| 释义 |
lycanthropy|laɪˈkænθrəpɪ|
Also in mod.L. form lycanthropia.
[ad. Gr. λυκανθρωπία, f. λυκάνθρωπος: see lycanthrope.]
1. A kind of insanity described by ancient writers, in which the patient imagined himself to be a wolf, and had the instincts and propensities of a wolf. Now occasionally applied as a name of those forms of insanity in which the patient imagines himself a beast, and exhibits depraved appetites, alteration of voice, etc., in accordance with this delusion.
1584R. Scot Discov. Witchcr. v. i. (1886) 73 Lycanthropia is a disease and not a transformation. 1594T. B. La Primaud. Fr. Acad. ii. 166 That malady, which is..named by the Græcians..lycanthropie. 1621Burton Anat. Mel. i. i. i. iv, Lycanthropia,..or Wolf-madness, when men run howling about graves and fields in the night, and will not be persuaded but that they are wolves or some such beasts. a1656Bp. Hall St. Paul's Combat i. Wks. 1808 V. 321 It is contrary to the delusions of lycanthropy. There, he, that is a man, thinks himself a beast; here, he, that is a beast, thinks himself a man. 1672Marvell Reh. Transp. i. 68 His Madness hath formed itself into a perfect Lycanthropy. He doth so verily believe himself to be a Wolf, that his speech is all turned into howling, yelling, and barking. a1779Warburton Serm. on Matt. iv. 24 Wks. 1788 V. 429 The madness called Lycanthropy. 1818Lady Morgan Fl. Macarthy (1819) III. ii. 75, I am not well, surely, Sir,..and thinks betimes that it's the lycanthropia I have got, which Maister Camden saith was common to the ancient Irish. 1891Driver Introd. Lit. O.T. (1892) 469 Nebuchadnezzar's seven years' insanity (lycanthropy) with his edict respecting it. 1891W. C. Sydney Eng. 18th C. I. 27 Young boys and girls were bred..in crime, even to the pitch of moral lycanthropy.
2. The kind of witchcraft which was supposed to consist in the assumption by human beings of the form and nature of wolves.
1830Scott Demonol. vii. 210 Persons accused of the crime of lycanthropy. 1865Lecky Ration. I. i. 82 Lycanthropy or the transformation of witches into wolves. |