| 释义 |
caducous, a.|kəˈdjuːkəs|
[f. L. cadūcus falling, fleeting, etc. (f. cadĕre to fall) + -ous.]
1. Zool. and Bot. Applied to organs or parts that fall off naturally when they have served their purpose; fugacious, deciduous.
1808Roxburgh E. Ind. Butter Tree in Asiat. Researches VIII. 500 Stipules..minute and caducous. 1835Lindley Introd. Bot. (1848) II. 206 Fugacious, or caducous [leaves]. 1859Todd Cycl. Anat. & Phys. V. 659/1 The placenta and other structures..become caducous.
2. Fleeting, transitory; = caduke 2.
1863J. C. Morison St. Bernard ii. iii. 229 Monasticism..was temporary, caducous, and charged with germs of evil.
3. Roman Law. Applied to testamentary gifts which for some reason lapsed from the donee.
1880Muirhead Gaius ii. §206 The lapsed share becomes caducous, and falls to those persons named in the testament who happen to have children. 1880― Ulpian xvii. §1 A testamentary gift which..he to whom it was left has failed to take, although so left that according to the rules of the ius ciuile he might have taken it, is called caducous.
†4. Subject to the ‘falling sickness’, epileptic.
1684tr. Bonet's Merc. Compit. v. 144 Treat the caducous but roughly, and disturb the manner of the Paroxysm. |