| 释义 |
breathed, ppl. a.
[f. breathe v. and breath n. + -ed. In early instances it is not easy to separate the verbal from the noun-derivative, nor to fix the pronunciation.]
I. From the vb. (now briːðd, ˈbriːðɪd).
1. Exercised, put into breath, in (good) wind; esp. in well-breathed, and the like.
1430Lydg. Chron. Troy i. vi, Though he be best brethed to endure. 1525Ld. Berners Froiss. II. cxxxvi. [cxxxii.] 380 Rode forthe an easy passe to kepe their horses well brethed. 1596Shakes. Tam. Shr. Induct. ii, Thy gray⁓hounds are as swift As breathed Stags. 1637Heywood Roy. King v. ix. Wks. 1874 VI. 79 The Falcon better breath'd, seiz'd on the Eagle. 1678R. Lestrange Seneca's Mor. (1702) 343 A Footman that is not breath'd, cannot keep pace with his Master's Horse. 1704Pope Windsor F. 121 To plains with well-breath'd beagles we repair.
b. fig. † lust-breathed (in Shakes.): animated or inspired by lust, or breathing lust (cf. well-read, fair-spoken).
1594Shakes. Lucr. 3 Lust-breathed Tarquin. 1607― Timon i. i. 10 A most incomparable man, breath'd as it were, To an vntyreable and continuate goodness. 1647Ward Simp. Cobler 14 It is a most toylsome taske to runne the wild-goose chase after a well breath'd Opinionist. 1681Dryden Abs. & Achit. 631 To speak the rest, who better are forgot, Would tire a well breath'd Witness of the Plot.
2. Put out of breath, exhausted, winded.
1599Porter Angry Wom. Abingd. in Hazl. Dodsley VII. 358 As good as a cry of hounds, to make a breath'd hare of me!
3. Exhaled, respired, inhaled and exhaled; uttered in a breath, whispered.
1579Spenser Sheph. Cal. Jan. 40 The blossome..With breathed sighes is blowne away, and blasted. 1596― F.Q. ii. iii. 7 Vile Caytiue..Vnworthie of the commune breathed aire. 1629Milton Ode Nativity 179 No nightly trance, or breathed spell, Inspires the pale-eyed priest. 1861Smiles Engineers II. 220 The exhausted or breathed air.
4. Of wind-instruments: Played upon; cf. breathe v. 15. poet.
1822Proctor (B. Cornwall) Lud. Sforza i. 16 Like numbers floating from the breathed flute.
†5. breathed ware: ? tarnished goods; ‘braided ware’.
1661Davenport City Nt.-Cap iv. in Dodsley (1780) XI. 326 We vent no breath'd ware here.
II. From the n. |brɛθt|.
6. Having breath; as in long-breathed: long-winded, or long-lived. (The two early quots. are doubtful.)
1555Fardle Facions ii. xi. 260 Damoselles..softe as the Silke, and breathed like the Rose. 1628Earle Microcosm. xviii. 38 The rooms are ill breath'd. 1649Selden Laws Eng. i. lxiv. (1739) 132 Had the King been a little longer breathed with patience, he might have had his will upon easier terms. 1816Scott Antiq. xxi, ‘They werena a lang breathed generation, I reckon’. 1884Mind Jan. 125 It requires a long-breathed reader to accompany him through his devious course.
7. Phonology. Uttered with breath as opposed to voice; surd; cf. sonant.
1877Sweet Handbk. Phonetics 31 Consonants can therefore be breathed as well as voiced. |