| 释义 |
‖ ˈblatta
Also anglicized in 7 blat.
[L.]
1. By Roman writers and their translators applied to various insects shunning the light: a kind of moth, mite, or beetle. Vaguely and empirically used by 17th c. writers, but at length specialized as the generic name of the Cockroach.
1601Holland Pliny II. 370 Two or three of these flies called Blattæ sodden in oile, make a soueraigne medicine to cure the eares. 1658Rowland Mouffet's Theat. Ins. 998 There are three sorts of Blattæ; the soft Moth, the mill Moth, and the unsavoury or stinking Moth. Ibid. The worms of the belly some call Blattæ. Cardanus in one place calleth the worms that breed in meal or bran, Blattæ... The Blatta is an Insect flying in the night, like to a Beetle, but wanteth the sheath wings. 1796Stedman Surinam (1813) II. xxiii. 179 Destroyed by the blata or cockroaches. 1816Kirby & Sp. Entomol. (1843) I. 222 The all devouring Blatta or cockroach. 1830Lyell Princ. Geol. (1832) II. 148 The devastation of the ants and blattæ.
2. Purple; purple silk.
1658Rowland Mouffet's Theat. Ins. 999 Much variety of opinion there is..of the colour of the Blat Moth, or the Blattean colour. For if these Insects..are the Blattæ truly so called, why should not the black be the Blat colour, rather than red purple colours? 1876Rock Text. Fabr. v. 39 The costly purple-dyed silks called ‘blatta.’ |