| 释义 |
Dunstable, a. and n.|ˈdʌnstəb(ə)l|
[The name of a town in Bedfordshire.]
†1.
a. attrib. in phr. Dunstable way, app. referring originally to the road from London (Edgware Road) to Dunstable, a part of the ancient Roman Road called Watling Street, notable for its long stretches in direct line, and for its general evenness; used proverbially as a type of directness and plainness. Obs.
1549Latimer 2nd Serm. bef. Edw. VI (Arb.) 56 Some..that walked in the kynges highe waye ordinarilye, vprightlye, playne Dunstable waye. 1596Harington Metam. Ajax (1814) 122 Indeed for the device, I grant it as plain as Dunstable highway. a1661Fuller Worthies, Prov. Bedfordsh. i. (1662) 114 As plain as Dunstable Road. It is applied to things plain and simple, without welt or guard to adorn them, as also to matters easie and obvious to be found, without any difficulty or direction. 1719D'Urfey Pills VI. 132 'Tis of the making of Dunstable way, Plain without turning. 1744Warburton Rem. Sev. Occas. Refl. 128, I would advise him to return again as fast as he can into the old Dunstable Road of Moses and a future State for ever.
[Cf. also the following:
1611B. Jonson Introd. Verses to Coryat's Crudities, Here up the Alpes (not so plaine as to Dunstable) Hee's carried like a cripple. 1614W. B. Philosopher's Banquet (ed. 2) A ij b, Whilst pathes vntraced former steps vntroad, Become as Dunstable, more worne, more broad. ]
†b. Hence as adj.: Direct, straightforward, plain, downright. (Often preceded by plain, downright.)
1589Nashe Almond for Parrat 19 a, A good old dunstable doctor here in London. 1598Florio, Carlóna, plainly, dunstable way, homelie fashion. 1607R. C. tr. Estienne's World of Wonders 21 Men who vsed old and ancient simplicitie, and were (as a man would say) plaine Dunstable. 1672Eachard Hobbs's State Nat. (1705) 11 The old plain Dunstable stuff that commonly occurs in those that have treated of Policy and Morality. 1754Richardson Grandison (1812) VI. 177 (D.) Your uncle is an odd, but a very honest, Dunstable soul. 1817Scott Lett. 17 Mar. (1894) I. 422 Now Morritt (who is ‘Downright Dunstable’) would not have let this sentence slip him.
†c. as n. in phr. plain (or downright) Dunstable: plain speaking or language. Obs.
1597Breton Miseries of Mavilla, Plaine Dunstable is the high way, and yet there are many holes in it. 1737Bracken Farriery Impr. (1757) II. 87 Their Fore-fathers..lov'd plain downright Dunstable. 1748Richardson Clarissa (1811) I. xxxii. 239 That's the plain dunstable of the matter, Miss! 1824Scott Redgauntlet ch. xvii, If this is not plain speaking, there is no such place as downright Dunstable in being!
2. attrib. Applied to a kind of straw plait made at Dunstable, or to the method of plaiting it. Hence ellipt. as n. (Formerly also a straw bonnet.)
1849Longfellow Kavanagh (1851) 424 A milliner, who sold ‘Dunstable and eleven-braid, open-work and coloured straws’. 1851Offic. Catal. Gt. Exhib. II. 377 Plait straw is the straw of the wheat..grown on dry chalky lands, such as those about Dunstable..‘Whole Dunstable’, signifies that the plait is formed of seven entire straws, and ‘patent Dunstable’, that it consists of fourteen split straws. Ibid. 581 A coarser kind of material than the Dunstable. |