| 释义 |
▪ I. senile, a.|ˈsiːnaɪl|
[ad. L. senīlis, f. sen-em, senex old man: see -ile. Cf. F. sénile (16th c.).]
1. a. Belonging to, suited for or incident to old age. Now only of diseases, etc.: Peculiar to the aged.
1661Boyle Style of Script. To Rdr. 2 A Person in whom Nature, Education, and Time have happily Match'd a Senile Maturity of Judgement with a Youthfull Vigour of Phansie. 1797Jefferson Writ. (1859) IV. 192 To exchange the roar and tumult of bulls and bears, for the prattle of my grand-children and senile rest. 1866A. Flint Princ. Med. (1880) 284 The form of emphysema distinguished as atrophous or senile. 1874H. Maudsley Mental Dis. iii. 83 Senile insanity. 1875B. W. Richardson Dis. Mod. Life 108 There is local death, or what is called senile gangrene.
b. Path. senile dementia, a severe form of senile deterioration, in which loss of memory, disorientation in time and space, and inability to cope with everyday life are strongly marked. Hence senile dement, one who suffers from this. Cf. dementia.
1851R. Dunglison Dict. Med. Sci. (ed. 8) 276/1 Senile dementia, Insanity of the aged, a form of moral insanity, in which the whole moral character of the individual is changed. 1902A. R. Defendorf Kraepelin's Clin. Psychiatry viii. 273 Senile dementia includes those forms of mental disease appearing in the period of involution. 1948W. A. O'Connor Psychiatry xii. 269 The senile dement exhibits to a profound degree the characteristic failings of the deteriorated senile person. 1954W. Mayer-Gross et al. Clin. Psychiatry xi. 482 The two pictures of senile dementia and normal ageing are qualitatively different and must be distinguished. 1976Scotsman 20 Nov. (Weekend Suppl.) 3/4 Laing comments on this: ‘I am sure he was not suffering from senile dementia, nor was it a slip of the pen.’
2. Exhibiting the weakness of old age.
1848Thackeray Van. Fair xx, Dobbin was not a little affected by the sight of this once kind old friend,..raving with senile anger. 1882M. E. Braddon Mt. Royal I. iii. 73 Your snaky Vivien, and your senile Merlin. 1902Monkshood & Gamble Kipling 289 Certain supposedly effective ships of battle are senile, and others are yet unborn.
3. Phys. Geog. Approaching the end of a cycle of erosion.
1902Webster Suppl., Senile stream,..a stream whose valley is reduced so nearly to base level that its longitudinal profile is flat and its current feeble. Senile topography,..the configuration of land which prolonged degradation has reduced nearly to a base-level plain.
Hence ˈsenilely adv.
1898Punch 2 July 309/2 Yet he never whineth, he'll senilely say.
▪ II. senile, n.|ˈsiːnaɪl|
[f. the adj.]
An aged person; one who exhibits the weakness or diseases of old age.
1938N. Cameron in Amer. Jrnl. Psychol. LI. 664 The seniles..exhibited..the loose cluster-form of organization (asyndesis). 1962Lancet 8 Dec. 1212/2 Of every 100 potential long-stay male patients, 30 were schizophrenics, 21 seniles, and 12 manic-depressives. 1981J. B. Hilton Playground of Death v. 67 The old girl was well into her eighties... You never know where you stand with these so-called seniles. |