| 释义 |
practical, a. (n.)|ˈpræktɪkəl|
[f. as practic a. + -al1.]
A. adj.
I.
1. a. Of, pertaining or relating to practice; consisting or exhibited in practice or action. Opp. to speculative, theoretical, or ideal.
Often applied to that department of a subject, art, or science, which relates to practice as distinguished from theory, as in practical agriculture, practical arithmetic, practical chemistry, practical geometry, practical logic, practical music, practical philosophy, etc. practical joke: see joke n. 1.
1617Bp. Hall No Peace with Rome §8 Vnlesse it be determined (vnder some false semblance) by the verdict of our practicall iudgement, we will it not. 1620T. Granger Div. Logike 211 Of Arts some contemplatiue, some practicall. 1657North's Plutarch ii. 19 The rest of Aristotles books must be referred to his Philosophy, which he divided into two parts, namely, speculative and practical. 1682J. Flavel Fear 18 Hypocrisie is a lie done, a practical lie. 1715tr. Gregory's Astron. (1726) I. 282 We suppose the Maker very well versed in Practical Geometry, Mechanics and Optics. 1796Burke Regic. Peace iv. Wks. IX. 78 A Constitution, that at the time of the writing had not so much as a practical existence. 1849Thackeray Lett. 14 Sept., He said solemnly, that he did not approve of practical jokes. 1879Cassell's Techn. Educ. iii. 202/2 The whole system..shows..the practical application of technical education.
b. Having, or implying, value or consequence in relation to action; available or applicable in practice; capable of being turned to account; practically useful. spec. of doors, windows, food, etc., forming parts of a theatrical or film set: operable; able to be used as in real life.
1642Howell (title) Instructions for Forreine Travell. Shewing by what cours..one may arrive to the practicall knowledge of the Languages. 1673Evelyn Diary 5 Mar., Time and experience may forme him to a more practical way..of University lectures and erudition. 1701J. Jones (title) Practical Phonography: or, the new Art of Rightly Spelling..By the Sound. 1771Luckombe Hist. Print. 323 He should..see the joyner set and fasten it in a steady and practical position. 1858Greener Gunnery Pref. 7, I make no pretension to literary style, but have aimed to produce a practical work for practical men. 1897Daily News 24 July 5/2 Practical politics is to do what you can, and not what you ought. 1898Lady Malmesbury in Cycling 93 A woman's cycling dress should be, in the first place, practical—that is, composed of materials which do not suffer from rain or dust and will stand a certain amount of hard wear. 1933P. Godfrey Back-Stage iv. 47 His [sc. the stage-carpenter's] doors and windows never open unless he has been told to make them ‘practical’. 1960O. Skilbeck ABC of Film & TV 98 Practical. Part, or fitting, of a Set which may have to operate exactly as though real; e.g. a door, tap, or light fitting. 1974Some Technical Terms & Slang (Granada Television) s.v. Practical, Granada gave a ‘practical’ banquet in its play The Dead.
c. Electr. Applied to certain units (the ampere, volt, ohm, watt, coulomb, and farad) used for practical measurements, as contrasted with the absolute units of the C.G.S. system.
They are now part of the International System of Units.
1873J. C. Maxwell Treat. Electr. & Magn. II. iv. x. 244 The practical unit of electromotive force is called the Volt. 1882Nature 24 Aug. 391/2 Instead of expressing electrical quantities directly in absolute measure, the [International Electrical] Congress has embodied a consistent system, based on the Ohm, in which the units are of a value convenient for practical measurements. In this, which we must hereafter know as the ‘practical system’, as distinguished from the ‘absolute system’, the units are named after leading physicists, the Ohm, Ampère, Volt, Coulomb, and Farad. 1886J. D. Everett Units & Physical Constants (ed. 2) xi. 151 The practical unit of capacity is the Farad. It is defined as 10—9 of the C.G.S. electro-magnetic unit of capacity. 1904Jrnl. Inst. Electr. Engin. XXXIV. 172 He suggested that the prefix ab or abs should be used with the names of the practical units (Volt, Ampere, Ohm, etc.) to form names for the corresponding C.G.S. electromagnetic units. 1932[see international a. (n.) A. 1 c]. 1963Jerrard & McNeill Dict. Sci. Units 12 Units based on this definition..are known as electromagnetic units (e.m.u.). The quantities defined by these units are generally of an inconvenient size for practical work so units, known as practical units, are used. The latter may be obtained by multiplying the e.m. unit by a suitable conversion factor. Ibid. 13 The inconvenience of having three systems of electrical units, ab units, stat units and practical units has been overcome by the introduction of the metre, kilogramme, second, ampere units (M.K.S.). In this system, the practical units have the same value as the theoretical ones.
