| 释义 |
sordid, a. and n.|ˈsɔːdɪd|
Also 6–7 sordide, 7 sorded.
[a. F. sordide (16th c. in Godefroy; = Sp., Pg., It. sórdido), or ad. L. sordid-us dirty, foul, base, mean, etc., f. sord-ēre to be dirty: cf. sordes.]
A. adj.
I.
1. Path. a. Of suppurations, etc.: Corrupt, foul, repulsive; of the nature of sordes.
1597Lowe Chirurg. L iij b, The vlcers [are] inequal, sordides [sic],..euill fauoured, by reason of the humor, which is most sordide and stinking. 1822–7Good Study Med. (1829) II. 163 The skin parched, or soaked with sordid, fetid sweat. Ibid. II. 627 There is a dejection of sordid pus in considerable abundance. 1883J. M. Duncan Lect. Dis. Women (ed. 2) xvi. 161 An old grey-white accumulation of sordid epithelial detritus.
b. Of an ulcer, wound, etc.: Yielding or discharging matter of this kind.
1597[see prec.]. 1676Wiseman Surg. Treat. ii. i. 165 There is a second sort of Matter affecting Ulcers that is thick, generated of abundance of gross tough Humours, and rendering the Ulcer foul; whence it is called a Sordid Vlcer. 1696Phil. Trans. XIX. 291 The Wound was very sordid; and the inside as well as the outside beset with Slime. 1769E. Bancroft Guiana 384 The disease corrodes the fingers and toes with a dry, sordid, scabby, and gangrenous ulcer. 1801Med. Jrnl. V. 163 The incision on the left arm, which..had degenerated into a sordid ulcer. 1822–7Good Study Med. (1829) V. 556 In several sordid cutaneous eruptions.
2. a. Dirty, foul, filthy; repellent through want of cleanness or tidiness; in later use, mean and squalid.
1611Cotgr., Sordide, sordide, foule, filthie, corrupt. 1627Donne Serm. xxii. (1640) 223 Sordid, senselesse, namelesse dust. 1655Culpepper, etc. Riverius iv. vii. 116 The choller and flegm which is more..impure, swims at the top, and so the blood seems impure and sordid. 1680Otway Orphan i. iv, [I will] rather..live on sordid scraps at proud Men's Doors. 1697Dryden Virg. Georg. i. 118 [They] sprinkle sordid Ashes all around. 1727–46Thomson Summer 386 The trout is banish'd by the sordid stream. 1836Emerson Nature, Beauty Wks. (Bohn) II. 147 In private places, among sordid objects, an act of truth or heroism seems at once to draw to itself the sky as its temple.
b. Of places, houses, etc.
1628Donne Serm. lxxv. (1640) 762 To finde a languishing wretch in a sordid corner. 1634Sir T. Herbert Trav. 149 Their houses..within are poore and sordid. 1669Phil. Trans. IV. 1136 The sweepings of the house, any kind of ashes, shovelings of any sordid place. 1821Shelley Adonais xxxviii, Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame. 1864Burton Scot Abr. I. iii. 122 Stately edifices..were doomed to fall into decay and be succeeded by sordid hovels. 1880Mrs. Forrester Roy & V. I. 56 She has escaped from her sordid surroundings.
c. Of life, conditions, etc.
1621Burton Anat. Mel. i. ii. ii. v, Through their owne nastinesse & sluttishnesse, & immund sordid maner of life, suffer their aire to putrifie. 1687A. Lovell tr. Thevenot's Trav. ii. 108 The sordid and nasty way that the Ambassadour and all his train lived in. 1691Ray Creation i. (1704) 110 What a Kind of barbarous and sordid Life we must necessarily have lived. 1764Harmer Observ. ii. §13. 70 We..may have imagined..that Abraham lived in a sordid plenty. 1797Godwin Enquirer ii. iv. 206 He can procure a sordid meal. 1850A. Jameson Leg. Monast. Ord. (1863) 253 With tattered raiment and all the outward signs of sordid misery. 1891Kipling Light that Failed vii. (1900) 112 Dick's experience of the sordid misery of want.
d. Of garments or clothing.
1655Stanley Hist. Philos. (1687) 136/1 [They] wear the same garment in Winter as in Summer, and that sordid. 1673W. Cave Prim. Christ. iii. v. 366 In a sordid and squalid Habit. 1752Fielding Amelia (1775) X. 8 The magistrate had too great an honour for truth to suspect that she ever appeared in sordid apparel. 1788Gibbon Decl. & Fall xli. IV. 149 Sordid and scanty were their garments. 1851Trench Poems (1862) 183 They put the sordid grave clothes off.
3.
†a. Of persons (or animals): Dirty or sluttish in habits or appearance. Obs.
1613Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 232 They abstaine from swines flesh: neither will that sweete aire of Arabia breath life to that sordide and stinking creature. 1664H. More Apology 517 Provided we be not course and sordid, but reverent and comely in our public worship. 1712Addison Spect. No. 464 ⁋5 The Person he chanced to see was to Appearance an old sordid blind Man.
b. Zool. In the names of a few fishes or birds, in allusion to their dirty-looking colour, as sordid chætodon, sordid dragonet, sordid scarus, sordid thrush.
1803Shaw Gen. Zool. IV. ii. 370 *Sordid Chætodon... Dusky-grey Chætodon; native of the Arabian seas.
