| 释义 |
Sten|stɛn|
Also sten.
[Acronym f. the initial letters of the surnames of the designers, R. V. Shepherd and H. J. Turpin + Enfield, Greater London (see quot. 19421), after Bren.]
More fully, Sten gun. A type of light, rapid-fire, sub-machine-gun. Also fig. and attrib.
1942Times 16 July 8/3 It [sc. the gun] was known as the Schmeisser gun, and the Sten was merely a slight modification of it... The Ministry of Supply was not justified in taking to itself high praise for the speed of production of the Sten, and in giving the country the false impression that ‘Colonel S’ and ‘Major T’ invented and designed the gun. 1942‘G. Orwell’ Diary 7 Aug. in Coll. Ess. (1968) II. 442 Last night for the first time took a Sten gun to pieces. 1959‘N. Blake’ Widow's Cruise 99 He went off into a sten-gun burst of Greek. 1971B. W. Aldiss Soldier Erect 255 It was bloody murder. I had shed the set, and went in firing the sten from the hip. Ibid. 261 In my ammo pouch, against the sten magazines, I had stuffed the picture of Hanuman. 1974S. Gulliver Vulcan Bulletins 18 Automatic weapons like Stens and Sterlings.
Hence ˈSten-gun v. trans., to shoot at or kill with a Sten gun; ˈSten-gunner, one who operates a Sten gun.
1949Koestler Promise & Fulfilment ii. v. 280 There is..no conceivable justification..for Sten-gunning the representative of an international body. 1961Times 8 Mar. 13/6 The Tunisian stengunners outside the luxury hotel: the Hiberno-Scandinavian-Afro-Asian chatter in the café below United Nations headquarters. |