| 释义 |
ˈdownstart
[f. down adv. + start after upstart n.]
(See quot. 1949); also, one who pretends to be of lower origin than he is. Also attrib.
1898G. B. Shaw Sixteen Self-Sketches (1949) viii. 44 My father was an Irish Protestant gentleman of the downstart race of younger sons. 1921― Pref. to Immaturity in Prefaces (1934) xxiii. 627/1, I was a downstart and the son of a downstart. 1949― Sixteen Self-Sketches ii. 7 The Downstart, as I call the boy-gentleman descended through younger sons from the plutocracy, for whom a university education is beyond his father's income, leaving him by family tradition a gentleman without a gentleman's means or education, and so only a penniless snob. 1960G. Mikes How to be Inimitable 21 Quite a few people assert that they are of lower origin than they..are... The place of the upstart is being taken by the downstart. |