| 释义 |
morass|mɒˈræs|
Also 7 moras(e, morasse, morost.
[a. Du. moeras, earlier moerasch, an altered form (influenced by moer moor n.1) of MDu. marasch, maras, a. OF. maresc, marais: see marish. Cf. MLG. moras, early mod.G. morasz, from 17th c. morast (whence the Eng. form morost); from LG. are Sw. moras, Da. morads.
The word is now confined to literary use, exc. in some parts of the West Indies, where it survives with the pronunciation |ˈmɒrəs|.]
1. A wet swampy tract, a bog, marsh; occas. in generalized sense, boggy land.
1655Fuller Hist. Camb. v. 72 Athens..was seated in a Morase or Fenny place. 1657R. Ligon Barbadoes (1673) 25 There remains, making a great part of that flat, a kinde of Bog or Morost. 1691Luttrell Brief Rel. (1857) II. 199 They..are making canalls to drain the moras. 1730–46Thomson Autumn 476 Nor the deep morass Refuse, but thro' the shaking wilderness Pick your nice way. 1815Scott Guy M. i, The sighs of the wind as it passed along the dreary morass. 1860Hook Lives Abps. (1869) I. 355 Only a small portion of the country was under cultivation, the rest was morass or impenetrable forest.
fig.1867Macgregor Voy. Alone (1868) 64 The east end of London—that morass of vice, and sighs and savagery. 1884Gladstone Sp. 28 Feb. (1885) 136 Let us not wander into the morasses and fogs of doubt.
2. West Indian. Short for morass-weed, q.v. in 3.
3. attrib., as morass ground, morass-way; morass ore, bog iron ore; morass-weed West Indian, the aquatic plant Ceratophyllum demersum.
1712E. Cooke Voy. S. Sea 149 This *Morass Ground was full of the largest Toads I ever saw.
1804–8Jameson Syst. Min. (1816) III. 294 *Morass-ore, or Friable Bog Iron-ore. Morasterz, Werner. 1817T. Thomson Chem. (ed. 5) III. 478 Morass Ore.
1675Ogilby Brit. (1698) 2 Here bear to the Left, thro' a *morass-way..to Morton in the Marsh.
1756P. Browne Jamaica 345 The Morass or *Morass-weed is very common in all the brackish waters of Jamaica. 1864Grisebach Flora W. Ind. 785 Morass-weed. |