| 释义 |
▪ I. central, a.|ˈsɛntrəl|
[ad. L. centrāl-is central, f. centrum centre: cf. F. central.]
1. a. Of or pertaining to the centre or middle; situated in, proceeding from, containing or constituting the centre.
1647H. More Song of Soul i. ii. iii, Or else his inward life And Centrall rains do fairly him compell Within himself. 1658Sir T. Browne Hydriot. (1736) Introd. 1 Even such as hope to rise again, would not be content with central Interment. 1664Power Exp. Philos. i. 2 Leaving that central spot in the middle of the flea-biting, where the probe entred. a1720J. Hughes Ecstasy (R.) Around the central sun in circling eddies roll'd. 1837Emerson Addr. Amer. Schol. Wks. (Bohn) II. 186 One central fire..flaming now out of the lips of Etna. 1860Tyndall Glac. ii. §15. 310 The quicker central flow [of a glacier].
b. Applied to a city, quarter, building, etc., situated in the heart of its district, where population is densest or trade busiest.
1675Ogilby Brit. Pref. 2 Roads to the less central Cities. 1814Wordsw. Excurs. viii. 221 Palmyra, central in the desert. 1861Swinhoe N. China Camp. 7 The island..from its central position would form a good depôt for troops. Mod. The point of departure was the Central Station, Manchester. To let, convenient business premises in a good central position.
c. Belonging to the party that holds a position midway between the two extremes (cf. centre 15).
1860Froude Hist. Eng. VI. 75 The ultra-faction among the Protestants became now powerless. The central multitude, whose belief was undefined, etc.
d. Phonetics. Of a vowel: formed with the tongue in a middle position between front and back. Cf. back a. 1 c; front n. 13 b; mixed ppl. a. 6 b.
1932D. Jones Outl. Eng. Phonetics (ed. 3) xiv. 86, a: is a central vowel; in other words the central part of the tongue is raised in order to make it. 1933Jespersen Ess. Eng. Gram. 24 The vowels..are either front, central, or back, according to the part of the tongue that is highest. 1965W. S. Allen Vox Latina 4 Vowels intermediate between front and back are referred to as central.
2. fig.
a. Belonging to the centre as the chief and most significant point or part, which lies at the heart, or dominates the rest; hence, chief, principal, leading, dominant. Also const. to.
1647H. More Song of Soul iv. xlvi, The most profound and centrall energie, The very selfnesse of the soul. 1776Adam Smith W.N. I. i. vii. 60 The natural price..is, as it were, the central price, to which the prices of all commodities are continually gravitating. 1856Mrs. Browning Aur. Leigh i. 800 Every turn still brought me nearer to the central truth. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) II. 423 Odysseus is the central figure of the one poem. 1882Farrar Early Chr. II. 438 Love is the very central command of Christianity. 1902Daily Chron. 10 June 3/2 The older views of the authority and inspiration of Scripture are central to his whole system. 1937Tablet 23 Oct. 541/1 The Christian religion..is in no sense central to their conception of the African's future. 1957N. Frye Anat. Crit. 243 Literature seems in a way to be central to the arts.
b. Of a governing body, association, etc.: Controlling all branches of the organization from one common centre; opposed to local.
1809Wellington Let. in Gurw. Disp. V. 3, I am very sensible of the value of the approbation of the Central Junta. 1846McCulloch Acc. Brit. Empire (1854) II. 313 In 1811 the different district societies were incorporated as members of a central association. 1863Bright Sp. Amer. 30 June, The continent would still be united under one central Government. 1888Gladstone in Spect. 562/1 To commence not with local but with central institutions.
3. Phys. Of or pertaining to a nerve-centre; in Pathol. applied to affections of parts of the body caused by lesions or diseases of the brain or spinal cord, as distinguished from affections of the same parts produced by local disease or lesion.
1865New Syd. Soc. Year-bk. 88 (title) On Central Paralysis. 1872W. Aitken Sci. & Pr. Med. (ed. 6) II. 360 Reflex symptoms may be present in central anæsthesia, but they are entirely absent in peripheral anæsthesia. 1875A. Gamgee tr. Hermann's Physiol. xi. 467 The central end-organs of nerve-fibres are contained in certain structures, which are called ‘the central organs of the nervous system’. 1877Foster Physiol. iii. 75 A sensitive cell on the surface of the body connected by means of a sensory nerve with the internal automatic central nervous cell.
