| 释义 |
orang-outang more correctly orang-utan. Zool.|ɒˌræŋuːˈtæŋ, ˈɔərəŋˈuːtæn|
Forms: 7– orang-, 8–9 ourang-, 8 oerang-, ouran-, 8–9 oran-; 7–9 -outang, 9 -utang, -otang, -outan, -otan, -oatan, -utan.
[Ultimately ad. Malay ˈōrang ˈūtan ‘man of the woods’, found in similar forms in most European langs., e.g. Du. orang-outang (also 18th c. oerang-oetan), Ger., Da., Sw. orangutang, F. orang-outang, It., Pg. orangotango, Sp. orangután. The last (exc. as to the place of the stress) comes nearest to the Malay; in the other langs. ūtan ‘woods’ has been corrupted to jingle with the first.
It is stated that the name is not (now, at least) applied to the animal in Malay; but that it was in use in Java in the 17th c. is stated by Bontius (a Dutch East Indian physician), the first to record the name. Moreover, the Kayan of Borneo are said, in Jrnl. Ind. Archipel. (1850) IV. 186, to know it as orang-tuan, meaning ‘man of the woods’ or ‘wild man’.
1631Bontius Hist. Nat. et Med. Ind. Orient. v. xxxii. (1658) 85 Iavani..Nomen ei induunt Ourang Outang, quod hominem silvæ significat.]
An anthropoid ape, Simia satyrus, of arboreal habits, inhabiting Borneo, Sumatra, and formerly Java; the male exceeds 4 feet in height, and has very long arms. The lesser orang-utan is S. morio of Borneo. (The name has been incorrectly applied to the Chimpanzee or other large African ape.)
1699E. Tyson (title) Orang-Outang, sive Homo Sylvestris: or, the Anatomy of a Pygmie, Compared with that of a Monkey, an Ape, and a Man. Ibid. Pref., The Orang-Outang imitates a Man more than Apes and Monkeys do. 1727A. Hamilton New Acc. E. Ind. II. 131 As there are many Species of wild Animals in these Woods [of Java], there is one in particular, called the Oran Outang. 1774Goldsm. Nat. Hist. II. 343 The foremost of the ape kind is the ourang-outang or wild man of the woods. 1777Miller in Phil. Trans. LXVIII. 170 The oerang oatan, or wild man (for that is the meaning of the words) I have heard much talk of, but never seen. 1802Bingley Anim. Biog. (1813) I. 55 The difference betwixt the Chimpanzee and Oran Otan is chiefly in size and colour. 1803T. Winterbottom Sierra Leone I. xii. 201 Some writers of eminence have asserted that man originally walked upon four feet, and was in fact the same with the oran outang. 1819T. E. Bowdich Mission to Ashantee ii. xiii. 440 The African Ourang-outan (Pithecus Troglodites) is found here. 1836Penny Cycl. V. 188/1 The variety of the ape and monkey tribes is endless [in Borneo]; and among them is the orang-outang, or the ‘man of the woods’, as the name implies. 1889A. R. Wallace Darwinism 69 Among the nine adult male Orang-utans, collected by myself in Borneo, the skulls differed remarkably in size and proportions.
attrib.1851Trench Stud. Words i. (1882) 13 The ‘urang-utang theory’, as it has been so happily termed..according to which the primitive condition of man was the savage one. |