| 释义 |
burn-
The verb or verb-stem in composition forming ns. or adjs.
1. With verb + object, as burn-grain adj.; † burn-cow, transl. Gr. βούπρηστις (an insect, also a herb, injurious to cattle), cf. burst-cow, buprestis; burn-grange (Sc.), one who sets fire to barns; burn-the-wind, burnewin, a Sc. designation for a blacksmith.
1658Rowland Mouffet's Theat. Ins. 1000 The Latines retain the Greek name of Buprestis..But I..do adventure to call it by a new name in English, *Burncow, or Burstcow. 1783Ainsworth Lat. Dict. (Morell) ii, Also a sort of herb which kills cattle; the burncow.
1598Sylvester Du Bartas ii. i. Furies 165 (D.) Turning our seed-wheat-kernel To *burn-grain thistle.
a1500Colkelbie Sow i. v. 92 (Jam.) Ane ypocreit in haly kirk, A *burn-grenge in the dirk.
1785Burns Scotch Drink x, Then *Burnewin comes on like death. 1828Scott F.M. Perth I. ii. 57 Thou hast had a quarrel with some Edinburgh Burn-the-wind.
2. With the verb used attrib. = burning; as † burn-coal, † burn-wood; also burn-fire (dial.), perversion of bonfire; burn-iron, Sc. burn-airn, a branding-iron; burn-stick (see quot.); burn-weed = thorn-apple, Datura stramonium.
1597Sc. Acts, Jas. VI, §253 (title) Great *burne Coale, suld not be transported furth of this realm. 1609Skene Reg. Maj. 152 Burne coalis.
1708W. King Cookery 37 Not to make his *burnfire at the upper end of Ludgate street. c1750J. Nelson Jrnl. (1836) 96 Monday being a rejoicing day, they had burn-fires in the market place.
1485Inv. in Ripon Ch. Acts 373 Ij *birne iron et j markyng iron 4d.
1675Cotton Poet. Wks. (1765) 202 I'll make a *Burn-mark with a T.
1847–78Halliwell Dict., *Burn-stick, a crooked stick, on which a large piece of coal is daily carried from the pit by each working collier over his shoulder for his own private use.
1756P. Browne Jamaica, The Thorn-apple or *Burn-weed. All the parts of this plant are remarkably narcotic.
1701Brand Zetland 92 (Jam.) The inhabitants make use of the wrack [of ships] for *burn-wood.
3. With the verb + adv., as burn-off (cf. burn v.1 13 f); burn-out, (a) a complete destruction by fire; also = burn n.3 1 c; (b) Electr., the fusing of a wire or other electric conductor by excess of electric current; also attrib., as burn-out fuse, burn-out alloy, one that melts at a comparatively low temperature and serves as a safeguard against damage by excess of current; (c) (the moment of) final consumption of fuel by a space rocket, etc.; also attrib.; (d) orig. U.S., physical or emotional exhaustion, esp. caused by stress at work; depression, disillusionment; cf. to burn oneself out s.v. burn v.1 2 c; burn-up, (a) the consumption of fuel in a nuclear reactor; (b) slang, a ride on a motor-cycle, etc., at an extremely high speed (cf. scorch v.1 3).
1861W. Morgan Jrnl. 27 Feb. (1963) iii. 28 Not an over excellent *burn off—there having been of late a good deal of wet. 1869J. May May's Guide to Farming in N.Z. 18 In due time we fired it [the bush], and had the satisfaction of having a clean burn-off. 1933Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Dec. 28/2 A good burn-off gets rid of a lot of rubbish in the form of insects and other pests, but it also destroys the organic matter (i.e., humus) without which no soil can be cropped successfully.
1903Daily Chron. 29 June 7/5 It has been a *burn-out of three floors and roof destroyed. 1907Installation News Mar. 4/1 Incipient fires and burnouts, due to the earthing of high voltage systems on building fronts, etc. 1940W. Stegner in Atlantic Monthly June 774/1 Even without shoes he would have run across burnouts, over stretches so undermined with gopher holes that sometimes he broke through to the ankle. 1941― in Harper's Mag. Jan. 160/1 The topless Ford lurched, one wheel at a time, through the deep burnout. 1952Jrnl. Brit. Interplan. Soc. XI. 10 Ideal performance of multi-stage vehicles is secured if..the burnout weights of each stage form a geometric progression. 1953Time 14 Sept. 89/2 The three tons of fuel lasted less than three minutes. At ‘burnout’, Carl was at 75,000 ft. 1957Spaceflight I. 64/2 Four wings provide the lift necessary for controlled flight and four small fins at the rear are used for steering after burn-out. 1975H. J. Freudenberger in Psychotherapy XII. 73/1 Some years ago, a few of us who had been working intensively in the free clinic movement began to talk of a concept which we referred to as ‘burn-out’. 1978Hospital & Community Psychiatry XXIX. 233 (heading) Characteristics of staff burnout in mental health settings. 1986Sun 3 Nov. 19/4 It has happened so often, it is now known in medical circles as ‘AIDS burnout’.
1954R. Stephenson Introd. Nucl. Engineering vii. 276 As a reactor continues to operate, the fissionable material is gradually used up and the reactivity may decrease accordingly. This is known as fuel depletion, or *burnup. 1959New Scientist 29 Jan. 239/1 A major aim is to obtain a large ‘burn up’—in other words to use up as large a proportion of the fuel as possible between refuelling operations. 1961Guardian 18 Mar. 2/3 If I was going for a real burn-up, you wouldn't have caught me. 1963A. Prior Z Cars Again iii. 26 Ton-up boys were doing early morning burn-ups at the Turntable Roundabout.
▸ burn rate n. (a) the rate at which a combustible material burns; (b) Business colloq. the rate at which a company spends capital, esp. when regarded as out of proportion to its earnings or income (cf. burn v.1 8d).
1963Jrnl. Soc. Industr. & Appl. Math. 11 412 Depending on the *burn rate, and when the burning is restarted, this second wave may or may not reach the steady state represented by C in Fig. 1. 1984Business Week (Nexis) 10 Sept. 78 Rumors began to fly around..about ‘the very high burn rate in cash consumption’. 1998Wired June 118/2 Your burn rate is running at—what? I would figure near a million a month. |