| 释义 |
digging, vbl. n.|ˈdɪgɪŋ|
[f. dig v. + -ing1.]
1. a. The action of the verb to dig, in various senses; an instance of this.
1552Huloet, Dygginge and deluinge of a ground to bring it eftsones in temper, repastinatio. 1651Jer. Taylor Holy Dying i. §2 (L.) Let us not project long designs, crafty plots, and diggings so deep that the intrigues of a design shall never be unfolded. 1663Gerbier Counsel 25 In the digging of the foundations. 1725Bradley Fam. Dict. s.v. Yew Tree, This first digging is to be done always in March. 1738C. Labelye Short Acc. Piers Westm. Br. 27 After the digging the Pit..was finished. 1891Law Times XCII. 106/2 He was only paid for his digging.
b. with an adverb.
1573Baret Alv. D. 687 A digging vnder, an undermining, suffossio. 1817Cobbett Addr. Bristol Wks. XXXII. 47 A digging and rooting up of all corruptions. 1890Daily News 4 Sept. 6/4 All digging down work should be paid for at the rate of 1d. per hour extra.
2. fig. The action of studying hard. U.S.
1827–8Harvard Reg. 312, I find my eyes in doleful case, By digging until midnight. 1873W. Mathews Getting on xv. 244 Men of genius have seldom revealed to us how much of their fame was due to hard digging.
3. concr. The materials dug out.
1559in Boys Sandwich (1792) 737, iij laborers may carry his diggins away. a1626Bacon Impeachm. Waste (L.), He shall have the seasonable loppings; so he shall have seasonable diggings of an open mine.
4. a. A place where digging is carried on, an excavation; in pl. (sometimes treated as a sing.) applied to mines, and especially to the gold-fields of California and Australia. Also with prefixed word, as gold-diggings, river-diggings, surface-diggings, etc. dry-diggings or wet-diggings (see quot. 1889).
1538Leland Itin. I. 13 On the South side of Welleden..ys a goodly quarre of Stone, wher appere great Diggyns. 1653Z. Bogan Mirth Chr. Life 122 The earth..yields a smell wholesome to the digger in the diggings. 1712J. James tr. Le Blond's Gardening 206 The Wall..of one Foot thick, from the Bottom of the Digging, to the Level of the Ground above. 1769De Foe's Tour Gt. Brit. I. 39 At Norton, near Wulpit, King Henry VIII. was induced to dig for Gold. He was disappointed, but the Diggings are visible at this Day. 1835C. F. Hoffman Winter in Far West xxv. (Bartlett) Mr. ―..has lately struck a lead..We are now, you observe, among his diggings. 1839Marryat Diary Amer. Ser. i. II. 62 The diggings as they term the places where the lead is found..were about sixteen miles distant. 1849Illustr. Lond. News 17 Nov. 325/1 Letter from the Gold Diggings. 1852Earp Gold Col. Australia 138 The diggings are on a creek called Araluen Creek. 1857Borthwick California 120 (Bartlett) The principal diggings near Haugtown were surface diggings, but, with the exception of river diggings, every kind of mining was seen in full force. 1889Farmer Americanisms, Wet-diggings and Dry-diggings are terms in gold districts, for mines near rivers or on the higher lands as the case may be. 1890Boldrewood Miner's Right vii. 71 It was a goldfield and a diggings in far-away Australia.
b. Archæological excavation, or the site of such an excavation.
1911T. E. Lawrence Let. 31 Mar. (1938) 101 Digging results will appear in The Times. Ibid. 23 May 106 She was really too captious at first, coming straight from the German diggings at Kalaát Shirgat. 1938D. Garnett in Lett. T. E. Lawrence 40 It was in this bungalow that he lodged his Arab friends..when he brought them from the Carchemish diggings to visit England.
5. colloq. in pl. Lodgings, quarters.
1838J. C. Neal Charcoal Sketches II. 119 (Farmer), I reckon it's about time we should go to our diggings. 1844Dickens Mart. Chuz. xxi. She won't be taken with a cold chill when she realises what is being done in these diggings? 1882Chamb. Jrnl. 87, I returned to my diggings. 1889J. K. Jerome Three men in Boat 187 We took out the hamper..and started off to look for diggings.
6. attrib. and Comb., as digging-machine, digging-spade, digging-spur, digging-stick; digging-life, life at the gold-diggings; digging-party (see party n. 7 and 8); digging plough = digger plough (see digger 6); digging-stick, a primitive digging implement consisting of a pointed stick, sometimes weighted by a stone.
1875A. Smith New Hist. Aberdeensh. II. 1120 The next experiment was with the ‘digger’..formed by taking the mouldboard off the plough and putting on the digging breasts.
1859Cornwallis New World I. 120 Shafts were sunk, windlasses erected, and the whole paraphernalia of digging life called into requisition.
1874Knight Dict. Mech. I. 702/2 Digging machine (Agric.), a spading-machine for loosening and turning the soil.
1853Mrs. C. Clacy Lady's Visit to Gold Diggings of Australia iii. 19 But for our digging party entire, which consisted of my brother, four shipmates, and myself, no accommodation could be procured. Ibid. 32 Four other of our shipmates had also joined themselves into a digging-party. 1923Kipling Irish Guards in Gt. War I. 55 Some Garrison gunners threw three bombs at an enemy digging-party.
1891R. Wallace Rural Econ. Austral. & N.Z. xix. 272 Howards Digging Plough..turns over the furrow slices most perfectly and breaks what is then left at the surface by means of a projecting wing or continuation of the mould-board.
1719De Foe Crusoe (1840) II. vi. 125 A digging spade.
1865Lubbock Preh. Times 358 The digging-sticks are made of a young mangrove tree. 1947I. L. Idriess Isles of Despair xii. 82 Women..carrying their food baskets and digging sticks. 1959Tindale & Lindsay Rangatira ii. 199 The hoe and digging-stick method of cultivating the soil [by the Maoris]. 1960K. M. Kenyon Archæol. in Holy Land ii. 49 Cultivation of the ground was probably carried out by digging-sticks, pointed sticks weighted by stones, of which the evidence survives in the form of heavy stones pierced by a hole. |