2. a. Actually engaged in the practice of some occupation; practising, working.
1604R. Cawdrey Table Alph., Practicall, practising. 1765A. Dickson Treat. Agric. (ed. 2) 23 note, Experience has led the practical farmers into the opinion, that these things are the food of plants. 1788Jefferson Writ. (1859) II. 546 Of all this, the practical iron men are much better judges than we theorists. 1827Westm. Rev. VII. 294 Had Mongolfier not been a practical man as well as a philosopher. 1859Darwin Orig. Spec. ii. (1872) 40 The highest botanical authorities and practical men can be quoted to show that the sessile and pedunculated oaks are either good and distinct species or mere varieties.
†b. Actively engaged in; active, busy. Obs.
1617Moryson Itin. i. 289 They are most practicall in all kinds of businesse. 1641Sir E. Dering Sp. on Relig. 13 Jan. 9 There is..scarce any of them, who is not practicall in their owne great cause in hand.
†c. Practised, experienced. Obs.
1677A. Yarranton Eng. Improv. 108 A Traveller..that hath given us good Discourse, and he speaks as though he were practical in things.
3. Devoted or inclined to action (as opp. to speculation, etc.); whose knowledge is derived from practice rather than theory; also, having capacity or ability for action.
1667M. Locke in C. Simpson Compendium A v b, We poor Practical men, who doe, because we doe (as they are pleas'd to censure us). 1844Stanley Arnold I. iv. 187 He remained eminently practical to the end of his life. 1845Disraeli Sybil i. iii, The English..being a practical people, it is possible that they might have achieved their object and yet retained their native princes. 1861Buckle Hist. Civiliz. II. 310 They..whose knowledge is almost confined to what they see passing around them, and who, on account of their ignorance, are termed practical men. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) I. 76 The practical man, who relies on his own experience. 1970P. Laurie Scotland Yard 292 Practical, the highest police compliment; particularly of a senior officer who can still distinguish between the formal processes of law and the realities of police work. 1972Police Rev. 10 Nov. 1475/3 Dickens is on the side of the angels in applauding what we now loosely term ‘good practical Police work’.
4. That is such in practice or conduct (as distinguished from belief or theory); that is such in effect, though not nominally or professedly so; virtual.
1642Fuller Holy & Prof. St. v. vii. 387 In a word, if he was not a practicall Atheist, I know not who was. a1688W. Clagett 17 Serm. (1699) 126 Every wicked man..may indeed be called a practical atheist. 1836J. Gilbert Chr. Atonement vii. (1852) 194 To suspend a law, is, in that instance, to exercise a practical veto against its being law. 1851H. Spencer Soc. Stat. xxxii. 475 We are not to be guilty of that practical atheism, which, seeing no guidance for human affairs but its own limited foresight, endeavours itself to play the god. 1882Freeman Amer. Lect. ii. v. 390 The great advantage of our practical republic over your avowed republic.
II.
†5. That practises art or craft; crafty, scheming, artful. (Cf. practic a. 4, practice 6, 7.) Obs. (The earliest recorded sense.)
1570Foxe A. & M. (ed. 2) 1906/1 Not onely perceiuing their practicall proceedings, but also much greued with their troublesome vnquietnes.
III. 6. Comb., as practical-minded; practical activity, activity through which theory is realized and becomes actual; practical attitude, an attitude that is concerned with material facts and actual events; practical criticism, an analytical approach to literary criticism, advocated by I. A. Richards, which influenced and was further developed as New Criticism; practical nurse chiefly N. Amer., one who has completed a course of training in nursing practice but who is not a (state-)registered nurse; also attrib.; hence practical nurse v. trans., practical nursing vbl. n.; practical politics, what actually takes place or is possible in political life, sometimes implying lack of moral principle (cf. Realpolitik); hence practical politician.
