| 释义 |
loadstone, lodestone|ˈləʊdstəʊn|
Also 6 (?) lodysshestone.
[f. load, lode + stone n.
Literally ‘way-stone’, from the use of the magnet in guiding mariners. Cf. lodestar.]
1. Magnetic oxide of iron; also, a piece of this used as a magnet.
c1515Cocke Lorell's B. 12 One kepte y⊇ compas and watched y⊇ our glasse, Some y⊇ lodysshestone dyd seke. 1548Udall, etc. Erasm. Par. Mark 38 b, Like as the lode⁓stone draweth vnto it yron, so [etc.]. 1579Lanc. Wills (Chetham Soc.) II. 156 One rynge of gold havinge in it a stone called a lode stone. 1635Swan Spec. M. vi. (1643) 291 The Loadstone, is coloured like iron, but blewer, and tending to a skie colour. 1716Lady M. W. Montagu Lett. to Pope 10 Oct. I. 129 A small piece of loadstone that held up an anchor of steel too heavy for me to lift. 1849Noad Electricity (ed. 3) 292 The smallest loadstones have generally a greater attractive power, in proportion to their size, than larger ones. 1877W. Jones Finger-ring 304 A loadstone sometimes was set instead of a jewel, indicative of love's attractions. 1891Nature 3 Sept., The property of the magnet or ‘loadstone’ to point to the north first became known in the eleventh century.
2. fig. Something which attracts.
1577J. Northbrooke Dicing (1843) 102 Such things which are occasions and loade stones to draw people to wickednesse. a1592Greene Alphonsus Wks. (Rtldg.) 246 To have his absence whom he doth account To be the load⁓stone of his life! 1630J. Taylor (Water P.) Bk. Martyrs Wks. iii. 141/1 She was at home, abroad, in euery part, Loadstar and Loadstone to each eye and heart. a1649Drummond of Hawthornden Poems Wks. (1711) 47/1 Load-star of love, and load-stone of all hearts. 1778F. Burney Evelina xxvii. (1791) II. 172, I find you..the general loadstone of attention. 1857Maurice Mor. & Met. Philos. III. v. §3. 164 His human sympathy and human sorrow were to be the lodestone of all hearts. 1877C. Geikie Christ lx. (1879) 735 Jerusalem was now the loadstone that had drawn the whole Jewish world around it. |