| 释义 |
sightless, a.|ˈsaɪtlɪs|
[f. sight n.1 + -less.]
1. Unable to see; destitute of the power of sight; blind.
c1250Gen. & Ex. 1528 Ysaac Wurðede sighteles and elde swac. 1387–8T. Usk Test. Love i. i. (Skeat) 15 Thus witless thoughtful, sightles lokinge, I endure my penaunce in this derke prison. 1435Misyn Fire of Love 54 And for he þis vtward Ioys onely desirs, in in-wardly & vnsene blyndyd als wer sytheles to fyre gois. a1585Montgomerie Cherrie & Slae 305 Baith sichtles, and michtles, I grew almaist at ainis. c1600Shakes. Sonn. xliii, When in dead night thy faire imperfect shade..on sightlesse eyes doth stay. 1674N. Fairfax Bulk & Selv. 47 Were all seeing things sightless, there would be no colours. 1725Pope Odyss. viii. 221 He who sightless wants his visual ray. 1791Cowper Iliad v. 824 Sightless, of all thought bereft, He sank. 1842Longfellow Warning ii, A cruel mockery of his [Samson's] sightless woe. 1879G. Allen Colour-Sense iii. 27 The eye of the bee, of the cuttlefish, and of the eagle, have each apparently been separately developed from unlike remote sightless ancestors.
fig.1781Cowper Charity 416 The truth she loves a sightless world blaspheme. 1881H. James Portr. Lady liii, She performed this journey with sightless eyes, and took little pleasure in the countries she traversed.
b. Deprived of the sight of something. rare—1.
1632Lithgow Trav. x. 470 Being sightlesse of company, and humane faces.
2. Invisible, unseen, dark; impenetrable by vision.
1589Warner Alb. Eng. ii. xi. 44 The scouring windes that sightlesse in the sounding aire doe flie. 1603Harington in Nugæ Ant. (1804) I. 343, I have been well nighe driven heretofore into narrowe straits, amongste state rocks and sightless dangers. 1613Heywood Braz. Age Wks. 1874 III. 249 Hath any sightlesse and infernall fire Laid hold vpon my flesh? 1740[S. Boyse] Deity (1749) 11 He shuns the view of Sense, Lost in the blaze of sightless excellence. 1789Mrs. Piozzi Journ. France I. 45 Following a soaring falcon through the half-sightless regions of the air. 1812J. Henry Camp. agst. Quebec 115 They were even sightless to us, we could see nothing but the blaze from the muzzles of their muskets. 1850Tennyson In Mem. cxv, Drown'd in yonder living blue The lark becomes a sightless song. 1888B. W. Richardson Son of a Star I. xii. 184 Touchless with human hands, Sightless with human eyes.
†3. Unsightly. Obs.
1595Shakes. John iii. i. 45 Full of vnpleasing blots, and sightlesse staines. 1632Lithgow Trav. viii. 375 Ah! sightlesse desarts! fil'd with barren Sands!
4. Out of sight.
1632Lithgow Trav. ix. 381 Tvnneis beene sightlesse left, I sought the Ile Of little Malta. 1816Scott Antiq. xxxi. (motto), Their tears..as they fall, sink sightless.
Hence ˈsightlessly adv., without having the faculty of sight.
1847in Webster. 1883E. Arnold Indian Idylls 241 He lay,..with fierce eyes Roving the wood, and seeing sightlessly. 1892Zangwill Bow Myst. 159 His eyes ranged sightlessly after the boy. |