1913D. Ainslie tr. B. Croce's Philos. of Practical ii. i. 173 (heading) The *practical activity in its dialectic. Ibid., We shall no longer ask, therefore, whether the practical activity precede or follow knowledge. 1935E. Burns Handbk. Marxism xiii. 213 There, where speculation ends, with real life, real positive science therefore begins, the representation of practical activity, of the practical process of the development of men. 1963T. Bottomore tr. Marx's Early Writings 52 The criticism of the speculative philosophy of right does not remain within its own sphere, but leads on to tasks which can only be solved by means of practical activity. 1974R. Stevens James & Husserl 177 The intentional continuity between projects of meaning and their fulfillment in practical activity.
1883F. H. Bradley Princ. Logic 20 Not only are the genuine characteristics absent from a mere *practical attitude, but we find present there a quality which is absent from real judgment. 1902W. James Var. Relig. Exper. xi. 261 Our moral and practical attitude, at any given time, is always a resultant of two sets of forces within us. 1945K. R. Popper Open Society II. xxiv. 213 It may be better to explain rationalism in terms of practical attitudes or behaviour. 1962Macquarrie & Robinson tr. Heidegger's Being & Time i. vi. 238 So this phenomenon by no means expresses a priority of the ‘practical’ attitude over the theoretical. 1970C. A. van Peursen in J. M. Edie et al. Patterns of Life-World 148 Theoretical truth is of importance, but in no case does it present the origin of truth as such. The practical attitude of man, ‘shunning what is harmful and pursuing what is apt to promote well-being’, is of more importance.
1929I. A. Richards (title) *Practical criticism: a study of literary judgment. 1958Oxf. Mag. 13 Nov. 94/2 ‘Practical criticism’ itself, as a term, is unsatisfactory... What on earth is the point of any sort of criticism if it isn't practical?.. In so far as it has a clear current sense, it means the analysis, apart from their literary context, of short passages of prose and verse. 1959Times Lit. Suppl. 24 Apr. 241/3 It is not merely criticism; it is ‘practical criticism’ of a high order and of a kind which is too rarely found in France. 1972Ibid. 3 Mar. 246/3 As for the assumptions involved in the identifying of me [sc. F. R. Leavis] with ‘Practical Criticism’, my first comment is that the formula isn't mine, and,..I have been known for my insistence, when having to use it, that ‘Practical Criticism is criticism in practice’. 1977N.Y. Rev. Bks. 15 Sept. 40/2 His practical criticism is not much concerned with the structure of an individual poem except as an embodiment of crisis.
1881C. Gibbon Heart's Problem iv, He had endured some banter from his *practical-minded friend as to the folly of thinking about love instead of law. 1906Daily Chron. 14 Apr. 4/6 The practical-minded makers of modern Egypt.
1921Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 1 Oct. 16/2 (Advt.), Situations Wanted—Female..experienced *practical nurse, terms moderate. 1956K. Hulme Nun's Story vii. 104 Our practical nurses..can stand only a four-hour shift, but our sisters take unlimited duty. 1964Mrs. L. B. Johnson White House Diary 24 Apr. (1970) 118 To my great delight we..saw a class in practical nursing, and I told them that the world was certainly waiting for their skills. So it is, as anybody who has tried to find a practical nurse for an elderly or ill member of the family can tell you. 1971‘A. Blaisdell’ Practice to Deceive v. 68 Mrs. Carstairs would be back from practical-nursing her sister. 1979W. Kienzle Rosary Murders 20 One of the orderlies and one of the practical nurses..had enjoyed a quick roll in bed.
1812Deb. Congress U.S. (1853) 12th Congress 1 Sess., App. 2210 There were two circumstances, inherent in this system of coercing Great Britain by commercial restrictions, which ought to have made *practical politicians very doubtful of its result. 1961Times 10 Jan. 8 The impression remains that the Liberal leader is still the diplomatist, more at home in the chancery, or the corridors of the United Nations, not the father figure, so necessary in Canadian leadership, or the practical politician, able to talk about sewage problems.
