| 释义 |
▪ I. contour, n.|ˈkɒntʊə(r), kənˈtʊə(r)|
[a. F. contour, f. contourner (cf. F. tour, tourner, and turn), in artistic sense = It. contorno: see contorno.]
1. The outline of any figure:
a. introduced as a term of Painting and Sculpture; spec. the line separating the differently coloured parts of a design.
1662Evelyn Chalcogr. Wks. v. (1805) 315 Penning the contours and outlines with a more even and acute touch. 1686W. Aglionby Painting Illustr. Expl. Terms, The Contours of a Body, are the Lines that environ it, and make the Superficies of it. 1697Evelyn Numism. vi. 201 A perfect Medal has..its Contours neatly trimm'd..and carefully preserved. 1706Phillips s.v., In painting and carving, contours are the outward lines of a picture or figure. 1823P. Nicholson Pract. Build. 152 To draw the contour both of the plan and elevation. 1829Scott Anne of G. iii, The whole contour of her form..resembled that of Minerva. 1849Ruskin Sev. Lamps vi. §13. 175 The shadows are employed only to make the contours of the features thoroughly felt. 1879O. N. Rood Chromatics xviii. 312 Contours consisting of several lines of gold and silver, white and black, are often used to separate colours that do not harmonize particularly well together.
b. Perfection or artistic quality of outline.
1780Johnson Let. Mrs. Thrale 1 May, The exhibition is eminently splendid, There is contour, and keeping, and grace, and expression. 1844James Agincourt I. 27 That sort of full and graceful sweep in all the lines, which painters and statuaries, I believe call contour. 1855Bain Senses & Int. iii. i. §75 (1864) 453 The sculptor must have a keen sense of contour and form.
c. gen.; especially frequent as applied to the outline of a coast, mountain mass, or other topographical feature.
1769Phil. Trans. LIX. 498 The symbols have passed from a contour sufficiently regular, to some lines oddly assembled. 1791T. Newte Tour Eng. & Scot. 211 Their streets, or lanes, are crowded and narrow, and their general contour is irregular. 1802Playfair Illustr. Hutton. Th. 101 Its broken and abrupt contour..determined by the action of the sea. 1867–77G. F. Chambers Astron. ii. ii. 190 In 1848 Arago saw the dark contour of the Moon. 1878Huxley Physiogr. 16 The undulating line indicates the general contour of the surface of the country.
d. pl. The curves of the female body. (Cf. quot. 1829 for sense 1 a above)
1886O. W. Holmes Mortal Antipathy i. 41 All her contours..betrayed a fine muscular development. 1918War Birds (1927) 85 He had a hundred and fifty Waacs of all sizes and contours and he was trying to line them up. 1961J. Anthony About Tunisia iv. 91, I liked painting her firm tawny body whose contours reminded me of the low-lying Tunisian hills.
e. Phonetics. A particular level, or a sequence of varying levels, of pitch, tone, or stress.
1941G. L. Trager in L. Spier et al. Language, Culture, & Personality 133 The second approach views the exponential kinetically, describing the movement in shape of the exponential in terms of changes of intensity; this is the contour. Ibid., The basic intensities and contours may be combined in several ways. 1948K. L. Pike Tone Languages i. 8 A pure contour tone language is one in which glides are basic to the system, with no level tonemes whatever: each contrastive pitch unit is a glide. 1962Amer. Speech XXXVII. 169 It is normally a lengthened monophthong..except under a terminal contour before an apico-alveolar consonant. 1962A. Nisbett Technique of Sound Studio 264 Phons equal decibels at 1000 c/s, and at other frequencies are related to this scale by contours of equal loudness. 1970Language XLVI. 265 Its ultimate speech correlates appear in the shape of the tense-carrying morphemes, the word order, and the intonation contour.
†2. Conchol. ‘The spiral that forms the shell, and winds round its columella or axis’. Obs.
1755Gentl. Mag. XXV. 31.
†3. A ‘round’ (of amusements, or the like). Obs.
1784Denouement 36 Fidgeting about from one demure employment to another forms the whole contour of my sprightly amusements.
4. Comb. contour chair, couch, one that is shaped to fit the form of the body, esp. one designed for the use of an astronaut; contour-chasing Aeronaut., flying close to the ground and following the contours of the landscape; contour-feathers, -hairs, the feathers or hairs which form the surface and contour of an animal, as distinguished from those which lie closer to the skin and do not appear on the surface; contour line, a line representing the horizontal contour of the earth's surface at a given elevation; the contour line of a mountain at a given height represents the edge of a horizontal plane cutting the mountain at that height; a series of such lines at successive elevations laid down on a map shows the elevations and depressions of the surface; contour map, a map showing contour lines; contour ploughing, the ploughing of land along its contours to minimize soil erosion; hence contour-plough v. trans. and n.; so contour cropping, contour furrowing; contour terracing, the construction of terraces along the contours of land.
