| 释义 |
Acadian, n. and a.|əˈkeɪdɪən|
[f. Acadia (Fr. Acadie), the name of a former French colony on the Atlantic seaboard of N. America, which included the present Maritime Provinces of Canada (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island) + -an: see Cajan.]
A. n.
1. a. A native or inhabitant of Acadia or of the Maritime Provinces; spec. a French-speaking descendant of French settlers in Acadia.
1705Boston News-Let. 14 May, At break of day..our harbour was beset with..some Accadians at Pessemaquaddy and Port Royall, and Cannadians. 1757Mem. Principal Trans. Last War 12 The French inhabitants (whom for Distinction-sake I shall call Acadians)..were by the treaty allowed their option either to retire..or to remain there. 1790R. Beatson Naval & Mil. Mem. I. 306 They were joined by as many Canadians, Acadians and Indians. 1832W. D. Williamson Hist. State Maine II. 264 The energetic efforts of its government to bring the Acadians or French Neutrals, into obedience. 1959W. R. Bird Maritimes iii. 85 The Acadians are a careful people, dealing shrewdly, saving, working hard, and the farms are without mortgages. 1974P. Gzowski Bk. about this Country 11/1 Edith Butler, a tall, shy, graceful Acadian who may have the most beautiful eyes in Canada—she certainly writes and sings some of the most beautiful songs. 1984Daily Tel. 29 Dec. 15/4 A government plan to spend {pstlg}75,000 to put up the flag of the Acadians..on key government buildings has annoyed many.
b. A native or inhabitant of Louisiana descended from inhabitants of Acadia (see quot. 1931); also loosely, any poor French-speaking Louisianian.
1803T. Jefferson in Deb. Congress U.S. (1852) 8th Congress 2 Sess. App. 1506/2 The three succeeding settlements, up to Baton Rouge, contain mostly Acadians. 1878,1880[see Cajan]. 1931W. A. Read Louisiana-French p. xviii, The Acadians of Louisiana are the descendants of the French who were formally expelled by the English from Acadie, or Nova Scotia, on Friday, September 5, 1755. 1947Amer. N. & Q. VI. 173/1 The Cajuns—south-west Louisiana Acadians of Norman and Breton ancestry—were seemingly very resourceful in this art.
B. adj.
1. a. Of or pertaining to Acadia or the Acadians.
1826T. Flint Recoll. 322 The inhabitants [of Louisiana] are principally French.. and the very Arcadian [sic] race, about which so much has been said and sung. 1847Longfellow Evangeline i. 1 In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas. 1876G. Bancroft Hist. U.S. III. x. 417 He sent De Pontleroy..to travel throughout America..in the guise of an Acadian wanderer. 1888G. W. Cable (title) Bonaventure, a prose pastoral of Acadian Louisiana. 1922P. A. Taverner Birds of E. Canad. (rev. ed.) 138 There are several subspecies of the Saw-whet Owl in Canada; but only one, the Acadian Owl, the type form, is ever found in the east. 1970M. Orkin Canadian Eng. i. 13 On the east coast..had settled the ‘Acadian Loyalists’, largely from the New England states.
b. Acadian French. (a) The French who inhabited Acadia; their descendants, esp. those living in the Maritime Provinces; (b) the dialect of French spoken in the Maritime Provinces or in Louisiana.
1806J. Stewart Acct. Prince Edward Island 153 It is not denied by the Accadian French still resident on the Island, that they were very partial to this savage practice of their neighbours. 1891A. Fortier in PMLA VI. 77 The lower class speak the Acadian French mixed with the Creole patois and a little English. 1970M. Orkin Canadian Eng. i. 14 Excepted from the Bluenose country were Cape Breton and Pictou County, almost wholly settled by..Highlanders, along with a few thousand ‘Associated Loyalists’ and a few ‘Acadian French’. 1976Language LII. 251 L[ucci] examines the status of Acadian French within the context of French Canada, and the main lines of the history of the Acadian settlement.
2. Geol.
a. Of, pertaining to, or designating the Middle Cambrian in (esp. eastern) North America. Also absol. See quot. 1982.
[1855J. W. Dawson Acadian Geol. i. 2 The Acadian provinces form a well-marked geological district, distinguished from all the neighbouring parts of America by the enormous and remarkable development within it of rocks of the Carboniferous and New Red Sandstone systems.] 1868― in Proc. Amer. Assoc. Advancement Sci. XVI. 118 These rocks..having been ascertained to be Devonian, there still remained an immense thickness of underlying rocks of uncertain age... It is proposed to call this series, represented in New Brunswick by the St. John slates, the Acadian Series. 1880J. D. Dana Man. Geol. (ed. 3) iii. ii. 166 The Primordial or Cambrian Period in North America includes two subdivisions... (1.) The Acadian Epoch; (2.) The Potsdam Epoch. 1917Jrnl. Geol. XXV. 148 In the Lockport the time..marked the close of the Niagaran; in the Eldon it marks the close of the Middle Cambrian or Acadian. 1982W. B. Harland et al. Geologic Time Scale ii. 11/2 In North America..names have had regional significance often contrasted between Appalachian and Cordilleran usage, i.e. Georgian, Acadian and Potsdam..in the east..and somewhat later, in the west, Waucoban, Albertan and Croixian. Usage now tends to favour the western nomenclature.
b. Of, pertaining to, or designating an orogenic era in Late Devonian and Mississippian times that affected esp. the Appalachians and the east coast of Canada.
1895H. S. Williams Geological Biol. ii. 42 A geological revolution is expressed by unconformity and more or less disturbance and displacement of the strata... Elevation and unconformity terminating the Devonian formations of Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia..may..be called the Acadian revolution. 1933Schuchert & Dunbar Textbk. Geol. (ed. 3) ii. xi. 208 The Acadian orogeny..produced the strong folding now seen in the Devonian and older rocks of New Hampshire, Maine, and northern New Brunswick. 1980Sci. Amer. Oct. 136/1 The southern Appalachians have evolved in a series of collisions of fragments of continental or island-arc material at the eastern edge of North America in the Taconic, the Acadian and the Alleghenian orogenies. |