| 释义 |
▪ I. drawing-room1|ˈdrɔːɪŋruːm|
[Shortened from withdrawing-room, which is found in 16th c. and is very common in 17th.]
1. a. orig. A room to withdraw to, a private chamber attached to a more public room (see withdrawing-room); now, a room reserved for the reception of company, and to which the ladies withdraw from the dining-room after dinner.
1642Ld. Sunderland Let. to Wife, The king..is very cheerful, and by the bawdy discourse I thought I had been in the drawing room. 1675Brooks Gold. Key Wks. 1867 V. 579 Here are chambers, with drawing-rooms provided, not open chambers, but with doors..shut round about. c1710C. Fiennes Diary (1888) 239 Next this is the drawing roome of state. 1728Young Love Fame i. Wks. (1757) 88 Nor shoots up folly to a nobler bloom In her own native soil, the drawing-room. 1791Boswell Johnson 25 Apr. an. 1778, We went to the drawing-room, where was a considerable increase of company. 1856Emerson Eng. Traits, Manners Wks. (Bohn) II. 51 The gentlemen..rejoin the ladies in the drawing-room, and take coffee.
b. The company assembled in a drawing-room.
[1732Berkeley Alciphr. i. §11 In any drawing-room or assembly of polite people.] 1841–4Emerson Ess., Manners Wks. (Bohn) I. 212 The person who screams..or converses with heat, puts whole drawing-rooms to flight. 1856Macaulay Johnson Misc. Writ. (1889) 374 He would amaze a drawing-room by suddenly ejaculating a clause of the Lord's Prayer.
c. U.S. Formerly, a section or carriage of a railway-train more luxurious or more private than usual. Also attrib.
1867Commerc. & Financ. Chron. V. 347/2 A new and magnificent sleeping and drawing-room car of the Pullman patent has been..placed on the Michigan Central road. 1873‘Mark Twain’ & Warner Gilded Age 264 A lady timidly entered the drawing-room car. 1882Sala Amer. Revis. (1885) 88 The Pullman ‘parlor’—or, as it is called in England, ‘drawing-room Car’. 1931E. Linklater Juan in Amer. ii. vi. 101 There were many so-called drawing-room compartments on the train. 1936L. C. Douglas White Banners xviii. 393 Uncle Thomas will still eat, and buy two tickets so he can travel in a Pullman drawing-room.
2. A levee held in a drawing-room; a formal reception by a king, queen, or person of rank; that at which ladies are ‘presented’ at court.
[1673Dryden Marr. à la Mode ii. i, You shall be every day at the King's levee and I at the queen's; and we will never meet but in the drawing-room. 1706–7Farquhar Beaux' Strat. iv. ii, Whereas, If I marry my Lord Aimwell, there will be Title, Place and Precedence, the Park, the Play, and the Drawing-Room.] 1711Swift Jrnl. to Stella 8 Aug., There was a drawing-room to-day at court. 1714Lond. Gaz. No. 5267/8 In the Evening her Highness kept a Drawing-Room, at which were all the Ladies and Persons of Distinction of this Place. 1838P. Hawker Diary (1893) II. 148 The last Drawing Room of the season; so of course an awful crowd. 1868Queen Victoria Tours Eng. & Irel. 183 At half past Eight we drove into Dublin for the Drawing-room. It is always held here of an evening..One thousand six hundred ladies were presented.
3. attrib.
a. gen.
1703Lond. Gaz. No. 3980/1 He met Her at Her Drawing-Room Door. 1786F. Burney Diary 27 July, The Queen..puts on her drawing-room apparel at St. James's. 1848W. K. Kelly tr. L. Blanc's Hist. Ten Y. II. 379 The drawing-room influence thus set in motion. 1888Lowell Lit. Ess. (1892) 11 Domestic and drawing-room prose as distinguished from that of the pulpit, the forum, or the closet.
b. Used allusively to qualify a version of a story, etc., fitted by its observance of the proprieties for the society of the drawing-room.
1877Porcupine 20 Jan. 676/3 It was desirable to modify the language a little, and the drawing-room version ran thus. 1885A. Edwardes Girton Girl II. ii. 22 An actor in a similar bit of drawing-room comedy. 1887Kipling Under Deodars (1888) 61 Where..did you pick up the Chanson du Colonel? It isn't a drawing-room song. It isn't proper. 1898,1906[see ballad 2]. 1900G. B. Shaw Prefaces (1934) xxix. 709/2 Love is the one subject that the drawing room drama dare not present. 1904Sat. Rev. 9 Apr. 456/1 An infinity of barren drawing-room comedy or drawing-room comedy-drama. 1909Daily Chron. 23 Sept. 1/3 The Prime Minister's Birmingham version of the Budget struck me..as having been intended for what I may call drawing-room use. 1915Rosher In R.N.A.S. (1916) 82 What do you think of this story, the latest from the trenches? It's not quite a drawing-room one! 1959J. Braine Vodi xv. 200 The neatly-folded scarf gave him a drawing-room comedy smartness. 1966Listener 15 Dec. 893/3 He contented himself within his own natural resources—classical Lieder, the standard oratorios and the best of the ‘drawing-room ballads’.
Hence ˈdrawing-ˌroomy a., characteristic of the drawing-room, as being over-refined, insipid, etc.
1906Daily Chron. 18 May 9/3 Miss Evelyn Millard's Desdemona was a disappointment. She was terribly drawing-roomy. 1907Ibid. 18 June 6/4 The sentiment was sometimes rather drawing-roomy. 1947N. Cardus Autobiogr. i. 132 Grieg's rather drawing-roomy ‘Un Rêve’.
▪ II. drawing-room2
A room for drawing in: see drawing vbl. n. 6 b. |