1769Pennant Brit. Zool. (1776) III. 147 The *Sordid Dragonet, Dracunculus. 1836Yarrell Brit. Fishes I. 266 The Sordid Dragonet..generally occurs of small size. 1881Day Fishes Gt. Brit. I. 176 Sordid dragonet, dusky skulpin.
1803Shaw Gen. Zool. IV. ii. 400 *Sordid Scarus... Brown-ferruginous Scarus.
1801Latham Gen. Synop. Birds, Suppl. II. 186 *Sordid Thrush... The plumage in general is greenish ash.
II.
†4. Of a coarse, gross, or inferior character or nature; befitting or appertaining to a mean person or thing; menial. Obs.
1596Spenser F.Q. v. v. 23 She..in his hand a distaffe to him gaue, That he thereon should spin both flax and tow; A sordid office for a mind so braue. 1605Bacon Adv. Learn. ii. i. §5 He did thinke much to dispute with any that did alleage such base and sordide instances. a1619M. Fotherby Atheom. ii. i. §8 (1686) 195 Not onely in liberall and ingenious Arts, but also in sordide and ignoble. 1655Stanley Hist. Philos. (1687) 195/2 Modesty teacheth us to decline sordid things. a1701Maundrell Journ. Jerus. 8 Apr. (1707) 107 By which means it was redeem'd from that sordid use. 1751Johnson Rambler No. 168 ⁋6 The long habit of connecting a knife with sordid offices.
5. a. Of actions, habits, etc.: Of a low, mean, or despicable character; marked by or proceeding from ignoble motives, esp. of self-interest or monetary gain.
1611Cotgr., Taquinerie, sordide miserie,..base pinching. 1639in Verney Mem. (1907) I. 106 His sordide and base dissembling. 1682Burnet Rights Princes ii. 35 The Clergy using all the basest and sordidest Arts possible to draw Legacies from Rich Widows. 1753Richardson Grandison V. ii. 19 We see, in the behaviour, and sordid acquiescence with insults, of these three men, that offensive spirits cannot be true ones. 1781Cowper Truth 76 What is all righteousness that men devise? What—but a sordid bargain for the skies? 1818Bentham Parl. Reform 50 That they should sell the attachment of their friends..for dry and sordid gain. 1855Macaulay Hist. Eng. xviii. IV. 162 His courage, his abilities,..had made him, in spite of his sordid vices, a favourite with his brethren in arms. 1873Dixon Two Queens xvi. ii. III. 193 Though he got her money, he had never ceased repenting of his sordid act.
b. Lacking in refinement; low, coarse, rough.
1668Extr. State P. rel. Friends (1912) III. 278 Edward Wivel..permits their sordid Conventicls to be..kept ther. 1744Akenside Pleas. Imag. ii. 15 Long immured In noon⁓tide darkness by the glimmering lamp, Each Muse and each fair Science pined away The sordid hours. 1751Johnson Rambler No. 168 ⁋3 To him who has passed most of his hours with the delicate and polite, many expressions will seem sordid.
c. absol. That which is sordid or mean.
1863W. Morris in Mackail Life (1899) I. 21 Whatever there was of sordid about the story had slipped off him. 1902J. Buchan Watcher by Threshold 189 Frankly, I hate the sordid and unpleasant.
6. Of persons, their character, etc.: Inclined to what is low, mean, or ignoble; esp. moved by selfish or mercenary motives; influenced only by material considerations.
1636[Freeman] tr. Seneca's Shortn. Life (1663) 34 He sordid is, who catch'd with rude applause, Grown old, dies wrangling in a worthlesse cause. 1650Bulwer Anthropomet. 171 These Nations.., that are so unpolitick, may justly be called wild men, and of a sordid disposition. 1687Wood Life (O.H.S.) III. 241 He is sordid still, and nothing will change his base humour. 1727Gay Fables i. xix, A Lion-cub of sordid mind, Avoided all the lion kind. 1789Belsham Ess. II. xli. 561 They are inveighed against as a base and sordid people. 1808Scott Marm. ii. xxii, Her comrade was a sordid soul. 1840Miss Mitford in L'Estrange Life (1870) III. vii. 108 The land..will probably be purchased by some sordid person upon the speculation of making us pay an inordinate rent. 1875Manning Mission H. Ghost viii. 203 All men of the world are sordid, and the more worldly the more sordid.
absol.1762Cowper To Miss Macartney 54 Thus grief itself has comforts dear, The sordid never know.
7. Comb., as sordid-base; with ppl. adj., as sordid-seeming.
1598B. Jonson Ev. Man in Hum. ii. iii, To think a fellow of thy outward presence, Should, in the frame and fashion of his mind, Be so degenerate, and sordid-base. 1920D. H. Lawrence Lost Girl xiv. 329 The dreary, to her sordid-seeming Campagna.
B. n. One who is sordid. rare.
1959C. MacInnes Absolute Beginners 13 All the old tax-payers know of this because, of course, for one thing, the poor old sordids recollect their own glorious teenage days. Ibid. 184 It doesn't seem possible such sordids as this lot could frighten you. 1960N. Mitford Don't tell Alfred ix. 97 My children regarded everybody over the age of thirty as old sordids, old weirdies, ruins, hardly human at all. |