| 释义 |
cirque|sɜːk|
Forms: 7 circk(e, cirke, circque, 6– cirque, 8– circ.
[a. F. cirque (It. circo, Sp. circo), ad. L. circ-us: see circus.]
1. = circus 1.
1601Holland Pliny I. 195 To fight in the great cirque. 1603― Plutarch's Mor. 142 The grand-cirque, where the horse-running is held for the prize. 1642Rogers Naaman 857 A certaine spectacle upon the Circk or Theatre of Rome. 1770Langhorne Plutarch (1879) I. 224/1 Around the plausive cirque. 1873Browning Red Cotton Night-Cap Country 1036 Inside a ruin, fane or bath or cirque, Renowned in story.
b. Any circular space, esp. for games or the like.
1644Bulwer Chirol. 105 The Horse Cirque..in Smithfield. 1697Dryden æneid v. 720 The cirque he clears. The crowd withdrawn, an open plain appears. 1742Shenstone Schoolmistr. xxx. 265 Like a rushing torrent out they fly, And now the grassy cirque han cover'd o'er. 1774Warton Hist. Eng. Poetry (1840) I. p. xix note, Circs of the same sort are still to be seen in Cornwall, so famous at this day for the athletick art. 1855M. Arnold Tristram & Iseult (1877) I. 219 This cirque of open ground Is light and green.
c. = circus 2. (Chiefly as proper name.)
1845Athenæum 22 Feb. 204 Singing classes are to take place in the Cirque. 1889Glasgow Herald 11 Mar. 6/8 Mr. Joseph Hamilton..opened a short season at Hengler's Cirque on Saturday evening.
2. A natural amphitheatre, or rounded hollow or plain encircled by heights; esp. one high up in the mountains at the head of a stream or glacier. [So in Fr.]
1874Dawkins Cave Hunt. ii. 26 Large gulfs and cirques on the surface, which are sometimes filled with water. 1878A. Ramsay Phys. Geog. xxiii. 362 It gathers on the mountain slopes, and in the large cirques or recesses. 1882Geikie Text Bk. Geol. vii. 924 Subaerial forces..have..scarped the mountains into cliff and cirque.
3. A circle, ring, or circlet, of any sort. poetic.
1677Plot Oxfordsh. 339 A single Cirque of stones without Epistyles or Architraves. 1757Dyer Fleece iii. 63 Scarce the cirque Need turn around. 1814Wordsw. White Doe iv. 50 And cirque and crescent framed by wall Of close-clipt foliage. 1820Keats Hyperion ii. 34 A dismal cirque Of Druid stones, upon a forlorn moor. 1834D'Israeli Revolut. Ep. xlix, The cirque Binding dim Pluto's brow.
4. attrib. and in Comb., as cirque-play, cirque-show; cirque-couchant (nonce-wd.), lying coiled up in circles; † cirque-sight, circus show.
1820Keats Lamia i. 46 A palpitating snake, Bright, and *cirque-couchant in a dusty brake.
1606Holland Sueton. 158 (R.) *Cirque-plaies and games.
1613T. Godwin Rom. Antiq. (1658) 90 Touching these *cirque-shews.
1636Heylin Sabbath ii. 103 For the Lords day..neither theater nor *cirquesight nor combatings with wilde beasts, should be used thereon.
1606Holland Sueton. 158 (R.) The stately pompe of the *Cirque solemnities. |