| 释义 |
steel pen
1. A pen made of steel, split at the tip like a quill. (In quot. 1636 transf.)
1636Massinger Bashful Lover i. i, With this Steel-pen [sc. his sword] I'll write on Florence helm, how much I can and dare do for you. [1657a Pen of steele: see pen n.2 4.] 1678Hatton Corr. (Camden) 169 It comes in my mind to ask you if you have, in England, stel penns. 1700–1North Let. 8 Mar. in Lives (1890) III. App. 247 You will hardly tell by what you see, that I write with a steel pen. It is a device come out of France. 1777F. Burney Early Diary Mar., I am now writing with a Steel Pen, which Mr. Cutler..has just sent me. 1834Mrs. Carlyle Lett. (1883) I. 12, I write with a steel pen. 1892‘Mark Twain’ Amer. Claimant vii. 71 Steel pens on his table with the ink-bottle. 1922Joyce Ulysses 8 He fears the lancet of my art as I fear that of his. The cold steelpen. 1975Islander (Victoria, B.C.) 16 Feb. 10/3 By 1803 producers could no longer keep pace with the consumption of quills and the first steel pen came into use. 1983Daily Tel. 10 Mar. 14/4 The steel-pen writing is brisk and persuasive.
2. colloq. Applied to the ‘swallow-tail’ or evening-dress tail-coat.
1873Leland Egypt. Sketch-Bk. 257 The steel-pen coat, as Tom Hood, junior, calls it. 1882Sala Amer. Revis. xiii. (1883) 164 The swallow-tail,..from its caudal bisection, is more appropriately designated by Americans the ‘claw-hammer’ or ‘steel-pen’ coat. |