1948Spiegel Catal. Fall & Winter 490 *Contour chair... Cradles the back and supports the shoulders. 1958C. C. Adams et al. Space Flight 198 The men are lying all but helpless on their contour chairs.
a1918McCudden 5 Yrs. R.F.C. (1919) 18 We got the old Blériot..out and went ‘*contour chasing’ over the Plain. 1934V. M. Yeates Winged Victory 37 No fun in flying comparable with the sport of contour-chasing.
1952Time 8 Dec. 70 They could survive by lying on their backs on *contour couches, say the space doctors. 1953‘S. Ransome’ Drag the Dark (1954) iv. 40 A so-called contour couch. I had bought it..because I do my best thinking while relaxed in a reclining position. 1959N.Y. Times Mag. 11 Oct. 18/1 He..lies there in his ‘contour couch’ and waits out the long countdown.
1953Brit. Commonw. Forestry Terminol. i. 30 *Contour cropping, the cultivation of crops in strips along the contour of a slope.
1867[see apterium]. 1937Farmer's Guide Agric. Res. 1936 (R. Agric. Soc.) 238 The remedial measures are *contour furrowing, [etc.].
1844Ansted Geol. II. 238 The laying down on the maps a system of what are called *contour-lines; by which is meant lines of equal altitude above a certain standard level. 1861Times 7 Oct., An accurate map of his fields..with contour lines of level by which road-making, drain excavation, etc., may be laid out. 1878Huxley Physiogr. 14 Where the ground is very steep the contour-lines run close together.
1862R. H. Patterson Ess. Hist. & Art 122 Look at the *Contour map of Europe in Johnston's Physical Atlas.
1941S. V. Benét in Life 7 July 92/2 People whose *contour-plows bring back the grass. 1941Life 13 Jan. 68/1 They..contour-plowed 600 acres of land.
1921McMurry & Parkins Adv. Geogr. i. viii. 220 Farmland that has gentle slopes should be plowed so that the furrows keep on a level instead of running downhill. Otherwise, the water may..wash the soil away... Such plowing is called *contour plowing. 1943J. S. Huxley TVA 28 The prevention of erosion on arable land by new methods such as contour ploughing. 1969N. W. Pirie Food Resources ii. 40 The simplest is to clear the land and, by careful contour ploughing and mulching, to try to minimize leaching.
1939*Contour terracing [see bund v.]. 1944J. S. Huxley Living in Revol. 114 Using contour terracing where there is danger of erosion. 1957Listener 26 Sept. 468/1 The villager himself has to..put more of it [sc. his money] into wells or contour terracing.
Senses 1 d, e in Dict. become 1 e, f. Add: [1.] d. A contour line.
1840E. C. Frome Outline Method Trig. Survey v. 56 The system of tracing these horizontal lines at fixed vertical intervals, and drawing between the contours vertical strokes..presents a far more easy method of expressing correctly the actual surface of the ground. 1861A. W. Drayson Pract. Milit. Surveying & Sketching vi. 68 The contours were ten feet apart in vertical distance. 1923J. Johnstone Introd. Oceanogr. iii. 46 The contour passes as nearly as possible to all the points where depths of (say) 50 fathoms are marked. 1957L. T. C. Rolt Isambard Kingdom Brunel viii. 132 Below, skirting the steeper contours, runs the later Bronze Age road. 1984A. C. & A. Duxbury Introd. World's Oceans viii. 260 The depth contours offshore tend to follow the shoreline pattern.
▪ II. contour, v.|ˈkɒntʊə(r), kənˈtʊə(r)|
[f. prec. n.]
1. trans. To mark or furnish with contour lines.
2. To carry (a road, etc.) round the contour of a hill. Hence conˈtouring vbl. n.; also attrib.
1871Proctor Light Sc. 280 In true contouring regular horizontal lines..are traced over a country. 1879C. C. King in Cassell Techn. Educ. IV. 92/2 For contouring it is simply necessary to keep the plummet vertical through the zero point. 1890H. S. Hallett 1000 Miles 431 The cart-road to Maymyo, a place 24 miles to the east of Mandalay, has had to be contoured to 44 miles, and ascends in this distance 3300 feet. 1890Catalogue of Scientif. Instrum., Contouring Glass or Hand Level for direct vision.
3. To follow the contour of.
1924G. L. Mallory in E. F. Norton Fight for Everest, 1924 209 Contouring the hill until we could drop into this valley 6 miles below the bungalow. 1967Oceanography & Marine Biol. V. 61 A part of the current therefore contours the north of New Zealand. |