| 释义 |
▪ I. complex, n.|ˈkɒmplɛks|
Also 7 complexe.
[ad. L. complex-us surrounding, encompassing, encircling, compass, embrace, connexion in discourse, f. ppl. stem of complectĕre: see next.
In Bailey both n. and adj. are accented comˈplex; so the n. by Thomson in 1738.]
1. a. A whole comprehending in its compass a number of parts, esp. (in later use) of interconnected parts or involved particulars; a complex or complicated whole.
a1652J. Smith Sel. Disc. iv. 89 If our souls were nothing else but a complex of fluid atoms. Ibid. vii. 362 Containing almost nothing else in the whole complex and body of it. 1672Phil. Trans. VII. 5103 The Complex of the Planets, disposed and order'd..after the Copernican way. 1768–74Tucker Lt. Nat. (1852) I. 93 Names being..necessary for gathering our ideas, and holding them together in a complex. 1862Trench Mirac. Introd. 97 The whole complex of Christ's life and doctrine. 1880Times 28 Dec. 10/2 To sift out of the complex of [spectroscopic] lines given by each chemical element those which are ‘basic’. 1885C. Leudesdorf Cremona's Proj. Geom. 241 Let there be given in the plane of the auxiliary conic a figure or complex of any kind composed of points, straight lines, and curves. 1936A. W. Clapham Romanesque Archit. iii. 59 S. Stefano, Bologna, with its attendant complex of buildings. 1952N.Y. Times 6 May 2/6 Ten medium bombers..dropped 100 tons of high explosives on to the rail bridge complex at Chongju. 1955Stokes & Varnes in Colorado Sci. Soc. Proc. XVI. 27/2 Complex,..an assemblage of rocks of any age or origin that has been folded together or intricately mixed, involved, or otherwise complicated. 1957Times 26 Sept. 15/3 Movements..to take over control of the large steel complex [the Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation]. 1958Globe Mag. 13 Sept. 13/1 It lies in forbidding..country where a giant new industrial complex is being developed.
†b. in the (whole) complex: considered throughout its extent; as a whole. Obs.
1661H. D. Disc. Liturgies 102 Is the Church of Rome Idolatrous?..Is her worship so in the whole complex, yea or not? 1695Whether Parl. dissolved by Death P'cess of Orange 6 Government, taken in the whole complex of it, cannot..provide against all Emergencies. c1720W. Gibson Farrier's Dispens. vi. iii. (1734) 164 To take it in the Complex, it makes a pretty warm comfortable composition.
c. Chem. A substance formed by the combination of simpler substances, esp. one in which the bonds between the substances are weaker than or of a different character from those between the constitutents of each substance.
1895Cross & Bevan Cellulose ii. 92 A furfural-yielding complex, which appears to be an oxycellulose derivative. 1914Jrnl. Biol. Chem. XIX. 159 The enzyme-substrate complex. 1944Adv. Enzymol. IV. 17 Earlier investigators never thought of doubting that any gene must comprise an organized complex of many molecules. 1956Coffey & van Alphen in E. H. Rodd Chem. Carbon Compounds IIIb. xxi. 1406 This particular ‘lake’ being a complex of alizarin with Al, Sn, Ca, and higher fatty acids in varying proportions. 1965Phillips & Williams Inorg. Chem. I. iv. 129 These ions form stable complexes with water molecules, e.g. [Cr(H2O)6]3+.
†2. An interweaving, contexture. Obs.
1727A. Hamilton New Acc. E. Ind. II. xxxix. 83 Their Religion is a Complex of Mahometism and Paganism.
3. Psychol. A group of emotionally charged ideas or mental factors, unconsciously associated by the individual with a particular subject, arising from repressed instincts, fears, or desires and often resulting in mental abnormality; freq. with defining word prefixed, as inferiority, Œdipus complex, etc.; hence colloq., in vague use, a fixed mental tendency or obsession. Also attrib. and Comb.
The use of the term was established by C. G. Jung in 1907 (Ueber die Psychologie der Dementia Praecox), but it originated with Neisser in 1906 (Individualität und Psychose).
