a1849Poe R. H. Horne Wks. 1864 III. 426 Occupied, Laputically, in their great work of a progress that never progresses. |