| 释义 |
carrier|ˈkærɪə(r)|
Forms: 5 caryare, -our, 5–6 -er, 6 cariar, -ier, carryar, 6–7 -er, 6– carrier.
[f. carry v. + -er1.]
1. a. One who or that which carries, in various senses of the verb; a bearer.
1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. v. lxi. (1495) 178 A veyne is berer and caryer of blode. c1440Promp. Parv. 62 Caryare, vector, vectitor. 1571Golding Calvin on Ps. lxxiv. 16 The sonne as the cheef caryer thereof [i.e. of light]. 1580Baret Alv. C 129 A carier of letters. 1592Let. Univ. Cambridge in Payne Collier Annals Stage I. 292 The most ordinary carriers and dispensers of the infection of the plague. 1697Dryden Virg. Georg. iv. 13 Winds..will drive The loaded Carriers from their Ev'ning Hive. 1844–57G. Bird Urin. Deposits 99 Blood-discs, the reputed carriers of oxygen. 1884Spectator 12 July 913/1 To obtain carriers for the dead.
b. A bearer of a message, letter, etc.
1588Shakes. Tit. A. iv. iii. 86 What sayes Iupiter I aske thee? Why villaine art not thou the Carrier? 1598― Merry W. ii. ii. 141 This Puncke is one of Cupid's Carriers. 1621Burton Anat. Mel. iii. ii. 111, The very carrier that comes from him to her is a most welcome guest, if he bring a letter. 1774Goldsm. Nat. Hist. iv. viii, These birds are employed..as the most expeditious carriers. 18..Thackeray Fatal Boots xi, Being a letter-carrier.
c. slang. (See quot.)
1725New Cant. Dict., Carriers, a Sett of Rogues..employ'd to look out, and watch upon the Roads, at Inns, &c., in order to carry Information to their respective Gangs, of a booty in Prospect.
d. Techn. Applied to particular parts of instruments and machines which act as bearers and transmittors; in Mech. esp. a piece of iron in a lathe by which what is being turned is carried round in the machine.
1858Greener Gunnery 201 A carrier is then secured on a part of the plug that projects out of the breech-end of the barrel, and then put into the face-plate of the lathe, which carries it round. 1870Tyndall Heat iv. §114 As long as the rocker is able to communicate sufficient heat to the Carrier on which it rests. 1881Maxwell Electr. & Magn. I. 295 The moveable conductors are called Carriers.
e. A small low detached cloud, betokening rain. local.
1844[see water-wagon s.v. water n. 29]. 1884R. Lawson Upton-on-Severn Words 23 Messenger, a small detached cloud (cumulus) floating low, and supposed to betoken rain. Sometimes called a Carrier.
f. A case in which letters, etc., are enclosed for dispatch by pneumatic tube. Also, a small light capsule for carrying messages, attached to a homing pigeon.
1872Min. Proc. Inst. C.E. XXXIII. 7 The carriers for the reception of telegrams, letters, or light parcels, consist of small cylinders made of gutta percha [etc.]. 1876Ibid. XLIII. 60. 1892 Pall Mall Gaz. 18 Aug. 1/3 The actual form on which the message was written is put into a little cloth box, called a carrier, and blown through a tube to the central telegraph office. 1908H. R. Kempe Engineer's Year-Bk. 253 The carriers in which the messages are placed consist of a cylindrical tube of gutta-percha covered with felt. 1920Blackw. Mag. Dec. 762/1 He took a message form, wrote a few words on it, and taking a pigeon from the basket, fixed a carrier to its leg. 1969C. R. Hill Pet Library's Pigeon Guide i. 16 In a small waterproof envelope were message carriers, message pad and pencil.
g. A vessel which conveys fish from the fishing-ground to a port or market.
1883R. F. Walsh Irish Fisheries 16 Many plans of steam carriers have been devised and proposed... Amongst [them] is the vessel with false hold or bottom, which allows the water to pass through with a view to bringing the fish alive to market. 1896Daily News 27 Feb. 8/7 The fish..arrived in eight carriers. 1907Westm. Gaz. 25 Feb. 6/3 The ‘Speed⁓well’, a steam carrier.
h. A device for filling the magazine of a gun or rifle with a group of cartridges; a charger.
