| 释义 |
Celtic, a.|ˈsɛltɪk, ˈkɛltɪk|
Also Keltic |ˈkɛltɪk|.
[a. F. celtique or ad. L. celtic-us of the Celts.]
1. Hist. and Archæol. Of or belonging to the ancient Celtæ and their presumed congeners.
1656Blount Glossogr., Celtique, pertaining to the people of Gaul. 1667Milton P.L. i. 521 Who..ore the Celtic [Fields] roam'd the utmost Isles. 1756–7tr. Keysler's Trav. (1760) I. Introd. 10 Fragments of Celtic idols lately discovered in the cathedral at Paris. 1839Thirlwall Greece VI. 3 Drawing a Celtic sword from beneath his garments. 1880Boyd Dawkins Early Man in Britain xii. 344 Various carvings in spirals, concentric circles, flamboyants and zigzags, forming part of the prehistoric series defined by Mr. Franks as the late Celtic. 1884Rhys Celtic Brit. 2 Britain was considered to be outside the Celtic world.
2. Epithet of the languages and peoples akin to the ancient Celtic; particularly, of the great branch of the Aryan family of languages which includes Breton, Welsh, Irish, Manx, Scotch Gaelic, the extinct Cornish, and the ancient languages which they represent. Also absol. = Celtic tongue. Celtic cross: a Latin cross, the centre of which is surrounded by a circle; Celtic fringe (or Celtic edge): (the land of) the Scots, Welsh, Irish and Cornish, regarded as occupying the fringe or outlying edge of the British Isles (freq. derogatory); Celtic twilight: W. B. Yeats's name for his collection of stories, etc., based on Irish folk-tales; hence gen., (sometimes disparagingly) the atmosphere of, or artistic tendencies associated with, the folklore and legends of Celtic Britain, esp. of Ireland.
1707E. Lluyd Archaeol. Brit. Pref. C, The Latin-Celtic or Comparative Vocabulary [cf. p. 290]. 1739D. Malcolm (title), Collection of Letters..in which the usefulness of the Celtic is instanced in illustrating the antiquities of the British Isles. 1764Rowl. Jones (title), An English, Celtic, Greek, and Latin-English Lexicon. 1839Keightley Hist. Eng. I. 78 Beneath them [Norsemen] were the Celtic princes. 1844Stanley Arnold's Life & Corr. I. v. 245 note, Feudality is especially Keltic and barbarian. 1846McCulloch Acc. Brit. Empire (1854) I. 317 The people..being of Scandinavian, and not Celtic origin. 1851D. Wilson Preh. Ann. (1863) II. ii. iii. 366 Bronze weapons..of a bright yellow colour, like brass or gilded metal—to these the term celtic brass is often applied. 1859Jephson Brittany i. 1 [The peasant-girl] relates the Celtic fairy-tale, or the mediæval legend. 1871Tylor Prim. Cult. I. 40 The keeping up of an old Keltic art. 1873Queen Victoria Jrnl. 9 Sept. (1968) 281 We..saw the Celtic cross at Logierait put up to the late Duke of Athole. 1876Bancroft Hist. U.S. III. iv. 351 The Norman-Irish and Celtic-Irish were drawn nearer to one another by common sorrows. 1886W. Stokes in Trans. Philol. Soc. 202 The Neo-Celtic verb substantive. Ibid. 218 In Old-Celtic bató. 219 The forms must in proto-celtic have ended in vowels. 242 Both forms in Celtic are toneless proclitics. 1890Marquis of Salisbury Mr. Parnell & Irish Question 9 The great defect of our present representation is that the Celtic edges of the country on both islands are represented enormously out of proportion to the rest of the Anglo-Saxon population. 1893W. B. Yeats (title) The Celtic twilight. 1894G. Allen Post-Prandial Philos. xviii. 155 If Lord Salisbury thinks we are a Celtic fringe he is vastly mistaken. 1899A. H. Keane Man Past & Present xiv. 523 The ‘Keltic fringe’, that is, the strips of territory on the skirts of the Teutonic and Neo-Latin domains in the extreme west. 1907A. S. T. Griffith-Boscawen Fourteen Yrs. in Parlt. ii. 11 Their majority [in 1892]..came entirely from Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, or, as Mr. Balfour aptly said, ‘the Celtic fringe’. 1908Westm. Gaz. 2 June 2/2 Apparently he has now got tired of his Celtic-fringe seat. 1923A. Huxley On Margin 30 If Mr. Yeats understood the Einstein theory..he too could give us, out of the Celtic twilight, his lyrics of relativity. 1936R. Lehmann Weather in Streets iv. ii. 398 The mixture of Celtic twilight and Aubrey Beardsley decor which..enshrouded her. 1938L. MacNeice I crossed Minch i. i. 3 That natural..culture which..is only found on the Celtic or backward fringes. 1969C. Carfax Silence with Voices x. 67 All the tombstones had their backs to the water except one. This, a lichened Celtic cross, faced the others.
Hence ˈCeltically adv., in Celtic fashion; † ˈCeltican a. = celtic; spec. of Gallia Celtica; ˈCelticism, (a) a Celtic custom or expression; (b) devotion to Celtic customs; Celˈticity, Celtic quality or character; ˈCelticize v., (a) trans. to put into a Celtic form; to adapt to Celtic use; (b) intr. to adopt Celtic fashions or usages.
1607Topsell Four-f. Beasts 162, I wrote these things, and dedicated the Celtican spoils. 1837Fraser's Mag. XV. 556 Fin Mac Cowl, or, to spell him more Celtically, Fioun Mac Cumhail. 1855Milman Lat. Chr. (1864) IX. xiv. vii. 225 note, His Celticism appears from his obstinate adherence to the ancient British usage about Easter. 1882G. Allen in Nature Studies 175 This element [Euskarian] was Celticized, but not exterminated, by the Aryan Celts. 1885–6Whitley Stokes Celtic Decl. 43 The Novara inscription, the celticity of which cannot possibly be doubted. |