| 词组 | restive |
| 释义 | restive Richard Grant White 1870 seems to have been the first to make an issue of this word: "Restive means standing stubbornly still, not frisky, as some people seem to think it does." Ayres 1881 and Vizetelly 1906 noted a reply by Fitzedward Hall, who adduced proofs that the ordinary sense of restive had always been "unruly, intractable, refractory." Ayres even noted that the contemporary Webster 1864 carried a definition "impatient, uneasy." There the matter seemed to rest, although Bierce 1909 grumbled. Fowler 1926 ignored the matter, and Krapp 1927 thought restive showed signs of passing out of use altogether, like its earlier form restiff. But the issue has flared up again among some recent commentators (Gowers in Fowler 1965, Follett 1966, Bernstein 1977, Phythian 1979), with the emphasis now on defending the sense "unruly, intractable" against the old Webster's sense, which has been reinterpreted as "restless." The definition mentioned by Ayres reads in full: "Impatient under coercion, chastisement, or opposition; uneasy." This sense has become the most common one in present-day English. Since the dictionary in which it appears was published in 1864, the sense had been in use for more than a century when the latest set of critics began to denigrate it. Its connotations are not quite the same as those of restless: • He did right to preach to women: men would not have listened to him. As it was, Miss Joy Blewins, and Mrs. M'Murphy, were restive —George Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, 1859 • They were all becoming restive under the monotonous persistence of the missionary —Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop, 1927 • The audience was growing restive; there was some stamping of feet at the back —J. B. Priestley, The Good Companions, 1929 • We sat a restive hour after starting time and at nine o'clock a solitary man ... came before the curtain to ask us to bear with him five minutes longer —Robert Frost, letter, 10 Nov. 1920 The connotations here are more of impatience than of restlessness. Here are a few quite recent examples: • ... the audience, restive after the long public hearing, repeatedly interrupted the council's discussions —Sue Lewis, Denver Post, 8 Sept. 1984 • ... were becoming increasingly restive with their economic lot —John F. Baker, Publishers Weekly, 12 Mar. 1982 • Now, the Sudan would prove susceptible to the message of a messiah, its people restive under Egypt's corrupt rule —John H. Waller, Military History, June 1985 Notice how easily the last example could have developed from this one two centuries earlier: • ... your colonies become suspicious, restive, and untractable —Edmund Burke, (Speech on) Conciliation with America, 1775 The sense of "resisting control, balky" has not vanished in the 20th century, as a few commentators fear: • The most comical sights in the parade were the mounted Navy and Air Force officers, who joggled along unhappily on their restive horses —Mollie Panter-Downes, New Yorker, 13 June 1953 • The United States also was finding its other allies increasingly restive. They were less inclined to follow the U.S. lead — Newsweek, 13 July 1953 • ... their minorities ... are becoming progressively more demonstrative and restive in their opposition —Claude A. Buss, Wilson Library Bulletin, November 1968 |
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