| 释义 |
savannah|səˈvænə|
Forms: 6 zavana, 7 savanar, savanah, pl. savanæ, 7–8, 20 savana, 7– savanna, savannah.
[In 16th c. zavana, a. Sp. zavana, çavana, given by Oviedo 1535 as a Carib word. The later form savana (mod. Sp. sabana) is an instance of the usual N. American Sp. substitution of s for z. Cf. F. savane, G. savanne.
The Sp. sabána savanna is not, as has been supposed, the same as sábana sheet. The difference in accent is shown by verse examples to have existed already in the 16th c.; and the words originally began with different consonants.]
1. a. A treeless plain; properly, one of those found in various parts of tropical America. In mod. use, an open plain of long grass, freq. with scattered drought-resistant trees, such as is characteristic of certain tropical and subtropical regions having distinct wet and dry seasons; grassland or vegetation of this kind.
1555Eden Decades iii. iii. (Arb.) 148 Hauynge towarde the southe a playne of twelue leages in breadth and veary frutefull. This playne, they caule Zauana. 1604E. G[rimstone] D'Acosta's Hist. Indies iv. xxx. 291 The plaines, which they call Savanas. 1655I. S. Brief Jrnl. Proc. Army W. Indies 18 Open ground and plaine Fields, or Savanars as they there call them. 1661Hickeringill Jamaica 13 Nor are the Woods a more plentiful Nursery for the Hoggs then the Savana's are for the Beeves and wild Cattel. 1672Sir W. Talbot Discov. John Lederer 25 The Woods being full of Fallow, and Savanæ of Red-Deer. 1697W. Dampier Voy. I. 87 In the Bay of Campeachy are very large Savanahs, which I have seen full of Cattle. 1699Ibid. II. ii. 53 The neighbouring Savannahs. 1719De Foe Crusoe i. 115 On the Bank of this Brook I found many pleasant Savana's, or Meadows, plain, smooth, and cover'd with Grass. 1753Washington Jrnl. Writ. 1889 I. 17 He told me that the nearest and levellest Way was now impassable, by Reason of many large mirey Savannas. 1756P. Browne Jamaica 11 The more extended plains are commonly called Savanas. 1819T. E. Bowdich, etc. Mission to Ashantee ii. xiii. 448 The red and yellow ochres brought to me, were dug in the neighbourhood of a savannah three journies south-eastward of Empoöngwa. 1826Scott Woodst. v, Glades..anon opening yet wider into little meadows, or savannahs. 1836N. Isaacs Trav. & Adventures E. Afr. I. vi. 88 This we did for the purpose of calling at some hamlets and savannas, in our course, to obtain cattle and curiosities. 1865Parkman Huguenots iv. (1875) 57 Next came the broad sunlight and the wide savanna. 1900Doyle Gt. Boer War xiv. 235 Between these hills there lie wide stretches of the green or russet savannah. 1903W. R. Fisher tr. Schimper's Plant-Geogr. 261 Tropical grassland, wherever it has not been modified by human agency, occurs chiefly as savannah, more rarely as steppe. 1920M. E. Hardy Geogr. of Plants iii. 142 The treeless savana is called ‘campo vero’;..if the savanas are strewn with clumps of low trees, they are ‘serrados’. 1926D. H. Campbell Outl. Plant Geogr. viii. 292 The outstanding feature of this savanna was a noble fan-palm..which formed groves of considerable extent. 1955Times 28 May 7/6 The Rupununi river flows almost due north through Southern British Guiana. On either side are the wide open savannahs, broken only here and there by small clumps of stunted sandpaper bushes and groups of anthills. 1957P. Dansereau Biogeogr. ii. 73 The somewhat drier types [of climate]..show a very uneven distribution of rainfall and generally support woodland or savana. 1958L. van der Post Lost World of Kalahari vii. 123, I met a man..walking out of the bush into a long savannah of buffalo grass. 1968R. W. Fairbridge Encycl. Geomorphol. 979/2 Savanna passes in drier regions to steppe or desert, and in wetter areas into savanna woodland. 1969S. M. Sadeek Windswept & Other Stories 29 The cart rolled on..into the savannah of sagebush and beezie-beezie reeds and razor-grass. 1974H. F. Garner Origin of Landscapes v. 267/2 The small forest areas on savannahs differ botanically in no great measure from more continuous rain forest elsewhere. 1976West & Augelli Middle Amer. (ed. 2) ii. 47/1 One of the most puzzling features of the natural vegetation in the tropical rainy areas of Middle America is the presence of large expanses of grassland, called ‘savannas’, in areas that receive as much as 80 to 100 inches of rain annually, with no dry period or a quite short one... The largest of the humid savannas is found along the Caribbean margin of Nicaragua and northeastern Honduras.
fig.1866N. & Q. Ser. iii. IX. 273/1 The allusions..so profusely scattered through the vast savannahs of literature. 1893F. Thompson Poems 49 Whether they swept, smoothly fleet, The long savannahs of the blue.
b. spec. In the West Indies and Guyana, a particular tract of such land within definable limits; a meadow, a paddock.
1934J. Rhys Voyage in Dark i. i. 4 When the black women sell fishcakes on the savannah they carry them in trays on their heads. 1952S. Selvon Brighter Sun i. 13 Opposite the school was a large savannah on which cattle and donkeys grazed. 1960Tamarack Rev. XIV. 48 Mittelholzer..took a walk every evening about five or six around the Port-of-Spain savannah. 1964S. M. Sadeek Windswept & Other Stories (1969) 19 You don't have to go galavanting the settlements and savannahs like some coot.
