| 释义 |
snowflake|ˈsnəʊfleɪk|
Also snow-flake.
[f. snow n.1 + flake n.2]
1. One of the small masses in which snow commonly falls.
1734Cupid & Psyche 28 Soft as the cygnet's down his wings, And as the falling snowflake fair. 1822Shelley ‘We meet not as we parted’ ii, That moment is gone for ever,..Like a snowflake upon the river. 1847Prescott Peru iii. ii. (1850) II. 39 A white cloud of pavilions was seen covering the ground as thick as snow-flakes. 1878Huxley Physiogr. 63 The largest snow-flakes fall when the temperature is near the freezing point.
2. The snow-bunting. (Cf. snow-fleck.)
1770Pennant Brit. Zool. IV. 17 Snow Flake. These birds appear in hard weather on the Cheviot Hills, and in the Highlands of Scotland, in amazing flocks. 1793Statist. Acc. Scot. VII. 547 The snowflake, the rail or corncrake. 1837Dunn Ornith. Orkn. & Shetl. 79 The Snowflake appears regularly in both countries. 1845Zoologist III. 822 In hard winters snowflakes come from the North by thousands. 1872Coues N. Amer. Birds 133 Snow Bunting. Snowflake. In breeding plumage, pure white, the back, wings and tail variegated with black.
3. One or other variety of Leucojum.
1798Curtis Fl. Londinensis II. pl. 72 As it differs very essentially in its fructification from the Galanthus we have thought it necessary to give it the new English name of Snowflake. 1806J. Galpine Brit. Bot. 168 Leucojum æstivum, summer snow-flake. 1866Treas. Bot. 1067/2 Spring Snowflake, Erinosma. 1882Garden 28 Jan. 56/3 The Snowflake..is in full bloom, but owing to want of sun, has not expanded its flowers. 1899Gardening Illustr. 27 May 167/1 In the earliest spring..the Spring Snowflake (L. vernum) is flowering in southern gardens... Later on comes the taller-growing Summer Snowflake (L. æstivum).
4. (See quot.) Also attrib.
1882Caulfeild & Saward Dict. Needlew. 452/2 Snow⁓flake, a term employed to denote a particular method of weaving woollen cloths, by which process small knots are thrown upon the face. 1890Daily News 8 Jan. 1/6 A Large Lot..Snowflake Costumes, all Pure Wool.
5. A name for a variety of potato.
1882Daily News 9 Mar. 2 Potatoes,..foreign Snow-flakes.
6. = hair-line crack s.v. hair-line 7. U.S.
1919Bull. Amer. Inst. Mining Engineers Feb. 183 The appearance of ‘snow-flakes’ is unmistakable... The white silvery area, which always has the appearance of being of a very coarsely crystalline structure, in the specimen stands out in bold contrast to the darker background, and readily justifies the use of the term ‘snow-flakes’. 1925[see hair crack s.v. hair n. 10]. 1942[see fish-eye s.v. fish n.1 7].
7. attrib., as snowflake curve Math., a mathematically conceived curve (see quot. 1975) whose sixfold symmetry is reminiscent of that of a snowflake, of interest because its infinite length bounds a finite area.
1956W. G. Walter Further Outlook iii. iv. 100 Jim Bursley had explained the snowflake curve to me and we had discussed the projection of such a curve into three dimensions. 1975Sci. Amer. Nov. 144/2 Take the analyst's ‘snowflake’ curve.., which is made in an elementary way from an equilateral triangle of unit side by replacing the middle third of each side with a ‘cape’, itself the two jutting equal sides of a triangle a third as large as the original, and so on, repeating indefinitely. 1978Ibid. Apr. 21/2 Among the fractals that exhibit strong regularity the best-known are the Peano curves that completely fill the finite region and the beautiful snowflake curve discovered by the Swedish mathematician Helge von Koch in 1904. |