| 释义 |
pimpernel|ˈpɪmpənɛl|
Forms: α. 5 pimpernelle, -nolle, 5–6 pymper- (-ir-, -yr-), -nol, -nel, -nele, -nell(e, -nyll, 6–7 pimpernell, 6– pimpernel, (6–8 pempernell, 7 pimpernill). β. 6 (in senses 1, 2) pimpinell, 9 -el.
[a. OF. pimprenele, pimpernelle, earlier piprenelle (12th c.), also pimpi-, pimpenelle (Godef.), mod.F. pimprenelle = It., Pg. pimpinella, Sp. pimpinela, med.L. pipinella (12th c. in Hatz.-Darm.), all in our sense 1. Diez concludes that pipinella was a corruption of bipinnella, dim. of bipinnula, dim. deriv. of bipennis ‘two-winged’ (perhaps referring to the pinnate or bipinnatifid leaves); and, in fact, the Burnet appears in the herbals and vocabularies of the 16th c. generally, as bipinnella or bipenella, sometimes bipennula. Cf. also Ger. bibernelle, MHG. bibenelle. The word has undergone much change of form, app. under the influence of ‘popular etymology’, as well as change of sense.
Before 1500, the L. name Pimpinella was transferred on the Continent, by ‘the Poticaries’, to an umbelliferous plant resembling the Burnets in its leaves, and hence called Burnet Saxifrage, to which also in 1763 Adanson appropriated the botanical name Pimpinella Saxifraga. In Eng. this appears in the Great Herball of 1516 as pimpernel, and in Turner as pimpinell after the L., while he gives pympernell for Anagallis, to which it had already been applied in 15th c. vocabularies. No explanation of this last transference of the name appears.]
†1. Originally (as still in the Romanic languages) applied to Great Burnet, Sanguisorba officinalis, and Salad Burnet, Poterium Sanguisorba. (According to some, properly to the latter.) Obs.
The first quot. is doubtful; but Godefroy identifies F. pimpre with pimprenelle, which in Fr. has only this sense.
[c1265Voc. Names Plants in Wr.-Wülcker 557/35 Pinpernele, i. pinpre, i. briddestunge.] 14..Lat.-Eng. Voc. ibid. 603/7 Piponella anglice Pympernele. c1450Alphita (Anecd. Oxon.) 146 Pimpinella assimilatur saxifrag[i]e in foliis et in stipite. sed differunt in radicibus..g⊇. et a⊇. pympernele [v.r. pimpernelle]. 1545Elyot, Bipennella, an herbe callyd Pympernell. 1548Ibid., Bipinnella, called commonly Pympinella, of some Pampinula, and Bipennula, an herbe called Pimpernell. 1548Turner Names of Herbes H j b, Bipennella or bipennula Italica is called English Burnet. The Poticaries cal it Pimpinellam. 1570Levins Manip. 57/27 Pimpernel, bipenella. 1578Lyte Dodoens i. xcvi. 137 Of Burnet, or Pimpinell. Pimpinell is of two sortes, the great and wilde; and the small garden Pimpinell. [Figs. of Sanguisorba officinalis and Poterium Sanguisorba.] Ibid. 138 Pimpinell is..in Latine Pimpinella, Bipennula, Pampinula, and of some Sanguisorba,..in English Burnet, and Pimpinell. 1855Mayne Expos. Lex., Italian pimpinel, common name for Sanguisorba officinalis.
†2. Burnet Saxifrage (Pimpinella Saxifraga, family Umbelliferæ). Obs.
1516Grete Herball ccclv, The pimpinella. Self heale or pympyrnell. Pimpernel is an herbe that groweth in sandy places at y⊇ fote of hylles. It is good to resowdre woundes yf the powder..be often layde therto. 1548Turner Names of Herbes H j b, Bipennula Germanica, is Saxifragia Italorum, and it is called in englishe Pimpinel, the duche cal it Bibinellen. 1551― Herbal i. O iv, Pimpinell doth..agre wyth the secunde kynde of daucus in descryptyon, and also in vertues. 1587In Commend. Gascoigne in G.'s Wks., Herbs, etc., Pinks please some, and pempernell doth serve to stanch the blood.
3. a. Now, The common name of Anagallis arvensis (family Primulaceæ), a small decumbent annual found in cornfields and waste ground, with smooth ovate opposite leaves, and bright scarlet flowers (varying with blue, and, more rarely, flesh-coloured or white) which close in cloudy or rainy weather (whence its rustic names poor man's weatherglass, shepherd's glass, etc.): distinctively called field pimpernel or scarlet pimpernel. Hence extended to the whole genus.
male pimpernel, an old distinctive name for the common red-flowered variety; the blue-flowered, by some considered a distinct species (A. cærulea), being called female pimpernel.
