| 释义 |
▪ I. lethal, a. and n.|ˈliːθəl|
Also 6–7 lethall, læthall.
[ad. L. lēt(h)āl-is deadly, f. lēt(h)um death.]
A. adj.
1. a. That may or will cause death; deadly, mortal. Said, e.g. of weapons, drugs, wounds. Now esp. of a dose of poison: Sufficient to cause death.
1613R. Cawdrey Table Alph. (ed. 3), Lethall, mortall, deadly. 1659T. Pecke Parnassi Puerp. 127 There's no more need to throw the lethal Spear. 1671E. Panton Spec. Juvent. 96 Among beasts some live by what is lethal to others. 1706Maule Hist. Picts in Misc. Scot. I. 39 Lethal wounds. 1816Southey Lay Laureate liv, There needs no outward wound! Through her whole frame benumb'd, a lethal sleep, Like the cold poison of the asp will creep. 1855Garrod Mat. Med. (ed. 6) 123 Small doses raise the blood pressure..lethal ones cause immediate paralysis of the heart. 1860Gosse Rom. Nat. Hist. 240 Implements so terribly lethal, that the slightest puncture of the skin..is inevitably..followed by..death. 1885Huxley Addr. Roy. Soc. 30 Nov., Those lethal agencies which are commonly known as the pleasures of society.
b. Resulting in death.
1850Blackie æschylus I. 104 The occasion..out of which the lethal quarrel arose.
c. lethal chamber: a chamber containing gases, in which to destroy animals or human beings painlessly; also fig.
1884Punch 27 Dec. 309/1 A sort of Lethal Chamber and Cat Trap combined. 1888in Syd. Soc. Lex. 1901Blackw. Mag. Jan. 50/1 They were quietly disposed of by euthanasia in a lethal chamber. 1928‘M. Hoffe’ Many Waters iii. ix. 106 It [sc. the Bankruptcy Court] lacks of all the glitter of splendid sin; it is simply the paltry lethal chamber of the vanquished. 1933Punch 4 Oct. 366/2 To a modern it is clear that age must be abhorrent. The best modern thought advocates a lethal chamber for all over fifty years of age.
d. Genetics. Of an allele or chromosomal abnormality (such as a deletion): resulting in the death of an individual possessing it before the normal span or before sexual maturity, or (if recessive) capable of causing such premature death when homozygous.
1917Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. III. 620 The difficulty which was experienced in getting pure stock was due to the fact that the chief factor for beaded—Bd′—is lethal, killing all flies homozygous for it. Ibid. 620 This remarkable genetic situation, wherein both types of homozygotes are prevented from appearing by the action of lethal factors lying in opposite chromosomes, may be termed a condition of ‘balanced lethal factors’. 1939Sturtevant & Beadle Introd. Genetics (1940) x. 160 It may be noted at once that the lethal genes ordinarily studied are recessive; a gene with a dominant lethal effect is necessarily lost before it can be studied. 1962I. H. Herskowitz Genetics xxviii. 239 Autosomes II, III, and IV of wild-type flies were individually made homozygous to detect the presence of recessive mutants..that are lethal (causing death of all individuals before adulthood), or semilethal (causing more than 90 and less than 100 per cent mortality before adulthood), or subvital (causing significantly less than normal but greater than 10 per cent survival to adulthood)... About 25% of all autosomes tested this way carried a recessive lethal or semilethal mutant. 1973K. Mather Genetical Struct. Populations ii. 21 Not all genes that affect viability are, however, completely lethal. Of some 3000 chromosomes tested in Drosophila willistoni..over 35% carried genes that were lethal or semi-lethal. About half of the remainder carried other genes affecting the viability of flies homozygous for them.
2. Causing or resulting in spiritual death; deadly; † esp. of sin = mortal.
1583Stubbes Anat. Abus. i. (1879) 27 Two kindes of sinne, the one veniall, the other lethall. 1603Florio Montaigne ii. xv. 358 To rouze, and awaken..the godly and religious soules, and raise them from out a lethall security. 1647Ward Simp. Cobler 41 Such Epidemicall and lethall formality in other disciplinated Churches. 1860Reade Cloister & H. lv. (1896) 157 Discoursing of sinners and their lethal end.
3. Of or pertaining to death.
1607E. Sharpham Cupid's Whirligig iv. G 4, Vengeance wings brings on thy lethall day. 1794Coleridge Monody death Chatterton 57 On thy wan forehead starts the lethal dew.
B. n. Genetics. A lethal allele or chromosomal abnormality (see A. 1 d).
1917Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. III. 621 We must therefore believe that lethals are very frequent among recessive factors also. 1926J. S. Huxley Ess. Pop. Sci. 59 Sometimes the impairment of vitality is so great that the organism pure for these factors cannot exist at all: such factors are styled lethals. 1934Mycologia XXVI. 360 (heading) A lethal for ascus abortion in Neurospora. 1956[see deficiency 1 e].
Hence ˈlethally adv., in a deadly manner.
1661Lovell Hist. Anim. & Min. 328 A..contagious matter, hurting all the actions of the heart suddainly and lethaly. 1971Nature 10 Dec. 328/3 Lethally irradiated F1 hybrid mice.
Add:[A.] [4.] In weakened sense: highly damaging or injurious, devastating. Cf. deadly a. 8 b, devastating ppl. a.
1942Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §702/2 Hard blow. Baby,..lethal left or right, lethal potion, lil, [etc.]. a1961in Webster s.v., Showed a lethal skill in his dissection of the..book. 1978V. Brome Jung xii. 119 One particularly lethal champagne-party. 1989Guardian 3 July 14/3 A lethal drop shot, and a determination to hunt down every ball. 1989Independent 19 Dec. 24/3 He devised..desserts of a baroque and lethal richness. 1991Ace Feb. 111/1 While a bit slow and irritating running from floppies due to all the swapping, a hard disc shows the game to be far faster and more lethal than normal Chess.
▸ lethal injection n. an injection administered with the intention of killing the recipient, esp. as a means of execution or capital punishment, or for the purpose of euthanasia.
1898Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) (B.) 190308 (caption), 24 minutes after *lethal injection. Falling pressure, with great irregularity. 1953G. Reitlinger Final Solution ii. xi. 292 A week before the evacuation..the unfit in the Jewish section of the camp had been selected for a lethal injection. 1977Philos. & Public Affairs 6 112 Legalizing active euthanasia..is another matter. Apart from the special repugnance doctors feel towards the idea of a lethal injection, it may be of the very greatest importance to keep a psychological barrier up against killing. 1977Facts on File (Nexis) 6 Aug. 593 Briscoe praised the lethal injection as ‘a more dignified, a more humane means of carrying out the death penalty’. 1997Independent 7 Jan. i. 8/4 ‘Peace at last,’ were [her]..last words to her husband who sat by her bedside in Darwin, in the Northern Territories, as she administered a lethal injection to herself using a computerised ‘death machine’.
▪ II. lethal, v. rare.|ˈliːθəl|
[f. lethal a.]
trans. To kill (animals) painlessly; = lethalize v. So ˈlethalling vbl. n.
1922Daily Mail 7 Dec. 6 (Advt.), Cat. Dying from internal injuries..: Lethalled. 1925Observer 27 Sept. 13/6 Proper lethalling establishments where cats can be put to sleep free of charge. |
