| 释义 |
terminal, a. and n.|ˈtɜːmɪnəl|
[ad. L. termināl-is, f. termin-us end, boundary: see -al1. Cf. F. terminal (16th c. in Godef.).]
A. adj.
†1. Her. (See quots.) Obs.
1486Bk. St. Albans, Her. B j b, Ther be .ix. dyuisionis of cotarmures .v. perfite & .iiii. vnperfite. The .v. perfite be theys Termynall Collaterall Abstrakte Fixall and Bastard. Ibid., Termynall is calde in armys all the bretheren of right lyne hethir by fadre or by modre may bere the right heyris cotarmure with a differens calde Enbordyng. 1586J. Ferne Blaz. Gentrie 155 All these coates were called Terminall because that they were terminated or limited within their embordinges, as afore sayd.
2. a. Belonging to or placed at the boundary of a region, as a landmark; in quot. 1744, presiding over boundaries (cf. terminus 2).
1744Paterson Comm. on Milton's P.L. 218 The emblem of his being the terminal god, defending the borders of that nation. 1847Grote Greece ii. xvi. III. 283 A terminal pillar set up by Crœsus at Kydrara.
b. Applied to a statue, bust, or figure terminating in and apparently springing from a pillar or pedestal; also to the pillar or pedestal itself; and often inexactly to a pedestal which narrows towards the base. See term n. 15, terminus 3.
1857Birch Anc. Pottery (1858) II. 283 Sometimes only his bust is seen, or he appears as a terminal statue. 1858Hawthorne Fr. & It. Note-Bks. I. 177 Great urns and vases, terminal figures, temples.
3. a. Situated at or forming the end or extremity of something: chiefly in scientific use; spec. in Cryst. applied to the faces, edges, or angles of a crystal at the extremities of its longest axis; in Zool. and Anat. situated at or forming the (outer) end of a part or series of parts; in Bot. growing at the end of a stem, branch, or other part, as a bud, flower, or inflorescence, a style, etc. (opp. to lateral and axillary). terminal moraine (Geol.), a moraine at the lower end of a glacier: see moraine.
1805–17R. Jameson Char. Min. (ed. 3) 104 Terminal edges are formed by the junction of lateral and terminal planes. 1826Kirby & Sp. Entomol. IV. 308 Mouth... Terminal..When the mouth terminates the head. 1827H. Steuart Planter's G. (1828) 448 Plantations..pruned..by the removal of Terminal Shoots, and Terminal Buds. 1833J. Duncan Beetles (Nat. Libr.) 217 Terminal lobe of the maxillæ ending in a tuft of fine hair. 1847W. E. Steele Field Bot. 132 The uppermost whorl terminal and capitate. 1860Tyndall Glac. ii. viii. 264 The rocks and débris carried down by the glacier are finally deposited at the lower extremity, forming there a terminal moraine. 1869Phillips Vesuv. x. 274 A prism with a six-sided terminal pyramid. 1876Preece & Sivewright Telegraphy 160 By a terminal pole is meant not only the last pole at each end of the line to which the wires are terminated, but also any pole at which the wires form an angle approaching to 90°. 1884Hulme Wild Fl. p. vi, Inflorescence terminal and axillary.
b. Situated at the end of a line of railway; forming, or belonging to, a railway terminus.
1869Bradshaw's Railway Man. XXI. 87 This line..terminates in the city, at a great terminal station in Liverpool Street. 1878F. S. Williams Midl. Railw. 68 The cost including two terminal stations and rolling stock, averaging {pstlg}24,000 a mile. 1881Times 13 July 6/3 In regard to terminal services the respondent [railway] company allowed a rebate. 1907Daily Chron. 10 Sept. 4/6 When the Canadian Pacific Railway Company selected the spot for their western terminal port on the shores of the Pacific.
4. a. Occurring at the end of something (in time, or generally); forming the last member of a series or succession; closing, concluding, final, ultimate.
