| 释义 |
-ent, suffix
a. Fr. -ent, ad. L. -ent-em, the ending of pr. pples. of vbs. of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th conjugation, as rīdent-em, currentem, audientem. (In the pples. of the 3rd and 4th conjugation this ending represents OAryan -nt-, or perh. -ent-, of the ablaut-series -ent-, -ont-, -nt-; cf. Skr. -ant-, -at-, Gr. -οντ-, Goth. -and-, OE. -end-; in those of the 2nd conjugation it represents this suffix combined with the thematic -e- of the vb.; similarly the -ant- of the 1st conjugation includes a thematic -a-.) In OFr. this suffix and the corresponding -ant-em of the 1st conjugation were levelled under -ant, the sole ending of the Fr. pr. pple., as riant, courant, mourant, levant (:—L. levantem). At a later time many L. forms in -ent-, which had acquired an adj. sense, were adopted in Fr. as adjs. with the -ent- unchanged, as diligent, évident; some of these were duplicates of living ppl. forms in -ant, as convénient = convenant, provident = pourvoyant, confident = confiant. The Fr. words in -ant, -ent, which were adopted into Eng., have generally retained the form of the suffix which they had in Fr.; but since 1500 there has been a tendency to refashion them after Lat., and hence several words in -ant have changed that ending for -ent, either entirely or in certain senses. In mod.Eng. also many Lat. words in -entem have been directly adopted, always in the form -ent. The conflict between Eng. and Fr. analogies occasions frequent inconsistency and uncertainty in the present spelling of words with this suffix; cf. e.g. assistant, persistent; attendant, superintendent; dependant, -ent, independent.
2. In sense the words in -ent, -ant are primarily adjs., sometimes distinctly ppl., as convergent, obsolescent, errant, peccant; some, however, are, like many words of the same type in Lat. and Fr., used as ns. (either in addition to the adj. use or exclusively), meaning (a) a personal agent, as agent, claimant, president, regent; (b) a material agent, as coefficient, current, ingredient, secant, tangent, torrent; esp. in Medicine, as aperient, astringent, emollient, expectorant. |
