| 释义 |
ritual, a. and n.|ˈrɪtjuːəl|
[ad. L. rītuāl-is, neut. rītuāl-e, f. rītus rite. So F. rituel, † ritual, Sp. and Pg. ritual, It. rituale.]
A. adj.
1. a. Pertaining or relating to, connected with, rites. spec. in Archæol., applied to objects or constructions.
1570Foxe A. & M. (ed. 2) 83/1 Contayning no maner of doctrine..but onely certayn ritual decrees to no purpose. 1653H. More Conject. Cabbal. (1713) 40 The Ritual laws and Religious stories of the Heathens. 1656Vind. Jud. in Phenix (1708) II. 417 By our ritual Books we are clear of this seducing. a1740Waterland Christian Sacr. iv. Wks. 1823 V. 453 The ritual laws restrained the Jews from conversing familiarly with the heathens, or unclean persons. 1821Wordsw. Eccl. Sonn. iii. xix, Through a zodiac, moves the ritual year Of England's Church. 1850Sir G. Scott Anc. Churches 19 note, The antiquarian, the purely æsthetic, or the ritual branch of the subject. 1885H. O. Wakeman Hist. Relig. Eng. xi. 120 An association was formed..to test the legality of these ritual alterations. 1901A. J. Evans Mycenaean Tree & Pillar Cult 9 At the foot of the handle of axe, namely, appears in each case that distinctive piece of Mycenaean ritual furniture..described as ‘the horns of consecration’. 1934Burlington Mag. Mar. 139/1 Other ritual bronzes said to have been found with the kuang. 1941Antiquity XV. 142 (title) A datable ‘ritual barrow’ in Glamorganshire. 1951Field Archæol. (Ordnance Survey Prof. Papers No. 13) (ed. 3) 42 Another curious type of site about which our knowledge is imperfect is the so-called ‘ritual’ well, or Belgic burial shaft. 1954S. Piggott Neolithic Cultures ii. 56 It is possible that some of the ‘ritual holes’ frequently recorded from near the burials in the Wessex barrows may have been post-holes, but the majority seem to have served some other unexplained purpose connected with the funerary rites. 1963W. F. Grimes in Foster & Alcock Culture & Environment v. 105 No doubt in due course something like ‘sacred circle’ or ‘ritual circle’ frankly avowing ideas about their use will become permissible for a majority of them. 1975P. Warren Aegean Civilization ii. 43 The individual who made the so-called Harvester Vase..created a masterpiece. Here are 27 figures marching around a ritual vase a few inches high.
b. ritual choir, that part of the church in which the choir-offices are performed.
1867Freeman Norm. Conq. (1877) I. App. 672 The cloister had one door into the choir and one door into the nave, that is to say, the ritual choir was west of the crossing. 1886Willis & Clark Cambridge I. 358 A space of 8 feet was to be left behind the high altar, thus reducing the length of the ritual choir to 95 feet.
2. Of the nature of, forming, a rite or rites. ritual murder, murder carried out as a rite; also fig. and attrib.; similarly ritual killing.
a1631Donne Select. (1840) 247 Ritual, and ceremonial things, which are..the subsidies of religion. 1652Sterry Eng. Deliv. North. Presb. 13 These rituall observations, these consecrated formes. 1682News fr. France 6 All opinions and practices in the Ritual part of Religion seem indifferent to them. 1725Pope Odyss. iv. 588 Due ritual honours to the gods I pay. Ibid. 792 We..quit the ships, and..With ritual hecatombs the gods adore. 1805Southey Madoc in Azt. vi, Whirling him In ritual dance, till breath and sense were gone. 1867D. Duncan Disc. viii. 155 Holiness does not consist in bodily austerities or in ritual observances. 1896Jessopp & James St. William of Norwich p. lxxvii, Ritual-murder as a practice has been learnedly and thoroughly disproved by Strack and others. 1936C. Day Lewis We're not going to do Nothing 14 Organised mass-murder—as apart from ritual⁓killings, blood-feuds and the like—can admit of only one satisfactory explanation. 1950M. Hay Foot of Pride v. 119 In Germany, the ritual-murder legend was the chief..excuse for a series of riots all over the country which threatened the Jews with complete extermination. 1962L. Deighton Ipcress File i. 9 The man..was now using knife and fork to commit ritual murder on a cream pastry. 1964M. Suther et al. tr. Maritain's Moral Philos. 142 (heading) The ritual murder of Realities that are elevated to the skies. 1966New Statesman 15 July 78/3 The sudden revival in Russia of the ritual-murder myth after half a century of anti-religious mass education. 1972J. McClure Caterpillar Cop ii. 24 Back marked by long cuts... Those wounds suggest a ritual killing.