2. (See quots.)
1827O. W. Roberts Voy. Centr. Amer. 113 Close to an extensive and beautiful pine savannah. Ibid. 114, I had a long walk into the savannah, which is pretty closely covered with detached clumps of pine trees of all ages and sizes. 1865Reader 23 Sept. 236/3 The army has been moving through magnificent pine-woods—the savannahs of the South, as they are termed.
3. U.S. A tract of low-lying damp or marshy ground.
1671in S. Carolina Hist. Soc. Coll. (1897) V. 333 You will finde..great Creeks, mar[s]hes, or Savanoes on the other side. 1737J. Wesley Jrnl. 2 Dec. (1910) I. 401 There is a little [soil] of a better kind, especially in the savannahs,..so they call the low, watery meadows, which are usually intermixed with pine-lands. 1895Dialect Notes I. 380 Savannah, stretch of bog or moorland. 1905Bull. Bureau of Forestry (U.S. Dept. Agric.) No. 64. 7 Loblolly is the first pine to take possession of the savannas, or marshy pairies. 1938J. R. Carpenter Ecol. Gloss. 236 Savannah, a tract of damp level land with a growth of grass or reeds (S[outhern] U.S.).
4. attrib.
a. simple attrib.
1697W. Dampier Voy. I. 50 Plain even Savanah Land, without any Trees. 1719De Foe Crusoe i. (Globe) 110, The open or Savana Fields. 1844Mrs. Browning Sonn., ‘O Dreary Life’ 7 Savannah-swards Unweary sweep. 1867Latham Black & White 118 ‘Savanna land’, meaning wet land.
b. In the names of birds, plants, etc.: savannah bird, blackbird, the Crotophaga ani of the West Indies; † savannah crane, ? the Whooping Crane, Grus americana; † savannah finch, the grasshopper-sparrow of the U.S., Coturniculus passerinus; savannah flower, ‘a West Indian name for various species of Echites’ (Treas. Bot. 1866); savannah fox (see quot.); savannah sparrow, a sparrow of the genus Passerculus, esp. P. savanna, common throughout the greater part of North America; savannah-wattle, the West Indian trees Citharexylum quadrangulare and C. cinereum; † savannah woodcock, Latham's name for Gallinago undulata.
1694Ray in Lett. Lit. Men (Camden) 200 In referring the *Savanna bird to the Lark-kind. 1725Sloane Jamaica II. 306 The Savanna Bird..is four Inches long [etc.].
1862Wood Illustr. Nat. Hist. II. 569 The food of the *Savannah Blackbird is mostly of an animal nature.
1791W. Bartram Carolina 220 Amongst other game, they brought with them a *savanna crane which they shot in the adjoining meadows.
1783Latham Synopsis Birds III. 270 *Savanna Finch.
1696Sloane Catal. Plant. Jamaica 89 *Savanna Flour. 1756P. Browne Jamaica 182 The Savanna Flower. This plant is common in the Savannas about Kingston. 1852G. W. Johnson Cottage Gard. Dict. 350 Echites suberecta (..Savannah flower).
1879Wood Waterton's Wanderings 412 Fox (Vulpes cancrivora).—This animal is generally called *Savannah Fox by the colonists, and Mikang by the natives.
1808–13A. Wilson Amer. Ornith. (1831) II. 249 Fringilla savanna, Wilson.—*Savannah sparrow. Ibid., The female of the Savannah sparrow is five inches and a half long.
1864Grisebach Flora W. Ind. Islands 787 *Savannah-wattle.
1785Latham Synopsis Birds V. 132 *Savanna Woodcock.
c. Special Combs.: savannah forest, woodland, grassland similar to savannah but with a denser growth of trees, though not enough to provide continuous cover; savannah grass, a stoloniferous carpet grass, Axonopus compressus, native to tropical and subtropical America.
1903W. R. Fisher tr. Schimper's Plant-Geogr. 260 The *Savannah-forest..is more or less leafless during the dry season, rarely evergreen, is xerophilous in character, usually, often much, less than twenty meters high, park-like, very poor in underwood, lianes, and epiphytes, rich in terrestrial herbs, especially in grasses. 1958G. Lienhardt in Middleton & Tait Tribes without Rulers 99 Boundaries between different political communities are often not apparent to the eye in such savannah-forest areas.
1756P. Browne Civil & Nat. Hist. Jamaica 137 The small *Savannah Grass with echinated valves..grows in the Savanna about Kingston. 1859G. W. Perry Turpentine Farming 9 Every kind of turf should be turned over, such as..wire grass, savanna grass, and broom-sage grass. 1954Farmer's Guide (Jamaica Agric. Soc.) 232 Savannah Grass—Carpet Grass (Axonopus compressus)... In the West Indies it is an important pasture grass. 1970A. T. Semple Grassland Improvement viii. 177 In Malaya, fertilizer trials with savanna grass..showed a marked response. 1976P. D. Driscoll Barboza Credentials v. iv. 233 A parade-ground, now overgrown with savanna grass.
1903W. R. Fisher tr. Schimper's Plant-Geogr. 836/2 (Index), *Savannah woodland. 1960N. Polunin Introd. Plant Geogr. xiv. 442 Savanna-woodland..is found very widely in tropical and subtropical regions including much of Cuba and elsewhere in the Caribbean, Brazil and northern Argentina, East and central Africa.., and occupying much of India and China as well as of northern and eastern Australia. 1968Savannah woodland [see sense 1]. |