| 释义 |
impalement|ɪmˈpeɪlmənt|
Also 7–9 em-.
[a. F. empalement (1600 in Hatz.-Darm.), f. empale-r to impale; but in recent use perh. directly from the Eng. vb.: see -ment.]
The action of impaling, or that which impales.
1. a. The action of enclosing with pales or stakes; concr. an enclosing fence or palisade.
1611Speed Hist. Gt. Brit. ix. xvi. §17. 818 To fortifie their battels with a Palizado, or empalement of stakes. 1665J. Webb Stone-Heng (1725) 154 The Impalement about them exactly square. 1786tr. Beckford's Vathek (1868) 7 The prison..was encompassed by seven empalements of iron bars. 1828Webster, Empalement, a fencing, fortifying, or inclosing with stakes.
b. transf. and fig. (see impale v. 1 b, c).
1598Barret Theor. Warres iv. i. 96 The impalement may be made of more shot in a ranke. 1641Milton Ch. Govt. i. ii, The rules of Church-discipline are..hedg'd about with such a terrible impalement of commands. 1814Cary Dante (Chandos) 147 With penitential tears, That through the dread impalement forc'd a way.
†2. Bot. Applied by early botanists to the calyx, and, in composite flowers, to the involucre. Obs.
1671Grew Anat. Plants i. v. §2 The general Parts [of the Flower] are most commonly three; the Empalement, the Foliation, and the Attire. The Empalement..I call that which is the utmost Part of the Flower, encompassing the other two. 1729Martyn in Phil. Trans. XXXVI. 28 The Empalement of the Lactuca is squamous. 1735–6H. Brooke Univ. Beauty iv. (R.), The flower's forensic beauties now admire, The impalement, foliation, down, attire. 1799Knight in Phil. Trans. LXXXIX. 202 The male and female parts within the same empalement.
3. Her. The marshalling of two coats of arms side by side on one shield divided palewise; the arms so marshalled.
1774Warton Hist. Eng. Poetry xxvi. (1840) II. 351 Two coats of arms, containing empalements of Cannynge and of his friends. 1882Cussans Her. xii. (ed. 3) 165 Marshalling by Impalement is effected by slightly compressing the two Coats of Arms, and placing them in their entirety side by side on one Escutcheon.
4. a. The torture or punishment of impaling (see impale v. 4).
1630R. Johnson's Kingd. & Commw. 13 Tortures..as ex⁓oculations..impalements on stakes. 1727–41Chambers Cycl., Empalement, or Impalement, a cruel kind of punishment, wherein a sharp pale, or stake, is thrust up the fundament through the body. 1813Byron Corsair ii. ix, To-morrow's evening sun Will sinking see impalement's pangs begun.
b. The act or fact of being impaled upon rocks, the spikes of a gate, or the like.
1874Belgravia Aug. 175 There was..one tall church-steeple which by the celerity of its approach appeared..anxious that I should be impaled on its apex... I declare that the grotesqueness of the position of impalement—all legs and wings, like a cockchafer—..visibly occurred to me. 1885Austral. Med. Jrnl. New Ser. vii. 436 A case of laceration of the rectum and jejunum by accidental impalement. 1887Graphic 19 Mar. 307/2 His ship was rescued after impalement on a rock. 1921Contemp. Rev. Aug. 272 Do you remember climbing the gate and just avoiding impalement? 1971Brit. Med. Jrnl. 26 June 748/1 Perforation of the bladder following rectal impalement is extremely rare. |