1885Marine Engineer 1 July 95/2 The carrier which draws the cartridges out of the belt, and deposits them in the feed wheel. 1901Westm. Gaz. 21 Mar. 4/3 By means of the carrier the cartridges are dropped into the magazine receptacle and the empty carrier thrown away. 1903C. B. Mayne Infantry Weapon 139 This..can only be done by rapidly loading the rifle by means of groups of cartridges temporarily held together by ‘clips’ or by ‘carriers’, also called ‘chargers’. [Note] The ‘carrier’, or ‘charger’, is a strip of tin that grips the cartridges by their projecting bases only; the ‘clip’ is a tin framework that, more or less, grips the whole cartridge-case.
i. A box, metal plate, or other contrivance attached to a bicycle or motor-cycle for carrying parcels, luggage, or a pillion-rider.
1885Naturalist's World Jan. 6 A ‘carrier’ can be fixed on to the rod supporting the seat. 1887Bury & Hillier Cycling 201 Luggage..should be carefully affixed [to the machine] by means of one or other of the carriers described elsewhere. Ibid. 429 The Carrier Cycle. 1911C. S. Lake Motor Cyclist's Handbk. 253 Luggage Carrier and Stand. It is common practice to make the carrier of tubular material. 1915B. E. Jones Motor Cycles 137 A very light carrier can be fitted, as this machine is not strong..enough for passenger-carrier riding. 1967N. Fitzgerald Affairs of Death ii. 20 The bicycle..was a new one;..to the carrier had been affixed a small bundle.
j. A substance used as a base or supporting medium.
(i) An insoluble substance (e.g. barytes, china clay, gypsum) used as a base to receive the colouring matter in the preparation of certain pigments.
1892G. H. Hurst Painters' Colours 268 The base or carrier exerts a most important influence on the value of the lake as a pigment. 1915J. C. Smith Manuf. Paint (ed. 2) 170 Many so-called lakes consist simply of a carrier..saturated with a soluble dye.
(ii) Chem. A supporting medium for a catalyst.
1923E. E. Reid tr. Sabatier's Catalysis in Org. Chem. §946 It is best to use the palladium precipitated on an inert carrier. 1943H. Gilman Org. Chem. (ed. 2) I. ix. 785 Asbestos has also been employed as a carrier for platinum black.
(iii) An inert gas used to convey volatile material, esp. in chromatographic analysis. Also carrier gas.
1940Nature 27 July 129/1 The vapour of the iodides at low pressure..and diluted with a carrier gas..was passed through a tube. 1955L. B. Loeb Basic Processes of Gaseous Electronics ii. 185 Since carriers in gases are in constant contact with the ambient gas molecules, they partake of the random chaotic heat motions of the molecules. 1956Nature 14 Jan. 84/2 Low-boiling materials prove difficult to remove from the carrier-gas stream. 1959R. L. Pecsok Gas Chromatogr. i. 5 A carrier gas containing the vapor of a substance..is passed through the column.
(iv) A substance (usu. non-radioactive) that will carry a trace of a substance of similar chemical properties (but usu. radioactive) with it through a chemical or physical reaction.
1947M. D. Kamen Radioactive Tracers ii. 38 It is usual to add small quantities..of the element to be purified so that ordinary chemical manipulation is possible... Such material is called ‘carrier’. 1950Thorpe's Dict. Appl. Chem. X. 432/1 The carrier is simply a macroscopic concentration of an ion of similar properties to the tracer component. 1953A. F. Rupp in J. R. Bradford Radioisotopes ix. 170 It is..desirable to produce as many radioisotopes as possible by other processes in which they are obtained carrier-free, or nearly so. Ibid. 183 Carrier-free separation of radioisotopes by adsorption of radiocolloids. 1959C. E. Francis et al. Isotopic Tracers (ed. 2) iii. 42 If this radioactive isotope is purified and separated from any ‘carrier’ or non-radioactive isotope of the same element, it is described as carrier-free.
(v) A substance that transports an ion across a cell membrane.
1957H. H. Ussing in Q. R. Murphy Metab. Aspects of Transport across Cell Membranes iii. 52 The principal property of the hypothetical membrane-carrier is to bind specifically the ion to be transported. 1964G. H. Haggis Introd. Molecular Biol. vi. 181 The number of carrier molecules required to account for known membrane effects is so small that it may be impossible to detect their presence among membrane lipids by current chemical methods.
k. (i) Chem., Biochem. A substance that effects a transference of an element or property, etc. (See quots.)
