| 释义 |
mesteque ? Obs.
Also mastique, mestica, mestique.
[Of obscure origin.
Réaumur Hist. des Insectes (1738) IV. 90 says: ‘Elle [la cochenille fine] est appelée cochenille Mesteque, parce qu'on en fait des recoltes à Meteque [sic] dans la province de Honduras’. No such place-name is known to have existed in Honduras; perh. what is meant is Mixteca, the name of the ancient Mexican province corresponding to the present Oaxaca. It is doubtful whether the word ever had any English currency: there is some ground for the suspicion that Réaumur is the source of all the later references to it.]
The finest kind of cochineal.
[1600Hakluyt's Voy. III. 455 [Voy. R. Tomson in N. Hisp. 1555.] There is a place called the Misteca, fiftie leagues to the Northwest [of Mexico], which doth yeeld great store of..Cochinilla. ]1667Petty Dyeing in Sprat Hist. R. Soc. (1722) 298 Cochineal is of several sorts, viz. Silvester and Mestequa. 1753Chambers Cycl. Supp. s.v. Progall-insect, There are two kinds of cochineal, the finer called mestique, the other termed wild cochineal. 1780Ann. Reg. ii. 104 [citing Réaumur] A much finer cochineal, known by the name of mestica. 1797Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) V. 109/2 In trade, four sorts [of cochineal] are distinguished, Mastique, Campeschane, Tetraschale, and Sylvester. 1839Ure Dict. Arts 303 Two sorts of cochineal are gathered—the wild..and the cultivated, or the grana fina, termed also mesteque, from the name of a Mexican province. |