1831For. Q. Rev. VII. 378 Alliterative metre is formed without..dependence upon the aid of terminal rhyme. 1873H. Spencer Stud. Sociol. xiv. 336 The human being is at once the terminal problem of Biology and the initial factor of Sociology. 1877Dowden Shaks. Prim. iv. 41 These may be found as terminal words in the blank verse of Milton and of Wordsworth. 1885Act 48 & 49 Vict. c. 58 §2 The sums charged..shall..cover the costs of delivery..within..one mile of the terminal telegraphic office.
b. Path. (a) Applied to a morbid condition forming the final stage of a fatal disease; (b) applied to a patient suffering from such a disease; (c) applied to an institution or ward in which such patients are nursed.
(a)1891Cent. Dict., Terminal dementia, dementia forming the final and permanent stage of many cases of acute insanity. 1898Allbutt's Syst. Med. V. 422 In the moribund a ‘terminal’ leucocytosis is frequently observed. 1958A. Huxley Let. 2 Feb. (1969) 845 The administration of LSD to terminal cancer cases, in the hope that it would make dying a more spiritual, less strictly physiological process. 1961Lancet 2 Sept. 549/1 It is they who have the closest contact with people who are going through ‘terminal illnesses’. 1976Church Times 23 July 11/1, I now have several progressive illnesses; one is terminal. 1980D. Lodge How Far can you Go? vi. 160 What would it be like to be told you had a terminal illness, he wondered.
(b)1961Amer. Speech XXXVI. 145 Terminal adj., approaching death, moribund. ‘The patient looks terminal to me.’ 1965E. M. K. Pillers in J. S. Mitchell Treatment of Cancer 91 Response to this has been disappointing and the patient is now terminal. 1969Guardian 19 Aug. 2/2 We started off with patients who were going to die anyway—terminal patients.
(c)1961Lancet 2 Sept. 548/2 Excellent care of these patients has been carried out not only at St. Joseph's but also in other terminal homes and hospitals. 1974F. Warner Meeting Ends i. ii. 13 The old lady was taken into the terminal ward, inarticulate, jabbering away.
c. colloq. In various transf. and fig. uses of sense 4 b (freq. joc. or trivial).
1973Black Panther 11 Aug. 8/2 The country was plunged into shock and the President faced a terminal crisis. 1975D. Lodge Changing Places iii. 112, I continue to hope that our marital problems are not terminal. 1981Daily Tel. 21 Dec. 2/1 Another contest for Labour's deputy leadership next year could prove ‘terminal’ for the party, Mr Neil Kinnock..said. 1983Times 23 Sept. 6/4 One commentator said yesterday that his insensitivity was terminal. Ibid. 26 Sept. 9/5 A bad case of terminal tiredness had lowered my resistance to every loitering bug.
5. Belonging to or lasting for a term or definite period; esp. pertaining to a university or law term; occurring every term or at fixed terms; termly.
1827Q. Rev. XXXVI. 259 Strict terminal examinations, on the topics of the college lectures, have been generally introduced. 1875Stubbs Const. Hist. II. xv. 260 This council sitting in terminal courts assisted the king in hearing suits. 1885Sir N. Lindley in Law Rep. 29 Ch. Div. 593 This terminal rent-charge is an incumbrance on the inheritance. 1885Law Times LXXX. 5/1 A set of rooms in college..at a yearly rent payable by three terminal payments. 1885M. Pattison Mem. 87 A share in the terminal examinations called ‘Collections’.
6. Logic. Pertaining to a term (term n. 12).
1872in Latham. 1891Cent. Dict., Terminal quantity, the quantity of a term, as universal or particular.
7. Special collocations: terminal ballistics, that branch of ballistics which deals with the impact of the projectile on the target; terminal guidance Aeronaut. (see quot. 1955); terminal juncture Linguistics, a juncture (sense 2 c) that occurs at the end of a syntactic unit; terminal market Comm., a market that deals in futures; terminal nose-dive Aeronaut., a nose-dive during which an aircraft reaches its terminal velocity; terminal string Transformational Gram., a string consisting wholly of terminal symbols; terminal symbol Transformational Gram., a symbol that denotes a lexical class and cannot be further rewritten; terminal velocity, the constant speed of fall that any particular object, given time, will eventually attain, at which the air resistance is equal to its weight.
