| 释义 |
Brazil1|brəˈzɪl|
Forms: 4–7 brasile, brasill, 4–8 brasil, 5 brasyl(l)e, braysyle, 6 brasell, brasyll, brasaill, brassell, bresyle, 6–7 brazel(l, bresil(l, 7 brasel, brazile, -ill, 7– brazil.
[? a. Sp. (also Pg.) brasil or It. brasile; corresp. to F. brésil, Pr. bresil, brezilh, in OF. berzi, bresis, OIt. verzino, in med.L. ? brezellum, brasilium, bresillum, braxile: of unknown origin; perh. a corruption of an oriental name of the dye-wood originally so called. On the discovery of an allied species, also yielding a dye, in South America, the territory where it grew was called terra de brasil, ‘red-dye-wood land’, afterwards abbreviated to Brasil ‘Brazil’. Brazil-wood was thus not named from the country, but the converse was the case. Formerly pronounced in Eng. ˈbrazil, as shown by rimes and spellings.
Conjectural etymologies are F. briser to break, brésiller to crumble (as if the wood arrived in a broken state); also F. braise, Sp. brasa ‘glowing coal’ (from its colour); also Arab. wars saffron, in some parts perhaps pronounced vars, vers (cf. It. verzino). See Diez, Littré.]
I. The substance.
1. Originally, the name of the hard brownish-red wood of an East Indian tree, known as Sappan (Cæsalpinia Sappan), from which dyers obtain a red colour. After the discovery of the New World, the name was extended and gradually transferred to the similar wood of a South American species (C. echinata), which has given its name to the land of Brazil, and to other species, natives of the West Indies and Central America, ‘all valuable to the dyer, producing various tints of red, orange, and peach colour’.
1386[see 2]. c1440Promp. Parv. 47 Brasyle, gaudo uel lignum Alexandrinum. 1544R. Ascham Toxoph. (Arb.) 113 As for brasell, Elme, Wych and Asshe, experience doth proue them to be but meane for bowes. 1553Eden Treat. New Ind. (Arb.) 20 Presilium or brasyll, cometh from Darnasseri..almost cc. leages from Calicut. 1553― Decades W. Ind. i. iv. (Arb.) 80 None other trees then brasile, whiche the Italians caule Verzino. Ibid. 199 Of the bresyle. 1594Blundevil Exerc. v. (ed. 7) 570 The Province Brasilia tooke his name of the wood called Brasill. 1623S. Harwood Propag. Plants iii. ii. (1668) 85 A little hand-bill..helved of Ivory, box, or brasil. 1801Strutt Sports & Past. ii. i. 53 Bows were sometimes made of brazil.
b. Now usually called Brazil-wood.
1530Palsgr. 200/2 Brasell tre to dye with, bresil. 1559Morwyng Evonym. 209 Of the coloure of the bresill wode. 1604E. G. tr. Acosta's Hist. Indies iv. xxix. 289, 130 quintalles of Bresill wood. 1678Salmon Pharmacop. Lond. iv. 38 Brasil shrub, cold and dry and astringent. 1732Acc. Workhouses 86 Grinding Brazil Wood, and other things for dying. 1853Th. Ross tr. Humboldt's Trav. III. xxvii. 141 To mark the finest trunks of Brazil-wood. 1868Treas. Bot. 188.
c. attrib. Of Brazil-wood; also fig.
1577Will of W. Olyuer (Somerset Ho.), Unto John Maclee my brasyll staffe. 1598Marston Met. Pigmalion's Image Sat. 2. 145 Blesse his sweet honour's running brasell boule. 1613W. Browne Brit. Past. ii. iii. (1772) II. 118 Her left hand held a knotty Brasill bow. 1624T. Scot 2d Pt. Vox Pop. 7 Resting himselfe vpon a little Brasill staffe. 1710Lond. Gaz. No. 4654/3, 1 Coffee-Pot with a Brasil Handle.
d. Taken as the type of hardness (whence formerly turned into bowls for bowling): thence the simile as hard as brazil still common dialectally, and sometimes explained as referring to the next word. Pronounced |ˈbræzɪl, ˈbræz(ə)l|.