1892Bedson & Williams tr. Meyer's Theoret. Chem. 214 Certain bodies act as carriers of chlorine in a similar way to the oxygen carriers. 1902J. B. Cohen Theoret. Org. Chem. 368 If chlorine or bromine acts upon benzene in presence of a ‘carrier’, substitution occurs. 1921D. Ll. Hammick Org. Chem. 156 [The iron] probably acts as a halogen ‘carrier’, ferric bromide being first formed, and then ‘handing on’ bromine to the benzene molecules. 1929Biochem. Jrnl. XXIII. 128 Will a hydrogen donator react with a hydrogen acceptor in the presence of their specific enzymes but in the absence of any intermediate hydrogen carrier? 1934Ibid. XXVIII. 1819 These substances might catalyse carrier-linked reactions.
(ii) Physics. An electron, atom, or group carrying an electric charge.
1901Rutherford in Phil. Mag. II. 221 The velocity of the negative carrier produced by ultra-violet light is about the same as that of an ion produced by x-rays;..it behaves at low pressures as if it were identical with the cathode-ray carrier. 1902― & Brooks in Phil. Mag. IV. 20 Excited radio-activity is due to the conveyance of radioactive matter of some kind on positively charged carriers, which travel through the air in an electric field.
(iii) spec. In a semi-conducting material: any of the mobile electrons or holes which carry charges.
1939A. H. Wilson Semi-conductors & Metals iv. 47 Since the ‘holes’ behave in many ways like positive electrons, this question can be settled by measuring any quantity which depends on the first power of the charge of the carrier. 1945Jrnl. Appl. Physics XVI. 564/2 Such ‘holes’ will give rise to a conductivity described by Eqs. (1)–(3) but the sign of the charge carriers will appear to be positive. 1946Chem. Abstr. XL. 6907 (title) Measurement of mobilities of charge carriers in real semiconductors. 1964K. W. Cattermole Transistor Circuits (ed. 2) ii. 10 The main charge carriers, holes and electrons respectively, are called majority carriers.
l. (i) A person, animal, or plant that carries a pathogenic agent and acts as a potential source of infection without suffering from clinically obvious disease; sometimes restricted to organisms that are hosts of the pathogenic agent (cf. vector).
[1899Leisure Hour 176/2 Two-winged flies..act as carriers of disease.] 1906Medical Annual 182 Carriers [of diphtheria] without symptoms or demonstrable contact. 1908[see typhoid B c]. 1910R. Ross et al. Prevent. Malaria 195 If the local carrier belongs to a species..which feeds almost entirely upon man. 1930Discovery June 198/2 The human carrier of typhoid fever and other diseases... A person, himself immune, bears the germ of the disease and is capable of infecting other healthy but more susceptible persons. 1937F. D. Heald Introd. Plant Path. xvi. 319 A virus may exist in a plant without causing any external evidence of its presence, and such symptomless ‘carriers’ may yield the virus to insects feeding upon them. 1955Gaiger & Davies Vet. Path. & Bacteriol. (ed. 4) vii. 152 Convalescent animals are often carriers... In some diseases..the carrier state may remain for years and the animal becomes a danger to other susceptible animals.
(ii) Genetics. An organism that has a recessive gene for some genetic characteristic (as a hereditary disease) and so can pass the characteristic on to a descendant although not itself showing it.
1933Brit. Jrnl. Psychol. July 7 An intermediate type of inheritance of mental defect in which the heterozygote or ‘carrier’ is recognizable as a dull person. 1944Darlington in Nature 5 Aug. 167/1 Viruses..[are] suppressed by some host genotypes and permitted by others... There are, therefore, ‘susceptible’ and ‘carrier’ genotypes... Infection of one susceptible species can take place from another through an immune carrier species. 1970Observer 12 Apr. 25/4 It's estimated that every human being is a carrier for about half a dozen lethal and perhaps a dozen crippling recessive genes.
m. = aircraft carrier. Also attrib.
1917W. L. Wade Flying Book 12 The big cruising sea⁓plane, operating either from port or from a seaplane carrier. 1919L. R. Freeman To Kiel 114 Aeroplanes launched from the ‘carrier’ Furious. 1922Advis. Committee for Aeron., Techn. Rep. 1918–19 I. 29 A large amount of wind channel work has been done on models of different aeroplane carrier ships. 1958New Statesman 28 June 822/2 Fighters and bombers operating from the fleet's three carriers.
n. Telecomm. An electromagnetic wave or an alternating current or voltage that is modulated by a wave, etc., of lower frequency representing the signal to be transmitted.
