| 释义 |
bight|baɪt|
Also 4 byȝt, 5 bycht, 6 byght, 7 beight, 7–9 bite.
[OE. byht bend, masc., corresp. to MLG. bucht (whence mod.G. bucht ‘bay, bight,’ mod.Du. bocht, also Da., Sw. bugt):—OTeut. *buhti-z, f. būgan to bow. OE. byht ‘bend’ appears to occur in Cod. Dipl. 538 and App. 308. It is to be distinguished from the poetic byht abode, corresp. to ON. bygð, from byggja to dwell, inhabit. See also bought n.]
1. A bending or bend; esp. an angle, hollow, or fork in the human or animal body; a corner.
967Cod. Dipl. 538 (Bosw.), Andlang norþᵹeardes ðæt hit cymþ in ðone byht. c1340Gaw. & Gr. Knt. 1349 Bi þe byȝt al of þe þyȝes. c1400Rel. Ant. I. 190 In the byȝt of the harme. 1523Fitzherb. Husb. §132 Dresse the wodde and bowe it clene and cutte it at euery byghte. 1674Ray N.C. Words., Beight of the Elbow: Bending of the Elbow. Cheshire. 1721Bailey, Bight [of a Horse] is the inward bent of the Chambrel: also the bent of the Knees in the Fore-legs. [So in subseq. Dicts.]
2. esp. The loop of a rope, as distinguished from its ends; the part between the ends.
1622R. Hawkins Voy. S. Sea (1847) 132 With our capsten [we] stretched the two byghtes. 1769Falconer Dict. Marine (1789), Bight, the double part of a rope when it is folded..as, her anchor hooked the bight of our cable. 1812Examiner 9 Nov. 720/1 The bite of a whale-line having..caught his leg. 1833Marryat P. Simple (1863) 242 To put the little beast into the bight of a rope, and tow him overboard. 1875Buckland Log-bk. 290 Catch him round the neck with the bight of a rope.
3. a. A bend or curve as a geographical feature, e.g. an indentation in a coast line, a corner or recess of a bay, a bend in a river, etc. Also, an indentation or bay in a mass of ice.
1481in Ripon Ch. Acts 344 Sleningford Bygh. 1555Eden Decades W. Ind. (Arb.) 381 In the byght of a bay. 1622Hawkins Voy. S. Sea (1847) 180 We found presently in the westerne bight of the bay a deepe river. 1725De Foe Voy. round World (1840) 146 In the very bite or nook of the bay there was a great inlet of water. 1818W. Scoresby in Memoirs Wernerian Nat. Hist. Soc. II. 266 A bight signifies a bay or sinuosity, on the border of any large mass or body of ice. 1852Conybeare & H. St. Paul (1862) I. v. 135 The town was situated on a bight of the coast. 1876Morris Sigurd ii. 165 The bight of the swirling river. Ibid. iii. 326 Far off in a bight of the mountains. 1956Armstrong & Roberts Illustr. Ice Gloss. 5 Bight, an extensive crescent-shaped indentation in the ice-edge, formed either by wind or current.
b. transf. and fig.
1851Sir F. Palgrave Norm. & Eng. I. 30 Bights and bends in the great stream of Time. 1878Masque Poets 121 Larded with talk and tallow In the bight of the afternoon.
4. The space between two headlands, a bay, generally a shallow or slightly-receding bay; spec. in the Bights of Benin and Biafra, and the Australian Bight; also transf. a bay-like segment.
1555Eden Decades W. Ind. (Arb.) 380 There is a byght or bay as thowgh it were a harborowe. 1725De Foe Voy. round World (1840) 194 We ran boldly into the bay, and came to an anchor in that which they call the Bite, or little bay. 1769Falconer Dict. Marine (1789), Bight, is also a small bay between two points of land. 1833M. Scott Tom Cringle xvii. (1859) 447 The glowing mirror of the calm bight. 1864D. Mitchell Wet Days Edgew. 43, I see there is a bight of blue in the sky. 1878K. Johnston Africa xi. (1884) §15 Fernando Po, near the head of the Bight of Biafra. 1879Stevenson Trav. Cevennes 190, I spied a bight of meadow..in an angle of the river. |