| 释义 |
monotonous, a.|məˈnɒtənəs|
[f. Gr. µονότονος (see monotone a.) + -ous.]
1. a. Of sound or utterance: Continuing on one and the same note; usually in modified sense, having little variation in tone or cadence. b. (See quot. 1811.)
1778Warton Hist. Eng. Poetry II. Emend. a 4, Every line was perhaps uniformly recited to the same monotonous modulation with a pause in the midst. 1795Seward Anecd. (ed. 2) II. 367 Lord Chatham's eloquence..was neither the rounded and the monotonous declamation,..that we have seen admired in our times. 1811Busby Dict. Mus. (ed. 3), Monotonous, an epithet applied to any instrument which produces but one tone or note: as the drum, the tamborine, &c. 1814Scott Wav. xvii, The monotonous and murmured chant of a Gaelic song. 1839F. A. Kemble Resid. in Georgia (1863) 61 A melancholy, monotonous boat horn. 1854Bushnan in Circ. Sci. (1865) I. 285/2 The successive notes have nearly all the same pitch. This kind of succession..is properly termed the monotonous. 1859Tennyson Guinevere 417 A voice, Monotonous and hollow like a Ghost's Denouncing judgment. 1863M. Howitt tr. F. Bremer's Greece II. xii. 42 The owl of Minerva lets us hear in the evening his monotonous cry.
2. transf. and fig. Lacking in variety; uninteresting or wearisome through continued sameness: said e.g. of occupations, scenery, literary style, etc.
1791–1823D'Israeli Cur. Lit. (1859) II. 208 The national character retained more originality and individuality than our monotonous habits now admit. 1827H. Steuart Planter's G. (1828) 60 The Lime, a Tree, which, unless on the foreground, is always formal and monotonous in landscape. 1831Macaulay Ess., Byron (1897) 154 The monotonous smoothness of Byron's versification. 1873Hamerton Intell. Life xii. i. (1875) 434 The monotonous character of the Midland scenery. 1876M. E. Braddon J. Haggard's Dau. II. 23 The life is somewhat monotonous,..but I hope you will not grow weary of it. 1876Green Stray Stud. 6 Dull straight streets of monotonous houses. 1895Rider Haggard Heart of World i, These men proved to be half-breeds of the lowest class, living in an atmosphere of monotonous vice.
quasi-adv.1845Browning Pictor Ignotus 58 As monotonous I paint These endless cloisters and eternal aisles With the same series, Virgin, Babe and Saint.
3. Math. Of a function (see quot.).[= Ger. monoton, introduced by C. Neumann 1881.] 1890in Century Dict. 1902Love in Encycl. Brit. (ed. 10) XXVIII. 547 A function which never increases or never diminishes throughout an interval is said to be ‘monotonous throughout’ the interval. 1935T. Chaundy Differential Calculus iii. 51 Over the whole domain we may call the function ‘monotonous’.
Hence moˈnotonousness.
1839Fraser's Mag. XIX. 158 Rhymed alexandrines..produce a wearisome monotonousness. 1881Times 15 Mar. 12 The weary monotonousness of Russian life. 1889‘Mark Twain’ Yankee at Crt. K. Arthur xxvi. 303 There is a profound monotonousness about its facts. |