1921Jrnl. Inst. Electr. Engin. Apr. 402/2 The most valuable feature of the high-frequency carrier-wave system is its adaptability to multiplex telephony. 1921Colpitts & Blackwell in Ibid. 412/2 Carrier-current Telephony and Telegraphy. 1922Encycl. Brit. XXXII. 712/1 The high frequency current serves as a ‘carrier’ for the telephone current over the line. 1923Electr. Communication I. iv. 16 In a carrier current system a number of telephone or telegraph messages are simultaneously superposed on a single pair of wires by means of high frequency currents of different frequencies on which individual messages are impressed. 1929E. Mallett Telegr. & Teleph. ix. 249 The frequency ω1 is called the carrier frequency. 1931B.B.C. Year-Bk. 437/2 Carrier Wave, the high frequency oscillations emitted by a wireless telephone transmitter. These are modulated during telephony. The analogy is that the telephony (music, speech, etc.) is ‘carried’ by the high-frequency oscillations from the transmitter to the receiver. 1933Ibid. 443 The television signals are made to modulate the carrier-wave sent out by the broadcasting station. 1962A. Nisbett Technique Sound Studio 254 Unless two carriers on the same wavelength have almost the same strength, the stronger ‘captures’ the area. Ibid. 267 Systems of carrier modulation in use are amplitude modulation and frequency modulation.
o. A carrier-bag.
1936W. Holtby South Riding i. v. 58 Mothers with laden paper carriers. 1959S. Delaney Taste of Honey i. i. 7 Pass me that bottle—it's in the carrier.
2. a. One whose occupation it is to carry loads, a porter. Also in comb., as water-carrier, etc.
c15111st Eng. Bk. Amer. (Arb.) Introd. 35/2 Cariers that go with the olyphantes, and cary our harneys and vitales. 1528MS. Acc. St. John's Hosp., Canterb., Paid for..the hay makers & cariars. 1688R. Holme Armoury iii. 72/1 A Bearer or Carrier..attend Merchants Cellars and Grocers Shops, to carry their Goods..on their Backs or Shoulders. 1885Pall Mall G. 25 Nov., His carriers, thirty Malays, are following.
b. (With capital initial.) [See quot. 1906.] A people of Athapascan Indians inhabiting British Columbia; a member of this people; also, the language of this people. Also attrib.
1793A. Mackenzie Voy. fr. Montreal 3 July (1801) ii. vii. 284, I found no difference in their language from that of the Nagailas or Carriers. 1820D. W. Harmon Jrnl. Voy. & Trav. 403 (heading) A specimen of the Tacully or Carrier tongue. 1845C. Wilkes U.S. Exploring Exped. IV. xiii. 480 This part..is inhabited by the two great nations of the north, the Takali, and Atnaks or Shouswaps: the former are also known by the name of the Carriers. 1846[see Athapascan n. 1]. 1890Frazer Golden Bough I. iii. 239 Amongst the Takilis or Carrier Indians of North-West America. 1906A. G. Morice Hist. N. Int. Brit. Columbia 6 Among the Carriers, the widow of a deceased warrior used to pick up from among the ashes of the funeral pyre the few charred bones..and carry them on her back in a leathern satchel—hence the name of the tribe—until the co-clansmen had amassed a sufficient quantity of eatables and dress skins to be publicly distributed..in the course of an ostentatious ceremony called ‘potlatch’. 1921E. Sapir Language iv. 71 Athabaskan languages..including..Navaho..Carrier, Chipewyan. 1957Encycl. Canadiana II. 253 The Carrier have not made a successful adjustment to European civilization.
3. a. spec. One who undertakes for hire the conveyance of goods and parcels (usually on certain routes, and at fixed times). The most familiar current sense.
In the legal sense the term carrier or common carrier, includes any person or association of persons undertaking, for payment, the transport of goods by land or water, as stage coach proprietors, railway companies, parcel delivery companies, owners and masters of ships, etc.