4. In various phrases: Central American adj. and n., (an inhabitant or native) of Central America, a region extending roughly from Mexico to Colombia; central curve (central conic) Math., a curve having a centre; central eclipse, an eclipse in which the centres of the sun and moon are in a line with the spectator; Central European adj. and n., (an inhabitant or native) of Central Europe; cf. middle-European; central force, a force attracting to or repelling from a centre; so central orbit (see quot.); central heating, a system of heating a building by hot water, steam, or air conveyed through pipes or ducts from a central source; also applied to any form of heating which simultaneously warms several rooms in a building; so central-heated adj., supplied with central heating; central processing unit, the part of a computer that performs processing and controls and co-ordinates the activity of other parts, itself comprising the arithmetic and logic unit, the control unit, and usu. the main memory; abbrev. CPU s.v. C III. 3; central reservation: see reservation 3 e; central reserve: see reserve n. 5 e; † central rule (see quot.); central school, a secondary school of a type which by the Education Act of 1944 usually became ‘secondary modern’ schools (see quot. 1919); central section, a section passing through the centre.
1857Ld. Napier Let. 12 Mar. in Parl. Pap. 1860 LXVIII. 695 A settlement of the *Central American question in conformity with the spirit of the Treaty. 1934A. Huxley Beyond Mexique Bay 46, I have seen a fair amount of Central American art. Ibid., The art of the Central Americans. 1959T. S. Eliot Elder Statesman iii. 86 He's Federico Gomez, the Central American.
1860Salmon Conic Sect. x. (1879) 143 The ellipse and hyperbola are hence often classed together as *central curves, while the parabola is called a non-central curve.
1846J. Joyce Sci. Dialog. xv, A *central eclipse.
1931P. Macdonald Crime Conductor ii. iv. 176 Donna Sigsbee..has tired of the *central European charms of Mr. Vanesco. 1940N. Marsh Surfeit Lampreys (1941) ii. 34 Aunt V. is..all Central-European. 1941A. Huxley Grey Eminence viii. 187 Large numbers of Central Europeans were in process of being starved and slaughtered. 1967J. B. Priestley It's Old Country iii. 26 Oldish women with Central European accents.
1801Hutton Course Math. (1828) II. 224 The subject of *central forces.
1922D. H. Lawrence Aaron's Rod xiii. 160 The fresh morning air comes startling after a *central-heated house.
1906Internat. Libr. Technol. LXXIV. §38. 5 For use in connection with *central heating plants, such as are frequently installed for heating the various buildings of a university or state institution, the vacuum system of heating is well adapted. 1913F. W. Raynes Heating Systems i. 14 A good method of reducing the production of smoke is by district and large central heating systems in which either water or steam is circulated through the pipes. 1921R. Hichens Spirit of Time iii, There was no central heating on. 1951Good Housek. Home Encycl. 35/2 The efficiency of a central-heating system naturally depends on that of the boiler.
1882Minchin Unipl. Kinemat. 63 *Central Orbit..an orbit described by a moving point whose resultant acceleration is in every position directed to a fixed point or centre.
1961Leeds & Weinberg Computer Programming Fund. iv. 100 The first type [of input-output instruction]—that executed by the control section of the main computer or *central processing unit—will be referred to simply as ‘instructions’. 1970O. Dopping Computers & Data Processing v. 77 Control unit, arithmetic unit, and primary storage together form the Central Processing Unit (CPU). Some manufacturers, however, do not consider primary storage as belonging to the CPU. 1985Pract. Computing July 97/2 The traditional multi-user system involves one central processing unit (CPU) being shared between a number of users.
1684T. Barker Geometr. Key 6 The *central rule. 1704J. Harris Lex. Techn., Central-Rule, is a rule found out..by..Mr. Tho. Baker..whereby he finds the Center of a Circle designed to cut the Parabola in as many Points as an Equation to be constructed hath real Roots.
