| 释义 |
middle age, n.
1. The period between youth and old age. Cf. middle eld, middle life: see middle a. 6.
1377Langl. P. Pl. B. xii. 7 And of thi wylde wantounesse tho thow ȝonge were, To amende it in thi myddel age. c1440Ipomydon 1588 He had an eme was stiffe and stronge; Of mydille age. 1526Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 13 b, Some in theyr youth: some in theyr myddell age: and some in theyr last dayes. c1600Shakes. Sonn. vii, Resembling strong youth in his middle age. a1631Donne in Select. (1840) 24 That all thy spring, thy youth, be spent in wantonness, all thy summer, thy middle age, in ambition. 1749Fielding Tom Jones ii. viii, His time of life, which was only what is called middle age. 1810Scott Lady of L. i. xxi, On his bold visage middle age Had slightly press'd its signet sage. 1884Pae Eustace 37 He was considerably past middle age.
2. the Middle Age, now usually the Middle Ages: the period intermediate between ‘ancient’ and ‘modern’ times; in earlier use commonly taken as extending from c 500 to c 1500; now used without precise definition, but most frequently with reference to the four centuries after a.d. 1000. Cf. mod.L. medium ævum, G. mittelalter, F. moyen âge.
α sing.1621Donne Sermon I Tim. 1. 15 (1661) 192 It is a perplex't question in the School, (and truly the Balance in those of the middle age, very even) whether if Adam had not sinned, the son of God had come into the world, and taken our nature and our flesh upon him. 1624Wotton Elem. Archit. sig. ¶ 4 After the reuiuing and repolishing of good Literature, (which the combustions and tumults of the middle Age had vnciuillized). 1753Chambers Cycl. Supp. s.v. Age, Middle Age denotes the space of time commencing from Constantine, and ending at the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, in the fifteenth century. a1780Harris Philol. Inquiries i. (1781) Addr. to E. Hooper, An Essay on the Taste and Literature of the middle Age. 1882J. C. Morison Macaulay 70 His acquaintance with the Middle Age generally, may without injustice be pronounced slight.
β pl.1616Spelman De non temerandis Ecclesiis (ed. 2) App. 194 Thus the eldest and newest Expositors are wholly for mee, many also (& of the best of them) of the middle ages. 1699M. Lister Journey to Paris 108 It would have been some satisfaction to have seen by the Pictures, what the middle Ages, at least, had thought of them [sc. animals]. 1722Mem. Literature VI. 296 Mr. Juncker,..has published in the German Language an Excellent Introduction to the Geography of the middle Ages. 1819Hallam Mid. Ages. (ed. 2) III. i. ix. 304 The Middle Ages, according to the division I have adopted, comprize about one thousand years, from the invasion of France by Clovis to that of Naples by Charles VIII. 1842Brande Dict. Sci. etc., Middle ages... The centuries between the ninth or tenth and the end of the fifteenth after Christ are generally comprehended under this loose denomination. 1887J. C. Morison Service of Man 177 The great hollow which is roughly called the Middle Ages, extending from the fifth to the fifteenth century.
3. attrib., quasi-adj. (with hyphen). Belonging to the Middle Ages; mediæval. Also attrib. in sense 1, as middle-age bulge, middle age spread (cf. next, sense b).
1840Gen. P. Thompson Exerc. V. 31 With the same precaution that they would have consorted with the evil spirits of middle-age romance. 1853Ruskin Lect. Archit. iv. 217 That child is working in the middle-age spirit—the other in the modern spirit. 1869F. W. Newman Misc. 46 Perhaps it incapacitated the Arabs and the middleage Schoolmen for all but formal reasoning. 1937John o' London's 29 Jan. 742/1 (Advt.), Join the happy throng who have learnt to control the ‘middle-age spread’ by wearing the..supporting belt. 1963Times 6 May 9/1 The butcher wants his beef before it has developed a middle-age spread. 1972J. Porter Meddler & her Murder iii. 46 She was fighting a losing battle against the middle-age bulge. |