1471Will in Ripon Ch. Acts 154 Rog. Brounfeld de Ebor', caryour. c1500Cocke Lorell's B. (1843) 10 Carryers, carters, and horskepers. 1533–4Act 25 Hen. VIII, viii, The poore cariers..repairynge wekely and monthely to your citee of London. 1592Greene Art Conny-catch. iii. 8, I haue..a Cheese from my Vncle..which I receiued of the Carrier. 1642Declar. Lords and Comm. 31 Dec. 3 The robbing of the common Carriers and Trawnters. 1746Berkeley Let. Wks. 1871 IV. 308 My wife..sends you a present by the Cork carrier. 1774Johnson Let. 29 Jan. in Boswell, If anything is too bulky for the post, let me have it by the carrier. a1888Mod. Inscription on Vans, etc.: ‘The North Western Railway Company, carriers.’ 1903E. R. Johnson Amer. Railway Transp. 124 A copy of the bill must be sent to each of the railroads..and to any freight association of which the carrier may be a member.
fig.1583Babington Commandm. (1590) 455 Our senses, the common carriers of conceits unto us.
b. Applied to a nation or community who conduct the commerce between distant parts of the world.
1673Temple Observ. Unit. Prov. Wks. 1731 I. 60 Their Sea-men being, as they have properly been call'd, the common Carriers of the World. 1776Adam Smith W.N. iv. ii, The Dutch were..the great carriers of Europe. 1861Goschen For. Exch. 18 The country which becomes the carrier for others. 1875Merivale Gen. Hist. Rome xvii. (1877) 98 The Carthaginians made themselves the common carriers of this vast population.
4. A carrier-pigeon; also the breed of these, though not used for carrying purposes.
1641Wilkins Mercury xvi. (1707) 68 A smaller sort of Pigeon, of a light Body, and swift Flight..called by the Name of Carriers. 1741Compl. Fam.-Piece iii. 512 The Carriers [are valuable] for their swift Return home, if carried to a Distance. 1859Darwin Orig. Spec. xi. (1873) 306 Varieties between the rock-pigeon and the carrier. 1862Huxley Lect. Wrkg. Men 105 ‘Homing’ birds..used as carriers are not ‘carriers’ in the fancy sense. 1867Tegetmeier Pigeons vii. 75.
5. A conduit or drain for water, etc. Cf. carriage 31.
1797A. Young Agric. Suffolk 157 A carrier or master drain, into which all the single drains empty themselves..I strongly recommend these carrier ditches to be open. 1872Daily News 12 Oct., Liquid flows gently from the delivering carriers. 1883Pall Mall G. 16 Oct. 4/2 This liquid..is lifted by a sludge pump into an underground carrier and deposited in earth tanks.
6. With advbs., as carrier about, carrier on; cf. carry v.
1556T. Hoby tr. Castiglione's Courtyer ii. (1561) N iij b, No carier about of trifling newes. c1661Argyle's Last Will, &c. in Harl. Misc. (1746) VIII. 30/2 A most indefatigable Carrier on of his Designs. 1884in Law Times Rep. 8 Mar. 45/2 The carriers on of the business.
7. Comb., as carrier-block, carrier-pin, carrier-rocket; carrier-bag, a strong (usu. paper) bag fitted with a handle; carrier-based or -borne a., of aircraft: operating from or accommodated on an aircraft-carrier; carrier-bird, applied to the pelican, the carrier-pigeon; carrier-shell, -trochus, a genus of molluscs, remarkable for the habit of attaching pieces of stone, coral, etc., to their shells.
1907Yesterday's Shopping (1969) 339/3 The ‘Sensible’ *carrier bag. With strings..is the only paper Bag with a firm bottom, and capable of carrying wet fruit, pastry &c., without..bursting the bag. 1956Times 7 Aug. 6/7 Most of the new arrivals stepped out of the train with nothing more than one small suitcase or a paper carrier-bag.
1935Flight 9 May 498 American *carrier-based aircraft. 1968New Scientist 1 Feb. 230/1 United States bases in the Pacific were warned to expect a carrier-based air strike..some days before the attack upon Pearl Harbour.
1801Southey Thalaba v. iv, And journeying onward, blest the *Carrier Bird. 1850Tennyson In Mem. xxv, But this it was that made me move As light as carrier-birds in air.
1881Greener Gun 162 To throw the cartridges upon a *carrier-block in the rear.
1939K. Edwards Navy of Today iv. 81 The number of *carrier-borne aircraft accounted for by the ships already building.
1884F. J. Britten Watch & Clockm. 104 Holes..to receive the *carrier pin.
1946H. Harper Dawn of Space Age p. vii, The large ‘*carrier’ rocket would have a flat nose, and to this would be attached the small rocket. 1959Listener 18 June 1057/1 The carrier rocket of the Russian sputnik.
1854Woodward Mollusca (1856) 15 The *carrier-trochus cements shells and corals to the margin of its habitation. |