| 释义 |
dish-clout arch. or dial.
A ‘clout’ or cloth used for washing dishes, etc.; = prec. in the wringing of a dish-clout: speedily, immediately.
1530Palsgr. 214/1 Disshecloute, souillon. 1577Fenton Gold. Epist. 90 As the saying is, washe their face with faire water, and drie it ouer with a dishcloute. 1677A. Horneck Gt. Law Consid. iii. (1704) 68 He that makes a rich carpet, doth not intend it for dish-clouts. 1782F. Burney Diary 28 Dec., What a slut Mrs. Ord must think me, to put a dish-clout in my pocket! 1821Scott Kenilw. ix, Breakfast shall be on the board in the wringing of a dish-clout. 1824W. Irving T. Trav. II. 36 And have known Hamlet to stalk solemnly on to deliver his soliloquy, with a dishclout pinned to his skirts. 1877E. Peacock N.W. Linc. Gloss. 86/1 ‘Go thee ways or I'll pin th' dishclout to thee tail’ is not unfrequently said to men and boys who interfere in the kitchen.
b. taken as a type of limpness and weakness.
1692Tryon Good House-w. i. (ed. 2) 7 You are now weak as Water, and have no more Spirits than a Dish-clout. 1863Mrs. Carlyle Lett. III. 170, I was on foot again—but weak as a dishclout.
c. used in contemptuous comparison or allusion.
a1529Skelton Poems agst. Garnesche 36, A bawdy dyshe-clowte, That bryngyth the worlde abowte. 1592Shakes. Rom. & Jul. iii. v. 221 Romeos a dish-clout to him. 1636Massinger Bashf. Lover v. i, I am gazing on this gorgeous house; our cote's a dishclout to it.
d. transf.
1615Crooke Body of Man 97 The Latines [call the caul] Mappaventris, the dish-clout or map of the Belly, because it licketh vp the superfluities thereof. 1785Grose Dict. Vulg. Tongue s.v., To make a napkin of one's dish-clout, to marry one's cook. 1822Scott Fam. Lett. 25 June, It was hard he should be made the dish-clout to wipe up the stains of such a man.
e. attrib.
1589Nashe Almond for Parrat 11 b, More..then his dish-clout discipline will sette vp in seauen yeeres. 1755H. Walpole Let. Geo. Montagu 20 Dec., That old rag of a dish-clout ministry, Harry Furnese, is to be the other lord.
Hence dish-clout v. trans., to wash with a dish-clout.
1861Mayhew Lond. Labour III. 363 (Hoppe) They are expected..to dish-clout the whole of the panels [of a cab]. |