1907Petersen & Jung in Brain XXX. 178 The complex robs the ego of light and nourishment, just as a cancer robs the body of its vitality. 1911T. W. Mitchell in Sidis Symptomatology Psychopathic Dis. (1921) 418 The delay in our response to the stimulus is due to the inhibitions exercised by the manifold of associated complexes that have been aroused to function. 1913Jung in Trans. Internat. Congress Med. xii. 67 The unconscious existence of manifold phantasies, which have their final root in the infantile past and turn around the so-called ‘Kern-complex’, or nucleus-complex, which may be qualified in male individuals as the Œdipus-complex and in females as the Electra-complex. 1916[see inferiority c]. 1919Athenæum 23 May 360/2 Without the adjective [‘mental’], ‘a complex’ is now a polite euphemism for a bee in one's bonnet. 1920A. A. Brill tr. Freud's Sel. Papers Hysteria (ed. 3) xiii. 217 A thought of this kind which is capable of affecting the reaction to the stimulus word has come to be called a ‘complex’. 1924E. C. Mayne tr. Freud's Types Neurotic Nosogenesis in Coll. Papers II. 115 The searching analytic studies stimulated by the complex-theory of the Zürich School. 1924N. P. Williams Doctrines of Fall & Orig. Sin vii, We therefore identify the ‘inherited infirmity’ of theology with ‘inherited weakness of herd-complex’. 1926W. McDougall Introd. Social Psychol. (ed. 20) 403 The psycho-analysts use the term ‘complex’ to cover both the normal sentiments and the morbidly repressed sentiments. I have urged that by restricting the term ‘complex’ to the latter, and using the term ‘sentiment’ for the former, we usefully differentiate our terminology. 1927A. Bennett Woman who stole Everything iii. 165 ‘Muriel's losing her sex-complex.’ ‘What on earth do you mean, boy?’ ‘She's getting herself tangled up with some man.’ Ibid. iv. 301 She raised herself on her elbows and kissed him; she had no forbidding complex. 1928Punch 8 Feb. 157 A fond aunt with a commiseration complex. 1933Dylan Thomas Let. Nov. (1966) 48 It is typical of the..complex-ridden to emphasise its naiveté. 1948W. McDougall Introd. Social Psychol. (ed. 29) Suppl. chap. vii. 447 Modern science has shown an aversion to all teleology; one might almost say that it has a ‘complex’ on that subject. 1953A. Koestler in Encounter Nov. 25/2 Our political libido is just as complex-ridden.
▪ II. complex, a.|ˈkɒmplɛks|
[a. mod.F. complexe, or ad. its source, L. complex-us, pa. pple. of complectĕre or complecti to encompass, embrace, comprehend, comprise; hence perh. originally ‘embracing or comprehending several elements’, but in course of Eng. use tending to its analytical sense of ‘plaited together, interwoven’; f. com- together + plexus plaited; cf. complicated, and L. complex complice.]
1. Consisting of or comprehending various parts united or connected together; formed by combination of different elements; composite, compound. Said of things, ideas, etc. (Opposed to simple, both here and in sense 2.)
a1652J. Smith Sel. Disc. i. 20 That complex and multifarious man that is made up of soul and body. 1690Locke Hum. Und. ii. xii. (ed. 3) 79 Ideas thus made up of several simple ones put together, I call Complex; such as are Beauty, Gratitude, a Man, an Army, the Universe. 1750Harris Hermes Wks. (1841) 143 Those attributives which have this complex power of denoting both an attribute and an assertion..grammarians call verbs. 1789Bentham Princ. Legisl. xviii. §49 The condition of a parent..may be considered as a complex condition compounded of that of a guardian, and that of a master. 1875Blake Zool. 47 The stomach is often complex. 1879Sir G. Scott Lect. Archit. I. 226 A complex pillar composed of four shafts united in one.
2. esp.
a. Consisting of parts or elements not simply co-ordinated, but some of them involved in various degrees of subordination; complicated, involved, intricate; not easily analysed or disentangled.
1715Desaguliers Fires Impr. 4 A very complex Apparatus. 1795Mason Ch. Mus. ii. 134 So complex a harmony and so simple a melody. 1805Southey Madoc in Azt. xxi, As they weave The complex crossings of the mazy dance. 1855Bain Senses & Int. i. ii. §5 The mere mechanical arrangement of the brain is exceedingly complex. 1879McCarthy Own Times II. xxxviii. 347 All these artificial and complex arrangements presently fell to pieces.
b. complex fraction in Arith. (Cf. compound.)
