| 释义 |
pedestrian, a. and n.|pɪˈdɛstrɪən|
[f. L. pedester (see prec.) + -an.]
A. adj.
1. a. On foot, going or walking on foot; performed on foot; of or pertaining to walking.
1791Wordsw. in Chr. Wordsw. Mem. (1851) I. 71 Your wish to have employed your vacation in a pedestrian tour. 1829Lytton Disowned i, A greater degree of respect than he was at first disposed to accord to a pedestrian traveller. 1840Dickens Old C. Shop xvii, Grinder..used his natural legs for pedestrian purposes. 1880G. Meredith Tragic Com. xvi, By the aid of a common stout pedestrian stick.
b. Of a statue: Representing a person on foot, as distinguished from equestrian.
1822Gentl. Mag. XCII. i. 268 The statue..is to be pedestrian.
2. Applied to plain prose as opposed to verse, or to verse of prosaic character; hence, prosaic, commonplace, dull, uninspired; colloquial, vulgar. [L. pedester = Gr. πεζός in prose, prosaic, plain, commonplace. Sometimes contrasted with the winged flight of Pegasus.]
1716M. Davies Athen. Brit. II. 139 The rest moulded upon Lucretius's Splay-footed numbers, with some pedestrian spoilings out of Horace's Epistles. 1805Roscoe Leo X Pref. (1827) 28 Burcardus..his diary is written in a pedestrian and semi-barbarian style. 1819Byron Juan Ded. viii, Who wandering with pedestrian Muses, Contend not with you on the winged steed. 1888Dict. Nat. Biogr. XIII. 11/2 Crane's verse is of a very pedestrian order.
B. n.
a. One who goes or travels on foot; a walker; one who walks as a physical exercise or athletic performance.
1793(title) The Observant Pedestrian, or Traits of the Human Heart; in a Solitary Tour from Caernarvon to London. 1802Gentl. Mag. LXXII. 338 Pedestrians (under which name the moralizing travellers of the present day are well described). 1812Chron. in Ann. Reg. 129/1 A well-known pedestrian who had been in the habit of supplying the Counties of Devon and Cornwall, with ballads. 1813[see pedestrianism]. 1832Marryat N. Forster i, As happy as a pedestrian who had accomplished his thousand miles in a thousand hours. 1895Westm. Gaz. 2 Mar. 9/2 Professor Blackie in his younger years was a great pedestrian, and he used to boast that there was not a mountain in Scotland on top of which he had not been.
b. rare. One who is dull, prosaic, or uninspired.
1969D. F. Horrobin Sci. is God iii. 24 These..purveyors of ideas..irritate intensely those pedestrian men who feel that they never have enough information for the proposal of a hypothesis. Unfortunately, for the pedestrians, it is the dreamers who tend to steal most of the scientific glory.
c. attrib. and Comb. pedestrian-operated adj.; pedestrian crossing, a marked section of the roadway where pedestrians crossing the road are given precedence over vehicular traffic; pedestrian deck, a series of pavements or walk-ways, usu. built above ground level and often roofed, reserved for pedestrians; pedestrian precinct, an area reserved for pedestrians only, usu. in a town centre or shopping centre.
1935Punch 3 Apr. 374 (caption) Sorry, old man, but my wife has just signalled that she has thought of a name for our new dog, and I'm dashing along to the next *pedestrian crossing so that I can go over and hear it. 1936[see Belisha beacon]. 1950Ann Reg. 1949 473 The plaintiff..was crossing a street..by means of a controlled pedestrian crossing. 1973D. Miller Chinese Jade Affair xvii. 164 The light at the intersection caught us..and my glamorous chauffeur brought the little Fiat to a halt just a yard or so the wrong side of the pedestrian crossing. 1976Evening Post (Nottingham) 15 Dec. 2/5 We have suggested to the City Planners that a pedestrian crossing..would be desirable on safety grounds.
1962Listener 24 May 903/2 The *pedestrian deck planned for the now abandoned project for a new town in Hook, Hampshire. 1963House & Garden Mar. 35/2 Andover will also have its pedestrian deck, 15 feet above a ground level complex of footways and underpasses.
1937Daily Herald 21 Jan. 3/7 No *pedestrian operated signals for crossing places. 1938H. A. Tripp Road Traffic xii. 269 (heading) Pedestrian-operated signals. Signals fitted with buttons to be pressed by pedestrians desiring to cross the road are employed.
1953F. Gibberd Town Design v. 121 A system of *pedestrian precincts as short cuts between shopping streets can be developed in a large centre. 1960New Left Rev. July–Aug. 23/1 He proposed to ring the centre with an elaborate motor road, and to turn the entire central area..into a pedestrian precinct. 1971P. Gresswell Environment 183 Pedestrian precincts include roads and other areas closed to traffic. 1977Belfast Tel. 24 Jan. 5/1 The police officers chased the gunmen through a pedestrian precinct into Water Street.
Add: Hence peˈdestrianly adv., in terms of pedestrians; fig., in a dull, commonplace, or pedestrian manner.
1859P. Fitzgerald in Househ. Words 19 Feb. 268/2 Opening up the country..not pedestrianly, or statistically, or gastronomically but..theatrically. 1988Daily Tel. (Weekend Suppl.) 26 Mar. p. xi/5 Nor was he as pedestrianly plodding as his critics..liked to pretend. |