3. In extended and trivial use: pertaining to or constituting a social or psychological ritual (see sense B. 2 below); used, occurring, etc., as a social convention or habit.
1947Atlantic Monthly July 114/2 Many political speeches..are delivered in a language which is above people's heads and is in fact a ‘ritual survival’ from an age in which electors were few and literate. 1953H. S. Sullivan Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry xviii. 307 All these ritual avoidances and preoccupations give one a feeling that one is making some sense in an important area of living. Actually one is not making any sense at all, because one is completely inaccessible to any data. 1972W. Labov Language in Inner City viii. 305 Those who have some knowledge of urban ghetto culture will recognize Rel's remark Your mother's a duck as a ritual insult. 1975R. Collins Conflict Sociol. iii. 115 We can tell the difference by the increase in ritual elements as the talk becomes more sociable, the orienting gestures are toward each other rather than toward the topic. 1977B. Pym Quartet in Autumn i. 5 He offered her the bag of jelly babies, but this was only a ritual gesture and he knew that she would refuse. Ibid. v. 40 Most of the inhabitants of the village were retired married couples with the ritual grandchildren.
B. n.
1. a. A prescribed order of performing religious or other devotional service.
1649Jer. Taylor Apol. Liturgy (ed. 2) §89 Then the Bishop prayes ritè, according to the rituall or constitution. 1734tr. Rollin's Anc. Hist. (1827) I. 349 According to the Greek ritual (if I may use that expression). 1772Priestley Inst. Relig. (1782) II. 121 There was a..dignity in the Jewish ritual. 1795Burke Abridgm. Eng. Hist. Wks. II. 513 Animating their disciples to religious frenzy by the uncouth ceremonies of a savage ritual. 1838Prescott Ferd. & Is. (1846) I. vi. 290 The Romish ritual was not admitted into its churches till long after it had been adopted in the rest of Europe. 1856Stanley Sinai & Pal. xiv. (1858) 466 A long procession with embroidered banners, supplying in their ritual the want of images. 1876C. M. Davies Unorth. Lond. (ed. 2) 93 The ritual resembles that of the Church of England.
transf.1709Prior Henry & Emma 549 Nor in Love's Ritual can We ever find Vows made to last. 1856Emerson Eng. Traits, Aristocracy (Bohn) II. 83 Politeness is the ritual of society, as prayers are of the church.
b. A book containing the order, forms, or ceremonies, to be observed in the celebration of religious or other solemn service.
1656Cowley Pindar. Odes, Plagues of Egypt x, The Sorcerers..smil'd at th' unaccustomed Spell Which no Egyptian Rituals tell. 1674tr. Scheffer's Lapland viii. 27 He likewise was the first that published the Ritual in the Laplandish tongue. 1705Addison Italy 328 An Heathen Ritual could not instruct a Man better..in the particular Ceremonies..that attended the different kinds of Sacrifices. 1728Chambers Cycl. s.v., There are several Passages in Cato's Books..which may give us some Idea of the Rituals of the Antients. 1845Lingard Anglo-Sax. Ch. I. App. 420 In pp. 185, 187 of the ritual occurs another collection of similar entries. 1873Burton Hist. Scot. lxix. VI. 156 That the use of it as a ritual was virtually suspended.
2. a. orig. only pl. Ritual observances; ceremonial acts. Now freq. in sing., and in extended and trivial uses.
a1656Vines Lord's Supper (1677) 24 There were in the first passover..certain rituals or occasionals. 1662Hibbert Body Divinity ii. 103 God..will have order both in substantials and circumstantials, in reals and in rituals. 1713Young Last Day iii. 25 In solemn form the rituals are prepar'd. 1737Gentl. Mag. VII. 40 Sects, or Heresies, may be formed about Rituals..as well as about Points of Doctrine. 1818Scott Rob Roy vi, Your religion and your temperance are so much offended by Roman rituals. 1906J. G. Frazer Adonis, Attis, Osiris 325 When the Bechuanas are about to found a new town, they observe an elaborate ritual. 1911Beerbohm Zuleika D. iii. 29 He cared for his wardrobe and his toilet-table..merely as..a ritual in which to express and realise, his own idolatry. 1914J. S. Huxley in Proc. Zool. Soc. I. 506 We must now go on to consider a very different question... I mean the gradual change of a useful action into a symbol and then into a ritual. 1958J. O'Conor Iron Harp in J. C. Trewin Plays of Year XVI. 179 He's had no lunch... Ah, now, that won't do. A man should never miss the ritual of a good meal. 1975R. Collins Conflict Sociol. iii. 97 All that animal language lacks in comparison to human rituals, is a symbolic significance or naming quality... We usually assume that animal rituals are innate but that human rituals are learned. 1975L. Lee I can't stay Long (1977) 203 The ritual of bargaining was long and elaborate.
b. spec. in Psychol. A series of actions compulsively performed under certain circumstances, the non-performance of which results in tension and anxiety.