1827Hutton Course Math. I. 52 A Complex Fraction, is one that has a fraction or a mixed number for its numerator, or its denominator, or both. 1875Hamb. Smith Arith. §74.
c. complex sentence in Gram.: a sentence containing one or more subordinate clauses, as ‘I assured him that (the man [whom he sought] was not here)’.
1881Mason Eng. Gram. §402 A complex sentence is produced whenever the place of a substantive, an adjective, or an adverb is supplied by a..clause.
d. Math. Containing or characterized by complex numbers or quantities; having the form of a complex number; complex number, a number of the form a + ib, where a and b are real numbers and i is the square root of -1.
[1832C. F. Gauss in Comment. Soc. Reg. Scient. Gottingensis VII. 96 Tales numeros vocabimus numeros integros complexos.] 1860H. J. S. Smith in Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1859 253 If a and b are both rational, the complex number is said to be rational. Ibid., One complex integer α is said to be divisible by another β. 1879Encycl. Brit. IX. 818/2 The notion of the ‘path’ of a complex variable u = x + iy. 1893A. R. Forsyth Theory of Functions of Complex Variable i. 1 The complex variable is the most general form of algebraical quantity which obeys the fundamental laws of ordinary algebra. 1908G. H. Hardy Course Pure Math. iii. 78 The two complex numbers {pm} i satisfy this equation. We express this by saying that the equation has the two complex roots {pm} i. 1946H. & B. S. Jeffreys Meth. Math. Physics xi. 305 Complex functions, involving a symbol i such that i.i = -1, are of importance in physics. 1959Born & Wolf Princ. Optics i. 32 Operations with complex vectors follow the usual rules of vector algebra and of algebra of complex numbers.
Add:[2.] e. Math. Of a problem or a problem-solving algorithm: having high computational complexity (*complexity n. 2 c). Hence of a system: such that the task of describing it is complex in these terms.
1965Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. CXVII. 304 The subset of Turing machines which are T-recognizers is recursively enumerable and therefore there are arbitrarily complex recognition problems. 1982J. Campbell Grammatical Man ii. ix. 102 Complexity..turns out to be a special property in its own right, and it makes complex systems different in kind from simple ones. 1989Nature 14 Sept. 100/2 If a structure can, in principle, be described completely, it is not complex.
▪ III. complex, v.|kəmˈplɛks|
[f. L. complex- ppl. stem of complectĕre, or the freq. complexāre, to encompass, embrace; but partly taken in the analytical sense of L. com- together + plect-ĕre, plex- to plait, twine: see prec. In sense 2, perh. directly from complex a.]
†1. trans. To join, unite, attach. Obs. rare.
c1470Harding Chron. xci. iii, Edwyns doughter..to whome Men dyd complex Maydens twelue, to take the christenhede.
2. To combine into a complex whole; to complicate, mix up. rare.
1658Burton's Diary (1828) III. 358 The question is complexed of matter-of-fact and matter-of-right. 1868Browning Ring & Bk. viii. 1312 Murdered thus..in disguise Whereby mere murder got complexed with wile.
†3. To embrace. Obs. rare.
a1657R. Loveday Lett. (1663) 174 All that plenteous variety which was complext in the general terms of milk and honey. Ibid. 146.
4. Chem.
a. (To cause) to form a complex with.
1960Austral. Jrnl. Appl. Sci. XI. 305 Tannic acid was also found to be capable of complexing small amounts of copper. 1970Nature 10 Oct. 158/1 The chelate was prepared by complexing ‘didymium’ chloride..dissolved in alcohol with TTA.
b. intr. To form a complex with.
1970Nature 29 Aug. 886/1 Sigma factors have so far only been detected in bacteria and bacteria infected with bacteriophages, where they transiently complex with the core of the RNA polymerase molecules. 1972Sci. Amer. July 60/3 Ceruloplasmin promotes the release of iron from animal liver so that the iron-binding protein of the serum, transferrin, can complex with iron and transfer it to the developing red blood cells. 1975Nature 24 Jan. 271/1 Before the physiological response to the androgens, oestrogens, glucocorticoids and progesterone can be manifested, these hormones must complex with specific receptors in their target tissue.
Hence ˈcomplexing vbl. n.
1958Chem. Abstr. LII. 15748 Fixation and complexing of toxic ions and molecules by argillaceous minerals. 1960Austral. Jrnl. Appl. Sci. XI. 309 No complexing was observed with any of the acids except oxalic. |