1919A. W. Newton Eng. Elementary School ix. 167 *Central schools..are intended to attract the best scholars from the upper classes of neighbouring [elementary] schools, and to provide a higher course than the ordinary school can offer. 1956J. E. Floud Social Class 15 The central schools..are officially designated ‘secondary modern schools’.
1865P. T. Main Introd. Plane Astron. i. (1879) 5 Every *central section of a sphere is called a great circle.
5. central fire: applied attrib. to a cap or cartridge in which the fulminate occupies a central position, instead of being disposed around the periphery of the flanged capsule.
1881Greener Gun 202 The employment of a central-fire cap. Ibid. 204 The central-fire cartridge. 1884St. James's Gaz. 18 Jan. 5/1 Exploded by central-fire action.
Add:[4.] central bank, the principal regulatory bank of a country, which issues currency, holds the exchange reserves, and manages the volume of credit, dealing mainly with the government and commercial banks.
[1866A. Crump Banking ix. 203 Sir Robert Peel avowed his own predilection for a central bank of issue.] 1901D. M. Mason in Jrnl. Inst. Bankers Apr. 152 It has been advocated by some bankers [in the U.S.] that what is required to give stability to the currency is a *central bank or institution similar to the Bank of England. 1930J. M. Keynes Treat. Money II. xxxii. 225 The first necessity of a Central Bank..is to make sure that it has an unchallengeable control over the total volume of bank-money created by its Member Banks. 1965J. L. Hanson Dict. Econ. 62/2 It is not thought advisable for a central bank to compete with the commercial banks and, therefore, it should not engage in ordinary banking business. 1986Economist 14 June 63/2 Central bank money, one closely-watched measure of the money supply, has grown at an annual rate of 8.2{pcnt} this year.
hence central banker.
1963Economist 28 Dec. 1318/1 These *central bankers..have created, almost malgré eux, a code of practice. 1986Times 12 May 17/6 There was a time when..almost the only thing on which central bankers were agreed was the need to keep their intentions unclear.
▸ central air conditioning n. a system providing air conditioning throughout a building or other enclosed space, typically by means of pipes or ducts connected to a single air conditioner.
1935N.Y. Times Mag. 28 July 7/5 They [sc. portable air conditioners] may even postpone the revolution in architecture..that must come if *central air conditioning is to become a self-evident necessity. 1995First Home Buyer's Guide Winter 42/2 These homes offer..central air conditioning for maximum comfort.
▸ central air n. N. Amer. = central air conditioning n. at Additions.
1963Galveston (Texas) Daily News (Electronic text) 1 May (advt.) By Owner—..3 bedroom, 2 baths, den, *central air. 2006Miami Herald (Nexis) 23 Sept. 5 You can save up to $500 annually by upgrading your central air with a more fuel efficient system.
▪ II. central, n. U.S.
[f. the adj.]
A central telephone exchange; hence, any telephone exchange.
1889‘Mark Twain’ Conn. Yankee xv. 184, I used to wake..and say ‘Hello, Central!’ just to hear her dear voice. 1908Busy Man's Mag. Mar. 113/1 You may establish a direct, permanent connection with the doctor, the fire department, or the police and call them immedately without the services of ‘central’. 1948Chicago Sun-Times 7 Sept. 47/3 He thought all those other rings were somebody calling ‘central’.
▸ colloq. (orig. N. Amer.). —— central: a place characterized by or abounding in the thing specified, esp. to a pre-eminent degree. Freq. with capital initials. Cf. city n. 3c.
1985R. L. Simon Calif. Roll iii. 28 The fourth floor itself was known as Nerd Central around the company. 1994Globe & Mail (Toronto) 5 Feb. c1/2 He seems perfectly at home here in cowboy central. 1998GQ Feb. 28/2 But what about MI6's influence on the area? What's it like having Spook Central on your doorstep? 2002Field & Stream Jan. 28/2 We had a bunch of woods, which—to the untrained eye—looked like Deer Central. 2004N.Y. Times (National ed.) 2 May v. 8/2 We were there to sample the night life of a city that is quickly gaining the reputation as party central in Eastern Europe. |