14..Lat.-Eng. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 563/43 Anagallus, pympernele. 1538Turner Libellus, Anagallis..dicitur anglice Pympernell. 1551― Herbal i. C iij b, Pympernell is of ij kyndes: it that hath the blewe floure, is called the female, but it that hath y⊇ cremesine is called y⊇ male. 1578Lyte Dodoens i. xxxvii. 54. 1601 Holland Pliny II. 234 The herbe Pimpernell, some call Anagallis, others Corchoros. Of it be found two kindes; the male with a red floure, the female with a blew. 1744J. Claridge Sheph. Banbury's Rules 38 The pimpernel..shuts itself up..close against rainy weather. 1865Gosse Land & Sea (1874) 115 Whole patches are radiant with the pimpernel. Except the corn poppy, this is said to be the only scarlet flower we have. 1865Thoreau Cape Cod viii. 154 Prettiest of all, the scarlet pimpernel, or poor-man's weather-glass.
b. With defining words, applied to other species of Anagallis, consisting of small trailing herbs with rotate flowers of various colours, chiefly red or blue; also to plants naturally allied or having some resemblance to this genus.
bastard or false pimpernel, (a) Chaffweed, Centunculus minimus; (b) ‘an American name for Ilysanthes gratioloides’ (Treas. Bot. 1866, Miller Plant-n. 1884). bog pimpernel, Anagallis tenella, a creeping plant with delicate pink flowers. † female pimpernel (see 3). Italian pimpernel, (a) Anagallis Monelli, a species with large blue flowers; (b) Sanguisorba officinalis (see 1). † male, red, scarlet pimpernel (see 3). round(-leaved) pimpernel, Brookweed. sea or seaside pimpernel, Honkenya peploides. water pimpernel, (a) the greater and lesser Brooklime, Veronica Beccabunga and V. Anagallis, called by the herbalists Anagallis aquatica; (b) Brookweed, Samolus Valerandi or other species. wood or yellow pimpernel, Lysimachia nemorum.
1597Gerarde Herbal ii. clxxxiv. 495 Of Brookelyme, or water Pimpernell... There be fower sorts of Water herbes comprehended vnder the name Anagallis aquatica, or water Pimpernell, or water Chicken weede. 1633Ibid. cxcvi. 622 Anthyllis lentifolia, siue Alsine cruciata marina... I haue Englished it Sea Pimpernell, because the leaues in shape are as like those of Pimpernel as of any other Plant. 1756J. Hill Brit. Herb. 66 Genus VII. Round Pimpernell, Samolus. 1760J. Lee Introd. Bot. App. 322 Pimpernel, Yellow of the Woods, Lysimachia. Ibid., Round-leaved Water Pimpernel, Samolus. 1861Miss Pratt Flower. Pl. IV. 245 Small Chaffweed, or Bastard Pimpernel. 1865Gosse Land & Sea (1874) 47 The bog-pimpernel..was profusely strewn over the spongy moors. 1866Treas. Bot. 59 Anagallis,..Pimpernels, by which name the species are popularly known... Every one is familiar with the common red Pimpernel (A. arvensis). The A. indica, with blue flowers, scarcely differs from it, except in colour and the larger size of its blossoms... The Italian Pimpernel (A. Monelli), with still larger flowers. Ibid. 704 L[ysimachia] nemorum..approaches in size and habit the scarlet pimpernel, but has bright yellow flowers; from this resemblance it is often called Wood Pimpernel.
4. (Chiefly with capital initial.) [The name given to Sir Percy Blakeney, hero of Baroness Orczy's novel The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905), who rescues victims of the Terror and smuggles them out of France, characterized (ch. xii) as ‘that demmed, elusive Pimpernel’.]
a. Something elusive or much sought after.
b. Someone whose exploits are comparable to those of ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel’. See also Scarlet Pimpernel s.v. scarlet a. 4 a, and 3 a above.
1955Times 10 May 14/1 The elusive pimpernel, the Liberal vote, is being eagerly sought by the two main parties in the Peterborough division. 1961House & Garden Oct. 112/3 Highlanders soon became a band of Pimpernels smuggling their aristocratic whiskies to the Lowlands. 1962Guardian 9 Aug. 7/6 The man who has become known as the ‘Black Pimpernel of South Africa’. 1963Times Lit. Suppl. 18 Jan. 40/5 In the hope of being able to function like a modern-day Pimpernel. 1974‘D. Craig’ Dead Liberty xvii. 81 Hans Lenzlinger, the greatest Pimpernel between East and West ever known.
5. attrib., as pimpernel chaffweed, pimpernel rose, pimpernel water: see quots.
1776–96Withering Brit. Plants (ed. 3) II. 199 Bastard Pimpernel. Pimpernel Chaffweed. 1886Britten & Holland Eng. Plant-n., Pimpernel Rose, a book-name for Rosa spinosissima, suggested by its synonym, R. pimpinellifolia, and referring, like Burnet Rose, to the form of its leaves. 1837E. Howard Old Commodore ii. 43 If she'd only..use my pimpernel water, for she has one monstrous freckle on her forehead. |