| 释义 |
▪ I. cobweb, n.|ˈkɒbwɛb|
Forms: 4–6 coppeweb, (-bes), 4–7 copweb, 5–6 copwebbe, (also 4 copweft); 6 cobbewebbe, 6–7 cobwebbe, 6– cobweb.
[ME. coppeweb, f. coppe spider (see cop3) + web. Cf. Westphal. cobbenwebbe (Woeste 137 b), and cob n.4]
1. The web or fine network spun by a spider for the capture of its prey; also, the substance.
1323Munim. Gildh. Lond. (Rolls) III. 415 Fila de coppe⁓webbes. 1387Trevisa Higden (Rolls) VII. 343 Lanfranc destroyede þe castes of þe myȝti men as who destroyeþ cop⁓web [v.r. attercrop weftes, copweft, attercops nestes]. 1398― Barth. De P.R. xviii. xi. (1495) 767 Coppe webbe that is white and clene staunchyth blood. 1514Barclay Cyt. & Uplondyshm. (1847) 13 With cobwebbes and dust. 1551T. Wilson Logike 50 Spiders make their owne cobwebs without any other helpe. 1570Levins Manip. 47/3 A cop⁓webbe, tela, aranea. 1596Shakes. Tam. Shr. iv. i. 48 Is..the house trim'd, rushes strew'd, cobwebs swept? 1747Wesley Princ. Physic (1762) 30 Make six middling Pills of Cobwebs. a1845Hood Turtles vi, A cellar damp, With venerable cobwebs fringed around. 1860Emerson Cond. Life, Fate Wks. (Bohn) II. 316 A limp band softer than silk or cobweb.
b. A single thread spun by a spider. (Used in optical instruments.)
1837Goring & Pritchard Microgr. 50 There usually is in cobweb micrometers..a set of teeth..the said teeth commencing from the immoveable cobweb, or zero of the scale. 1879Rutley Study Rocks vii. 53 The cobweb is aligned on one of the faces of the crystal.
†2. Threads similar to the spider's, produced by other insects, etc. (cf. L. arānea and arāneum.)
1392Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvii. clxxvii. (1495) 719 There is a nother euyll that kepers of vynes calle Araneum, for of euyll blastes of wynde and corrupte reyne cometh and bredyth as it were copwebbes. 1577B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. ii. (1586) 104 b, Though Homer call the Willowe a fruitelesse tree because his fruite turneth into cob⁓webs before they be ripe. 1626Bacon Sylva §728 Catterpillers have Copwebs about them which is a Signe of a Slimy Driness.
3. fig.
a. Anything of flimsy, frail, or unsubstantial texture; esp. fanciful fine-spun reasoning.
1579Fulke Confut. Sanders 637 That you may see what soundnesse there is in his doctrine, thus he weaueth his copwebbe. 1605Bacon Adv. Learn. i. iv. §5 Copwebs of learning, admirable for the finesse of thread and worke, but of no substance or profite. 1656Cowley Pind. Odes, Life & Fame i, In all the Cobwebs of the Schoolmens trade We no such nice Distinction woven see, As 'tis To be, or Not to Be. 1768Beattie Minstr. i. lvi, The sophist's rope of cobweb he shall twine. 1850Tennyson In Mem. cxxiv, The questions men may try, The petty cobwebs we have spun.
b. Any musty accumulation, accretion, or obstruction, which ought to be swept away, like dusty cobwebs in a room. to have a cobweb in the throat: to feel thirsty, or have a desire to drink.
1581Sidney Apol. Poetrie (Arb.) 46 Being so euill apparrelled in the dust and cobwebbes of that vnciuil age. 1684T. Burnet Th. Earth 28 To sweep away these cobwebs of superstition. 1768–74Tucker Lt. Nat. (1852) II. 171 As if..he could not take religion without taking, too, all the cobwebs and trumpery that have clung about it in some dirty corner of the nursery. 1844W. H. Maxwell Sports & Adv. Scotl. ii. (1855) 37 He felt a cobweb in his throat. 1850Carlyle Latter-d. Pamph. iii. (1872) 102 Let us brush the cobwebs from our eyes. 1862Athenæum 27 Sept. 397 An unfailing specific for clearing away cobwebs from the brain.
c. A subtly woven snare, entangling mesh.
1649G. Daniel Trinarch., Hen. IV, xvii, 'Tis All a thin Cob web of Policye, whose full extent Only the brooding Spider knowes. 1751Johnson Rambler No. 103 ⁋9 No snare more dangerous..than the cobwebs of petty inquisitiveness. 1860Kingsley Misc. I. 75 Break through the law-cobwebs.
d. cobweb law: see quot. 1547.
[1547–64Bauldwin Mor. Philos. iii. v, Lawes of men may be likened to cobwebs, which doe tye or hold the little flyes fast, but the great flyes breake forth and escape.] 1649Milton Eikon. xviii. (1851) 470 Our Laws els were but cobweb Laws. 1762Churchill Ghost ii. (R.), This same decency..like the cobweb laws, is still Broke through by great ones when they will.
