sphexish

形容词 adj.
中文释义
英 /ˈsfɛksɪʃ/    美 /ˈsfɛksɪʃ/

英文释义

形容词 adj.
  1. Of animal behaviour: deterministic, preprogrammed.
    — Is this the top of the pinnacle then? Or is it just the top of our pinnacle, the point at which we reveal our sphexish streak and flounder about foolishly in the face of higher thought?

词形变化

more sphexish comparative most sphexish superlative

词源

From sphex (“sand wasp of Sphex or an allied genus”) + -ish (suffix meaning ‘being like, similar to, typical of’), coined by the American scientist and scholar of comparative literature Douglas Hofstadter (born 1945) in a September 1982 “Metamagical Themas” column in Scientific American, after a study of the behaviour of sphexide wasps. Sphex is derived from Ancient Greek σφήξ (sphḗx, “wasp”), either from Proto-Indo-European *bʰey- (“bee”) or a Pre-Greek word.
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