| 释义 |
modernity|məˈdɜːnɪtɪ|
[ad. med.L. modernitāt-em, noun of quality f. modern-us: see modern and -ity. Cf. F. modernité (Littré).]
1. The quality or condition of being modern; modernness of character.
1627Hakewill Apol. v. (1635) 192 Yea but I vilifie the present times, you say, whiles I expect a more flourishing State to succeed; bee it so, yet this is not to vilifie modernity, as you pretend. 1782H. Walpole Let. to Cole 22 Feb. (1858) VIII. 161 Now that the poems [sc. Chatterton's] have been so much examined, nobody (that has an ear) can get over the modernity of the modulations. 1796Pegge Anonym. (1809) 429 Macrobius is no good author to follow in point of Latinity, partly on account of his modernity, and partly of his foreign extraction. 1888Athenæum 31 Mar. 401/3 Those unlucky stumblings into modernity which some archaizing translators do not avoid. 1904M. Sinclair Div. Fire 415 My dear fellow, modernity simply means democracy. And when once democracy has been forced on us there's no good protesting any longer.
2. Something that is modern.
1753H. Walpole Let. to Bentley Sept. (1857) II. 355 But here is a modernity, which beats all antiquities for curiosity. 1884Harper's Mag. Dec. 80/1 After he had..arranged himself in these modernities. |