4. More fully, cobweb bird, a local name of the Spotted Flycatcher (Muscicapa grisola).
‘From its use of spiders' webs in the construction of its nest’ (Swainson).
1712J. Morton Northampt. 426 This..is here well-known, and vulgarly called the Copweb. 1862Johns Brit. Birds Index, Cobweb, the Spotted Fly-catcher. 1888Cornh. Mag. Apr. 380 The site of the present nest and one of its constituents gives two provincial names to the flycatcher—beam-bird and cobweb-bird.
II. attrib. and Comb.
5. attrib. or quasi-adj. (chiefly fig.: see 3).
1607S. Collins Serm. (1608) 55 Their cobweb-obiections. 1611B. Jonson Catiline iv. v, When I trust to your cobweb bosoms any other [treason]..Let me there die a fly, and feast you, spiders. c1645Howell Lett. (N.), Divinity..in comparison wherof all other knowledg is but cobweb learning. 1756–7tr. Keysler's Trav. (1760) I. 335 Thomas Aquinas's cobweb subtleties. 1797College, a Satire 7 Consign the pile sublime To cobweb-honours and the dust of time. 1809W. Irving Knickerb. (1861) 146 The cobweb visions of those dreaming varlets, the poets. 1855Motley Dutch Rep. iii. ii. (1866) 368 These were but cobweb impediments which, indeed, had long been brushed away.
6. Applied adjectivally to a light, finely-woven or gauze-like material. See also cobweb lawn.
1631Celestina i. 7 What idle gyddy-headed braines are under those large and fine cob-web-veiles. c1755Mrs. Delany in Harper's Mag. (1884) July 260/1 She had a cob⁓web laced handkerchief. 1807–8W. Irving Salmag. (1824) 80 Making sad inroads into ladies' cobweb muslins. 1867Ouida C. Castlemaine (1879) 22 The cobweb handkerchief lies before me.
7. a. Comb., as cobweb-hanging, cobweb-pill, cobweb-weaving; cobweb-headed, cobweb-like adjs.; cobweb micrometer, a micrometer with cobweb-threads instead of wires; cobweb morning (dial.), a misty morning; so cobweb weather; (cobweb bird: see 4).
c1646Roxb. Ballads VI. 323 We see White-Hall with *cobweb-hangings on the wall.
1806Fessenden Democr. I. 45 Encyclopedists..Steely nerv'd and *cobweb-headed.
1663Gerbier Counsel 93 Paper-like walls, *Cobweb-like windowes. 1776Withering Brit. Plants (1796) III. 701 With a cobweb-like wool interwoven.
1837Goring & Pritchard Microgr. 50, I now have recourse again to the *cobweb micrometer and a deep object-glass.
1674Ray S. & E.C. Words 61 *Cobweb-morning, a misty morning. Norfolk.
1809Med. Jrnl. XXI. 355, I immediately gave him a *cobweb pill, for..cobweb pills were among the hospital formulæ.
a1825Forby Voc. East Anglia, *Copweb-weather, misty weather.
1807–8W. Irving Salmag. (1824) 229 Mustapha..had as clear a head for *cobweb-weaving as ever dignified the shoulders of a projector.
b. Econ. Used attrib., as in cobweb theorem, etc., with reference to a proposition that changes in the quantity and hence the price of perishable goods in one season affect the quantity and price in subsequent seasons, according to a converging or diverging spiral.
1934N. Kaldor in Rev. Econ. Stud. I. 134 Where the adjustments are completely discontinuous, stability (or ‘definiteness’) of equilibrium will depend on the relative elasticities of demand and supply; according to what may be called ‘the cobweb theorem’ of Professor Henry Schultz and Professor U. Ricci. 1953Sloan & Zurcher Dict. Econ. (ed. 3) 56 Cobweb chart, a graphic representation of the conditions that may exist in a competitive market when the sale of a perishable good, requiring a period of time to produce, is confined to a short seasonal demand, but enjoys a fairly constant demand from year to year during that season. 1974Encycl. Brit. Micropædia II. 1024/3 Characteristic of industries in which relatively large time lapses occur between the decision to produce and the finished product, the cobweb cycle is most commonly found in agricultural markets. 1976Industr. & Labor Rel. Rev. XXIX. 248/1 Using a cobweb model to explain the supply of new entrants to engineering this study showed that the supply is highly responsive to economic conditions. 1983G. Bannock et al. Penguin Dict. Econ. (ed. 3) 75 The importance of the cobweb theorem is as one of the earliest and easiest examples of dynamic analysis.
▪ II. cobweb, v.|ˈkɒbwɛb|
[f. prec. n.]
trans. To cover or hang with cobwebs. Chiefly in pa. pple.
1928P. B. Ballard Changing School xiii. 185 The lines of association with which their minds are cobwebed. 1960S. Kauffmann If it be Love i. 9 Shreds of intense guttural intrigue still seemed to cobweb the corners. |