| 释义 |
tear-jerker colloq. (orig. U.S.).|ˈtɪəˌdʒɜːkə(r)|
[f. tear n.1 + jerker1; for the sense of jerker, cf. soda-jerker s.v. soda n.1 9.]
Something calculated to evoke sadness or sympathy, usu. a sentimental film, play, song, story, etc. Also applied to a person and, rarely, to an event.
1921Double Dealer II. 143/2 But no one today, I believe, mistakes his [sc. James Whitcomb Riley's] productions for anything but somewhat shallow, fairly easy tear-jerkers. 1935Amer. Mercury Aug. 400/1 A lawyer was imported from California, a magniloquent tear-jerker named Delphin Delmas. 1936New Yorker 7 Mar. 32/2 ‘Love on the Dole’ turns out to be far more than a conventional tear-jerker. 1940Manch. Guardian Weekly 27 Sept. 212 The German description of the torpedoing of the evacuee ship as a ‘tear-jerker’ recalls Geobbels's clumsy attempt to deny the torpedoing of the Athenia at the beginning of the war. 1948Sunday Pictorial 18 July 11/3 The cameos are linked with a quiet humour and smooth pathos which make the film an A-plus tear-jerker. 1953‘P. Wentworth’ Watersplash xix. 109 Three copies of the famous East Lynne. A notorious tear-jerker. 1958B. Nichols Sweet & Twenties xiv. 187 This number, as sung by Al Jolson, became one of the most efficient tear-jerkers of all time. 1975Islander (Victoria, B.C.) 9 Feb. 2/3 He concluded [his speech] with a real tear-jerker.
Hence (as back-formations) ˈtear-jerk n., a sentimental effusion; also as v. trans.; ˈtear-jerking vbl. n. and ppl. a.
1940S. Lewis Bethel Merriday xv. 127 You..made me understand how much that poor gutter pup longed for a chance to parade, and yet you didn't do much tear-jerking. 1941E. Snow Battle for Asia iv. 88, I remember a tear-jerking letter from a correspondent appealing for people to boil their garbage and put it beside their ash cans for the hungry— dogs. 1953Times Lit. Suppl. 31 July 490/5 The ex-Governor of Illinois does not disdain the obvious ‘tear-jerk’. 1961D. Holbrook English for Maturity i. iv. 55 The vague undefined tear-jerk of popular graveyard and funeral verses. 1962‘K. Orvis’ Damned & Destroyed xvi. 123 She tear-jerked it from a drugstore without a prescription. 1962Auden Dyer's Hand (1963) 430 If Homer had tried reading the Iliad to the gods of Olympus, they would..possibly, even, reacting like ourselves to a tear-jerking movie, have poured pleasing tears. 1965Spectator 5 Feb. 157/3 The prize for tear-jerking seemed..destined for..the Daily Mail. 1979D. Meiring Foreign Body xii. 126 Even he [sc. God] had sometimes needed a hand, and Hussein had provided that brilliantly, in turn cajoling, tear-jerking, and threatening Americans of huge stature in the oil business. 1981Times 14 Feb. 8/7 An idealized Shavian heroine..the armour-plated, tear-jerking martyr. |