| 释义 |
rat race
Also rat-race.
[f. rat n.1]
†1. A dance. U.S. slang. Obs.
1937Amer. Speech XII. 74/2 C.C.C. speech... Terms for recreations: rat-race, dance of low-grade nature. 1948Mencken Amer. Lang. Suppl. II. 707 The vocabulary of the jazz addict... A dance is a rat-race or cement-mixer.
2. A fiercely competitive struggle or contest; a struggle to maintain one's position in work or life. orig. U.S.
1939C. Morley Kitty Foyle xxvi. 261 Their own private life gets to be a rat-race. 1940Time 16 Dec. 26/3 Veteran fliers blanched when they saw the hourly, crowded ‘rat race’ at Randolph—the close-packed stream of trainers, gliding in to land and take on fresh cadets and instructors. 1946War Report (B.B.C.) 350 Our armour is now ‘swanning’ as they say in the British Army, or in American parlance, ‘the rat race is on’. 1947J. Steinbeck Wayward Bus 214 He was afraid of his friends and his friends were afraid of him. A rat race, she thought. 1954Wodehouse & Bolton Bring on Girls 219 ‘Is anything the matter with you?’ ‘Just the rat-race. I don't quite know why I've been doing it.’ 1956R. Fuller Image of Society iii. 70 A boy's got to have guts to make his way in this rat race of a modern world. 1958Spectator 19 Sept. 381/2 Modern economic life is more like a rat-race than a rational way of life. 1959Observer 8 Mar. 17/7, I don't like this rat-race for promotion. 1959Spectator 2 Oct. 435/2 A realism that encourages in its popular press a rat-race morality in the guise of room at the top. 1960Daily Tel. 18 May 17/7 A spirited criticism of ‘the daily rat race’ to get to work in London. 1967G. F. Fiennes I tried to run Railway iv. 31 It became a rat race to see who could get teams in first so as to improve recruitment. 1973C. Bonington Next Horizon iv. 68 Another artist, who had abandoned the rat-race and settled in Coniston. 1976F. Zweig New Acquisitive Society i. v. 52 The shedding of middle-class values and style of life in the younger generation..is an outright negation of middle-class existence, defined in such derogatory terms as ‘rat race’. 1978D. A. J. Seargent UFO's v. 111 A motor car—the prime symbol of our motorised, machine-oriented, rat-race society.
Hence as v. trans. and intr., to take part in a ‘rat race’; ˈrat-racer, ˈrat-racing vbl. n. and ppl. a.
1937Clarionette (Univ. of Denver) (St. Patrick ed.) 18 Mar. 1/3 If you're off for a little body-swaying to music, you are..‘rat-racing’. 1960Listener 7 Jan. 41/2 A scarifying glimpse of rat racing in local government. 1962Guardian 15 Oct. 7/2 A new modern figure—the new kind of ambitious rat-racer, the Snopes in the grey flannel suit. 1968Ibid. 5 Oct. 6/5 Literary people in this country seem to have been..rat-racing each other to the nearest vacant editor's chair. 1968New Scientist 21 Nov. 418/3 Looking into an aquarium..is just the medicine for a chap who has spent all day rat-racing against a computer. 1969E. Lemarchand Alibi for Corpse ix. 116 I'm a damn sight saner than people who spend their lives rat-racing and jabbering their heads off. 1971New Scientist 1 July 5/1 The belief among rat-racers that the physical exercise delays thrombosis. 1971Guardian 3 July 8/6 Middle aged Frank who wants to be a drop-out from rat-racing society. 1977D. Morris Manwatching 124 Eccentricity of dress and behaviour is commonplace for them and they enjoy social freedoms unknown to other rat-racing citizens. |