1947L. E. Simon German Research World War II vii. 109 Terminal ballistics is concerned with the motion of the projectile, its fragments, and gases in the neighbourhood of the target. 1974Encycl. Brit. Macropædia II. 659/2 A theoretical structure for terminal ballistics is a relatively current development.
1955A. S. Locke Guidance i. 19 Terminal guidance is the guidance applied to the missile between the end of the midcourse guidance and contact with or detonation in close proximity to the target. 1979Jrnl. R. Soc. Arts CXXVII. 555/1 Long-range, sea-skimming missiles with terminal guidance.
1956Language XXXII. 653 This set of phonetic phenomena we assign to the terminal juncture. 1975Ibid. LI. 57 The final element, hacer, accompanied by terminal juncture, is associated with zero following elements, signals absolute completion, and receives maximum contrast.
1895Daily News 14 Dec. 9/4 The terminal market, though dull, has been steadier, prices marking a recovery of 3d. to 6d. on the week. 1952Economist 22 Nov. 567/1 There is little hope of restoration of a terminal market until the domestic allocation of sugar is freed from rationing. 1962H. O. Beecheno Introd. Business Stud. xi. 94 Future or terminal markets where goods can be bought and sold in advance.
1933Gloss. Aeronaut. Terms (B.S.I.) 9 Terminal nose-dive, a dive at terminal velocity. 1956N. Chomsky Logical Struct. Linguistic Theory (1975) vii. 174 The mapping in question may rearrange the order of elements of terminal strings and may specify their morphemic shape in various ways. 1967D. G. Hays Introd. Computational Linguistics vi. 118 A terminal string is composed of a certain number, say n, of terminal symbols.
1964E. Bach Introd. Transformational Gram. ii. 14 Among the symbols of the grammar..there are some which never appear to the left of the arrow in a rule as symbols to be replaced. These are called terminal symbols. 1967D. G. Hays Introd. Computational Linguistics vi. 119 In terms of dependency theory, let the level of a structure be one greater than the number of links from its origin to the terminal symbol furthest removed.
1832Babbage Econ. Manuf. (ed. 3) 52 Bodies, in falling through a resisting medium, after a certain time acquire a uniform velocity, which is called their terminal velocity, with which they continue to descend. 1910[see Stokes1 c]. 1914Aeronaut. Jrnl. XVIII. 50 He had dived, and had reached a speed so high that he thought it wise to straighten out without waiting to reach the terminal velocity. 1946T. C. Ohart Elements Ammunition iv. viii. 199 This theoretical maximum velocity for a given size and shape of bomb is called the terminal velocity; it is really a function of a given design, depending upon the aerodynamic characteristics of a bomb.
B. n.
†1. pl. Rendering L. Terminālia, name of an ancient Roman festival held annually in honour of the god Terminus: see terminus 2, and cf. Saturnals, saturnal B. 2. Obs. rare—0.
1656Blount Glossogr., Terminals (terminalia), feasts..kept in February at the eighth calends of March.
2. A terminal part or structure, i.e. one situated at or forming the end, or an end, of something; spec.
a. in Electr. each of the free ends of an open circuit (by connecting which the circuit is closed), or any structure forming such an end, as the carbons in an arc light, or the clamping-screws in a voltaic battery by which it is connected with the wire that completes the circuit;
b. Physiol. the end or end-structure of a nerve fibre or neuron;
c. a carving or other ornament at the end of something, as a finial.
