| 释义 |
crux|krʌks|
[L.: see cross.]
‖1. = cross, in heraldic and other expressions. crux ansata = tau 2 b (see quot. 1930).
1841J. G. Wilkinson Manners & Customs Anc. Egyptians 2nd Ser. I. xiii. 341 The sign of life (or crux ansata) was compelled to submit to the unintelligible name of ‘Key of the Nile’. 1896[see ankh]. 1930E. A. T. W. Budge Amulets & Superstitions xviii. 340 It is wrong, too, to call the sign ☥, crux ansata, the ‘handled cross’, for whatever object the hieroglyph may represent, it was certainly not a cross or anything like it.
‖2. Astron. The constellation of the Southern Cross.
1837Penny Cycl. VIII. 198 Crux, a southern constellation formed out of Halley's observations by Augustine Royer in his maps published in 1679. 1870Proctor Other Worlds xi. 253 There is in the constellation Crux, a pear-shaped vacuity of considerable size.
3. fig.
a. A difficulty which it torments or troubles one greatly to interpret or explain, a thing that puzzles the ingenuity; as ‘a textual crux’. Cf. crucify v. 2 c. (Used by Sheridan and Swift with the sense ‘conundrum, riddle’.)[Cf. G. kreuz, Grimm, 2178 g, (quoted from Herder 1778, and Niebuhr); according to Hildebrand taken from the scholastic Latin crux interpretum, etc.] 1718Sheridan To Swift Wks. 1814 XV. 56 Dear dean, since in cruxes and puns you and I deal, Pray, Why is a woman a sieve and a riddle? 1718Swift To Sheridan Ibid. 61 As for your new rebus, or riddle, or crux, I will either explain, or repay it in trucks. 1830Sir W. Hamilton Philos. Perception Disc. (1852) 69 note, Ideas have been the crux philosophorum, since Aristotle sent them packing to the present day. 1859Maurice What is Revelation 70 To look upon them as mere cruxes and trivialities which may be left to critics. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) IV. 401 The unity of opposites was the crux of ancient thinkers in the age of Plato. 1888Dowden in 19th Cent. XLIII. 336 The consideration of a textual crux in itself sharpens the wits.
b. The chief problem; the central or decisive point of interest.
1888Law Times LXXXIV. 293/2 There remained the point, which was the crux of the case, whether the defendant was under any duty towards the plaintiff. 1934R. Benedict Patterns of Culture vii. 232 The crux of the matter is that the behaviour under consideration must pass through the needle's eye of social acceptance. 1944J. S. Huxley On Living in Rev. 179 Culture, not ‘race’, is, again, the crux of the American problem. 1971Sunday Times 31 Jan. 12/1 The crux, however, is accommodation. This is now widely agreed to be the main determinant of university and polytechnic expansion.
4. Comb. † crux-herrings, herrings caught after the festival of the Exaltation of the Cross (Sept. 14).
1641S. Smith Herringbusse Trade 7 There are also a sort of Herrings called Crux-Herrings, beginning the 14 of Septemb. being the day noted exal. Crucis; these Herrings are made with salt upon salt, and are carefully sorted out. 1727–51in Chambers Cycl. |