1635Quarles Embl. iii. v. (1718) 146 Are my bones brazil, or my flesh of oak? Ibid. i. x. (1718) 42 Turn thou my Brazil thoughts anew. 1877Peacock N.W. Linc. Gloss. (E.D.S.) s.v. ‘It's as hard as brazil’. 1879G. F. Jackson Shropsh. Gloss. 1879Athenæum 19 July 73 ‘As hard as Brazil’, is a common saying over a great part, perhaps the whole, of England.
†2. The dye-stuff and dye yielded by this wood.
c1386Chaucer Nun's Pr. ‘End-Link’ 13 His colour for to dyghen With brasile [-il, -ill] ne with greyn of Portyngale. c1475E.E. Misc. (1855) 77 To make brasyle to flouryche letterys or to reule with bokys. 1532–3Act. 24 Hen. VIII, ii, Diers..haue vsed deceyuable waies in dyeng with brasell and such other lyke subtilties. 1546Inv. Ch. Goods Surrey 107 Item for brassell xijd. 1578Lyte Dodoens v. ii. 547 One may write as faire a red as with roset made of Brasill. 1627Bacon Sylva §857 A small Quantity of Saffron will Tinct more then a very great Quantity of Brasil. 1669W. Simpson Hydrol. Chym. 41 The Alkalizate Salts are used..in water for the extraction of Brasil.
b. transf. Stuff dyed with brazil, ‘scarlet’ cloth.
1389R. Wimbeldon Serm. (Helmingham MS. 34. See also Foxe A. & M. I. 626/1) Allas, allas, þat greete cite þat was cloþid wiþ bys and purpur and brasile [Rev. xviii. 16 κόκκινον, cocco, ‘scarlet’].
c. attrib.
a1600in Nichols Progr. Q. Eliz. III. 510 A saufegarde of brasell-colour. 1703Art's Improv. I. 28 Wash it over several times with Brasil Water, till you like the Colour.
II. The country, and its products.
3. A large country of South America, also called ‘the Brazils’. Also attrib. and in comb.
1555Eden Decades W. Ind. (Arb.) 385 The Portugales..sayle to America or the lande of Brasile. 1709Lond. Gaz. No. 4532/3 Loaden..with Brazil-Sugar. 1712W. Rogers Voy. (1718) 53 The Portuguese nam'd it Brazile, from the red wood of that name. 1864Times 26 Oct., A first-class railway for the Brazils. 1875Bedford Sailor's Pocket-bk. iv. (ed. 2) 108 The Brazil Current is a branch of the Equatorial. 1883Burton & Cameron To Gold Coast I. i. 18 The voyager bound Brazilwards.
4. Brazil-nut: the seed of Bertholletia excelsa (family Lecythidaceæ), a lofty tree which forms large forests in Brazil; the fruit consists of a round wooden capsule, packed with about two dozen of these triquetrous ‘nuts’.
1830Lindley Nat. Syst. Bot. 116 The Souari..Nuts, or Brazil Nuts of the shops, the kernel of which is one of the most delicious fruits of the nut kind. 1852Th. Ross tr. Humboldt's Trav. II. xxiii. 390 Juvia-trees, which furnish the triangular nuts called in Europe the almonds of the Amazon, or Brazil-nuts. 1864Bates Nat. Amazon viii. 230 Colossal examples of the Brazil nut tree.
Hence Braˈzilian a. and n.
1607Topsell Four-f. Beasts 19 By Brasilians..they are..called Sagoines. Ibid. 705, I take it to be a Brasilian Hedghog. 1628Drake World Encompassed 14 It is not likely that many doe use it to that end, which the Brasilians doe. c1650in Phenix (1708) II. 364 Those barbarous Brasilians. 1769Watson in Phil. Trans. LIX. 380 The Brasilean plants. 1825C. Waterton Wanderings in S. Amer. ii. 95 The Brazilians were told, that..education would go on. 1836Marryat Pirate vii, There were..Brazilians. 1851K. H. Digby Compitum V. viii. 313 Accompanying him to the Brazilian frontier. 1860[see Argentine n.2 1]. a1910W. James Mem. & Stud. (1911) i. 9 Certain officials of the Brazilian empire smiled. 1961G. Durrell Whispering Land vi. 153 Two pigmy Brazilian rabbits, with ginger paws and white spectacles of fur round their eyes. |