1838W. Sturgeon in Ann. Electr., Magn., & Chem. II. 11 That [part] which is connected with the positive pole of the exciting apparatus..may very conveniently be called the ‘salient terminal metal’, or occasionally the ‘salient terminal’ only. 1850Grove Corr. Phys. Forces (ed. 2) 82 If the two platinum terminals of a voltaic battery be immersed in water, oxygen will be evolved at one and hydrogen at the other terminal. 1865Morn. Star 27 Feb., Seats..panelled with oak, the elbow rails having carved terminals. 1869M. Somerville Molec. Sc. I. i. ii. 52 When the copper conducting wires are fitted with charcoal terminals and brought near to one another, the dazzling lights combine in one blaze. 1874Carpenter Ment. Phys. i. ii. §89 (1879) 99 The terminals of the sensory tract of the axial cord. 1899Allbutt's Syst. Med. VIII. 325 The ultimate naked fibrils (collaterals and terminals). 1904Windle Rem. Prehist. Age Brit. 100 Chapes or terminals to scabbards which may have belonged to daggers or to swords.
d. A device for feeding data into a computer or receiving its output; esp. one that can be used by a person as a means of two-way communication with a computer.
1954Trans. IRE Prof. Group Electronic Computers Mar. 2/1 Since the two machines employ the same digital language, this attachment can easily be made through their regular input-output terminals. 1958Oxf. Mag. 29 May 470/1 The ‘terminal’ equipment, consisting of punched paper tape and a teleprinter, is relatively slow. 1965Jrnl. Assoc. Computing Machinery XII. 350 (heading) On a problem concerning a central storage device served by multiple terminals. 1970O. Dopping Computers & Data Processing ix. 131 An ‘impersonal’ terminal with card reader, line printer, etc. can be started automatically at the end of the waiting time, but in case of a ‘personal’ terminal, the computer may send a message to the terminal indicating that the conversation may begin. 1971Daily Tel. (Colour Suppl.) 19 Feb. 5/3 The national police computer with 700 terminals throughout the country opens this year. 1973Nature 12 Oct. p. xxviii/3 (Advt.), There are good in-house computing facilities and a terminal to an IBM 360/195. 1977Hongkong Standard 12 Apr. (Business Suppl.) 5/1 Terminal operators have been responding actively to the encouraging scene. 1979Computers in Shell (Shell Internat. Petroleum Co.) (recto rear cover), Types of terminals include card readers, printers, video screens and teletypes. 1981Sci. Amer. Dec. 112/3 The computer executes the operation, simplifies the resulting expression and prints it or displays it on a video terminal.
3. A final syllable, letter, or word; a termination.
1831Westm. Rev. Jan. 61 The derivation of one word from another.., or rather the different states in which a root presents itself with terminals added. 1866Sat. Rev. 21 Apr. 474 Madlle. Orgeni (German in spite of her patronymic terminal) comes directly from Berlin. 1904Athenæum 21 May 646/2 Mr. Coleridge transposes the rhyming terminals ‘healthy’ and ‘wealthy’.
4. pl. Charges made by a railway company for the use of a terminus or other station, and for services rendered in loading or unloading goods, etc., there: see quot. 1887.
1878F. S. Williams Midl. Railw. 188 There was a sum of {pstlg}5000 or {pstlg}6000 for ‘terminals’. 1884Pall Mall G. 27 May 3/1 To charge a reasonable sum for station terminals. 1887Contemp. Rev. Jan. 82 The cost of collection, loading, covering, unloading, and delivering,..are the chief items included under the denomination of ‘terminals’.
5. a. A terminal station or premises on a railway, a terminus; a terminal point of a railway, a place or town at which it has a terminus (orig. and chiefly U.S.). Hence, in extended use, applied to the terminal point of an airline (= air terminal (a) s.v. air n.1 III. 1), a bus service (= bus terminal s.v. bus n.2 3), or occas. some other transportation service.
