| 释义 |
‖ nyctalopia Path.|nɪktəˈləʊpɪə|
Also 9 nycht-.
[late L. nyctalopia (Isidore, with variant nyctalmos), a. Gr. *νυκταλωπία, f. νυκτάλωψ, f. νύξ, νυκτ- night + ἀλα-ός blind + ὤψ eye: cf. the rare forms ἀλαωπός and ἀλαῶπις blind. So Sp. nictalopia, F. nyctalopie.
The term νυκτάλωψ was used by Galen and other writers in its proper sense of ‘blind by night’, but was afterwards erroneously taken to mean ‘seeing by night’ (as if simply from νύξ and ὤψ). The confusion resulting from this mistake has also extended to the converse term hemeralopia.]
a. Night-blindness; recurrent dimness or loss of vision after sunset, generally produced by exposure to a strong light.
b. Inability to see clearly except by night; night-vision, day-blindness.
1684Briggs in Phil. Trans. XIV. 563 The case now mention'd..is call'd by later Writers Nyctalopia. 1693tr. Blancard's Phys. Dict. (ed. 2), Nyctalopia, Two-fold; the first is a Dimness of Sight in the Night, or in dark Places, without any Impediment in the Light: The other is a Dimness in the Light, and clear Sight in the Night, or in Shades. 1764W. India Dis. 60 Of the Nyctalopia. I never saw the Hemeralopia in the West-Indies; but the night-blindness I have seen there. 1803W. Heberden Comment. lxvi. (1806) 328 A blindness will also come and go..unlike the nychtalopia, which returns every night. 1814–[see hemeralopia]. 1880J. W. Legg Bile 379 Xanthopsy and nyctalopia are thought by some to be very bad signs. 1899Allbutt's Syst. Med. VIII. 708 Nystagmus, nyctalopia, and nictitation also, are always present.
transf.1841Latham Engl. Lang. i. vii. 98 To those writers..I apply the term Nyctalopia (the power of seeing best in the dark), applied by a writer in one of the periodicals to similar Etymologists. |