1932M. Gabain tr. Piaget's Moral Judgment of Child iv. 359 The rituals attached to eating, going to bed, etc., show the hold which habit has over his [sc. the child's] nature. 1946O. Fenichel Psychoanal. Theory of Neuroses xiv. 268 Touching rituals replace taboos; washing compulsions, fears of dirt; social rituals, social fears. 1956H. S. Lippman Treatm. Child in Emotional Conflict ix. 113 The diagnosis of obsessional neurosis in a child depends primarily on the presence of ceremonials or rituals which he cannot control. 1968L. Eidelberg Encycl. Psychoanal. 382/2 Although similar in pathogenesis, it is useful to distinguish between rituals and other obsessive-compulsive manifestations. 1972A. Storr Dynamics of Creation viii. 98 The ritual had started originally as an attempt to purge himself of the guilt surrounding masturbation.
3. The performance of ritual acts.
1867Times 26 Nov. 8/4 In only one small parish, with about 150 people,..had there been any attempt at what he called ritual. 1875Pusey in Liddon Life (1897) IV. 279 He had not heard of Ritual being excepted against by the congregation when there was not fussiness or self-consciousness or some like fault. 1883W. H. Rich-Jones Introd. Reg. S. Osmund (Rolls) I. p. xxxvi, Of course it was an age in which much of the general teaching was by outward ritual. 1923J. S. Huxley in Jrnl. Linnean Soc. XXXV. 255 The effect as of tension, of emotional ritual, so familiar to all those who have watched birds during courtship, is marked. 1947Chapple & Coon Princ. Anthropol. xix. 481 This question of the conditioned nature of symbols is a basic requisite to the understanding of the whole subject of ritual. 1961L. Thompson Toward Sci. of Mankind xi. 182 Hopi ritual may be viewed as a complex, but logical and ordered, whole, which expresses symbolically the Hopi conception of the universe, the law, and the life process. 1969in Halpert & Story Christmas Mumming in Newfoundland 112 ‘Ritual’ here is broadly defined as largely symbolic activity, aimed towards controlling social relations. 1971L. Neal in A. Gayle Black Aesthetic 285 Like all good ritual, its purpose is to make the audience stronger, more sensitive to the historical realities that have shaped our lives and the lives of our ancestors.
attrib.1882Wilberforce & Ashwell Life Bp. Wilberforce III. vii. 186 The appointment of the Ritual Commission. 1892Pall Mall G. 4 Aug. 7/2 The taste for ritual suits is certainly on the wane.
Comb.1868J. G. Whittier in Atlantic Monthly Feb. 221 Nor ritual-bound nor templeward Walks the free spirit of the Lord! 1930D. H. Lawrence A Propos Lady Chatterley 36 The strange priest-controlled, ritual-fulfilled condition of the earlier Egyptians. 1937M. Covarrubias Island of Bali viii. 216 The ritual-magic dances characteristic of primitive peoples.
▸ ritual abuse n. (a) abusive language of a formulaic or repetitive type; (b) harm inflicted in a ritualized or repetitive manner; (in later use) spec. (also satanic ritual abuse) = satanic abuse n. at Satanic adj. Additions
1935Amer. Anthropologist 37 479, I had two men..with me in a boatcrew on the Gulf of Carpentaria, and they maintained an almost incessant exchange of *ritual abuse, even when traveling with the launch at sea. 1980Washington Post (Nexis) 29 Apr. a10 Scenes of the ritual abuse of the bodies by the Iranians got a different order of consideration than did the merely macabre plane crash scenes. 1987ABA Jrnl. (Nexis) 1 May Many more people believe in UFOs than in ritual abuse. When you talk about black robes and human sacrifices, the case goes out the window. 1991Lang. in Society 20 398 Local rules for ritual abuse in English..in which references to your opponent's parents and family were explicitly proscribed. 1994Denver Post 9 Jan. e6/1 [He] had the misfortune to be misidentified as a practitioner of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA). |