释义 |
tennis-ball [f. tennis n. + ball n.1 4.] The small ball used in real tennis or lawn-tennis.
c1450Brut ccxliv. 374 Yn scorne & despite he [the Dauphin] sent to hym [King Henry V] a tonne fulle of teneys⁓ballis, be-cause he schulde haue sumwhat to play with-alle. 1561T. Norton Calvin's Inst. i. 60 As if God did to make himself pastime to tosse men like tennise balles. 1599Shakes. Hen. V, i. ii. 258. 1726 Swift Gulliver ii. v, Such cruel bangs..as if I had been pelted with tennis-balls. 1805Scott Last Minstr. ii. xxxi, Like tennis-ball by raquet tossed. attrib.1786Abercrombie Arr. in Gard. Assist. p. vii, Tennis-ball cabbage lettuce. b. fig.; esp. a thing or person that is tossed or bandied about like a tennis-ball.
1589Warner Alb. Eng. vi. xxx. 151 Vulcan, Venus,..Daphne turnd to Tree..tennis balles to euery tongue of euery Deitee. 1610Holland Camden's Brit. (1637) 570 The very tennisse-ball, in some sort, of fortune. 1642H. More Song of Soul ii. App. lxxxviii, A cluster of them makes not half a Moon, What should such tennis-balls do in the skie? 1890Dakyns Xenophon I. p. xciv, We find this great Athenian captain playing the ignoble part of tennis-ball to rival Spartan harmosts. |