1888Boston (Mass.) Jrnl. 7 Aug. 3/2 The Canadian Pacific..company has purchased extensive dock property and terminals at Windsor, opposite Detroit. 1900Jrnl. Sch. Geog. (U.S.) Apr. 135 The seaboard terminal is New York, with its three million of people. 1904Kittredge Old Farmer 279 In 1801, King's Tavern, Boston, was the ‘terminal’ for the stages for Albany, New York, &c. 1921Flight 16 June 401 (caption) Two London–Paris terminals.—The lower photograph shows Cricklewood aerodrome..the upper picture shows the Paris air port. 1922Joyce Ulysses 699 When citybound frequent connection by train or tram from their respective intermediate station or terminal. 1924London Guide No. 3 152 At all the principal traffic centres and at the route terminals are uniformed ‘General’ Inspectors [of buses]. 1937New Statesman 25 Dec. 1094/1 A rail-cum-steamer terminal on the Firth of Clyde. 1958‘N. Shute’ Rainbow & Rose vi. 270 Walking from the hostel to the terminal [of an airline]. 1958Times 1 Mar. 7/4 Each city or town would adopt the type of terminal [for helicopters] best suited to its own locality. 1969Jane's Freight Containers 1968–69 113/3 Scheduled national services: door-to-door and terminal-to-terminal. 1975N. Luard Robespierre Serial xvii. 153 All he could do was head for the bus terminal... The terminal was only twenty minutes by taxi from the hotel. 1980R. McCrum In Secret State xiii. 122 Quitman took the Piccadilly line to Heathrow... Soon he was standing on the travolator, riding up towards Terminal Three. 1981M. Moorcock Byzantium Endures ii. 50 We eventually arrived at Glavnaya Station, the main terminal of Odessa situated in the heart of the city.
b. An installation where oil is stored, situated at the end of a pipeline or at a port of call for oil tankers.
[1940Petroleum Press Service 19 Apr. 182 This has included laying down a 100-mile 16 inch pipe-line to the coast and constructing ocean terminal facilities at Puerto La Cruz.] 1947L. M. Fanning Amer. Oil Operations Abroad xi. (caption) Oil-loading dock, Puerto La Cruz Terminal. 1948Economist 14 Aug. 259/2 It is obviously difficult to pump oil from an Arab source in Iraq to a terminal in a Jewish-held town. 1976M. Machlin Pipeline vi. 70 The 707 could then descend to a relatively low level and follow the route of the pipeline to its terminal.
6. A terminal figure: = term n. 15, terminus 3.
1876Gwilt Archit. Gloss., Term or Terminal. Ibid., Vagina, the lower part of a terminal in which a statue is apparently inserted.
7. One suffering from a terminal illness.
1960J. G. Ballard in New Worlds Oct. 95 The terminals sleeping in the adjacent dormitory block attracted hordes of would-be sightseers. 1976Church Times 23 July 11/2 Mr. Rice recently paid a third visit to the nun—who is bedridden and a terminal—and questioned her again, mainly about prayer and intercession. 1982P. Van Greenaway Lazarus Lie vi. 61 ‘You have maybe a couple of thousand patients.’.. ‘How many terminals?’ ‘Terminals?’ ‘Inoperables, end of the liners.’
8. Special Combs.: terminal building, a building housing the main facilities for air passengers; terminal screw Electr., a screw for fastening an electric wire to the object with the screw hole.
1933Jrnl. R. Aeronaut. Soc. XXXVII. 10 A terminal building will house traffic control and airport administration. 1977G. Scott Hot Pursuit iv. 38 At the airport..I got out of the terminal building and on to the bus.
1931S. R. Roget Dict. Electr. Terms (ed. 2) 349/2 Terminal screw. 1978N.Y. Times 30 Mar. c–4/1 Aluminum wire is stiffer than copper wire and does not bend as easily when wrapped around small terminal screws on switches and outlets.
▸ terminal degree n. N. Amer. Educ. the highest degree achievable in a given academic or professional discipline.
1904Science 27 May 820 This *terminal degree—perhaps we may call it master's degree—must be specialized. 2006N.Y. Times (National ed.) 23 Apr. (Educ. Life Suppl.) 40/1 At that time..I needed only a master's degree to teach. Now..most theater departments require a ‘terminal’ degree (Ph.D. or M.F.A.). |