1796Rep. Comm. House of Commons (1803) XIV. 38 With a view to such a knowledge of *practical Politics, as may be desired from the History of our experimental Legislation. 1826Disraeli Viv. Grey I. ii. xv. 217 ‘Hargrave’, said his lordship, ‘if you want any information upon points of practical politics’—that was his phrase..‘there is only one man in the kingdom whom you should consult..and that's Stapylton Toad.’ 1897[see practical a. 1 b]. 1919F. Hamilton Vanished Pomps of Yesterday i. 30 As the inventor of ‘Practical Politics’ (Real Politik), Bismarck had a supreme contempt for fluent talkers and for words. 1939I. Berlin Karl Marx iv. 74 It was his [sc. Marx's] first experience of practical politics: he conducted his paper with immense vigour and intolerance. 1961N. P. Stallknecht in Stallknecht & Frenz Compar. Lit.: Method & Perspective vi. 121 We may..trace the notion of individual autonomy from its manifestation in religious practice and theological reflection through practical politics and political theory into literature and the arts.
B. n.
†1. In pl.
a. Practical matters; points of practice. Obs.
1649Roberts Clavis Bibl. Introd. ii. 31 How in Practicals, They Direct in wel-doing. 1653Ashwell Fides Apost. 20 Credenda, as opposed to the Agenda, or Practicalls of Christianity. 1737M. Green Spleen 322 That tribe, whose practicals decree Small beer the deadliest heresy.
b. Practical jokes or tricks. colloq. ? Obs.
1833M. Scott Tom Cringle xviii, Give over your practicals, Lucifer.
2. In pl. Practical men; persons concerned with practice.
1840Mill Diss. & Disc. (1859) I. 44 The Practicals never heard of it; or if they had they disdained it as visionary theory. 1844― Ess. Pol. Econ. 142 The practicals would endeavour to determine this question by a direct induction.
3. An examination, course, or lesson devoted to practice in a subject. Also fig.
1934in Webster. 1955School Sci. Rev. Nov. 38 For the practical paper, 93 per cent of candidates were successful—compared with 68 per cent who passed the theory, and of over 300 who passed the theory, only 7 failed the practical. 1961Times 6 Nov. 14/2 Lieutenant Babington, straight out from England to take over a platoon..seems to have failed his practicals where discipline is concerned. 1966Rep. Comm. Inquiry Univ. Oxf. II. 311 Nationally, the average for tutorials was much lower (1·7 hours against 6·3 hours at Oxford), while the national averages for lectures and practicals were about twice the Oxford figures. 1979F. Olbrich Sweet & Deadly xi. 125 He would get through this damned exam if it was the last thing he did... There would still be the practicals, of course.
Hence ˈpracticalism, devotion to practical affairs; also, = pragmatism 4; also, in Communist usage, excessive attention paid to practical matters resulting in the disregard of theory; ˈpracticalist, one who devotes himself to or advocates what is practical.
1843Tait's Mag. X. 146 Among the Parliamentary men belonging to Hardingston's set, there prevailed a tendency to practicalism, the origin of the sect of Utilitarians. 1856J. Grote in Cambr. Ess. 88 The very practicalism of the English has guarded them against much mistaken and superficial practicalism. 1865Mill Comte 86 The theorists..have successfully retaliated on the practicalists. 1898W. James Philos. Concept. & Pract. Results 5 The principle of practicalism.., as he [sc. C. S. Peirce] called it, when I first heard him enunciate it at Cambridge [Mass.] in the early '70s, is the clue.. by following which..we may keep our feet upon the proper trail. 1898― Coll. Ess. & Rev. (1920) 424 Now the principle of practicalism says that the very meaning of the conception of God lies in those differences which must be made in our experience if the conception be true. 1951Britannica Bk. of Year 686/2 Practicalism, a Communist term for the fault of paying too much attention to practical problems of production, etc., and not enough to ideological propaganda. 1963R. C. Tucker Soviet Political Mind ix. 181 Krushchev..has been criticized by certain elements within the Soviet Communist Party for being insufficiently so [sc. theory-oriented]. He has rejected their charge of ‘practicalism’. |