| 释义 |
▪ I. tomahawk, n.|ˈtɒməhɔːk|
Also 7 tamahauk(e, -hawk, tomahauke, 8 tommahauk, (tomahaw, tomhog), 8–9 tomohawk, (9 tommyhawk).
[a. Renâpe (N. Amer. Indian of Virginia) tämähāk (given by Capt. J. Smith as tomahack), apocopated form of tämähākan, ‘what is used for cutting, cutting utensil’, from tämähāken ‘he uses for cutting’, from tämäham ‘he cuts’ (W. R. Gerard in American Anthropologist X. 1908, p. 277). Cognate with Pamptico (Carolinian) tommahick, and with the full forms, Mohegan tummahegan, Delaware tamoihecan, Abenaki tamahigan, Micmac tŭmeegŭn (taˈmigan), Passamaqoddy tumhigen.]
1. a. The axe of the North American Indians, used as a weapon of war and the chase, and also as a tool and agricultural implement; in English use the word is usually applied to it as the war-axe.
It consists of a wooden shaft about 2½ feet long, with a head originally formed of a long hard stone sharpened at one end, or of a piece of copper, or of the horn of a deer, but after the advent of white traders usually of iron (trade tomahawk). Sometimes the shaft was hollow, and a bowl was fashioned at the back of the head (pipe-tomahawk).
[1612Capt. Smith Map Virginia (Arb.) 44 Tomahacks. Axes. Tockahacks. Pickaxes.] 1634W. Wood New Eng. Prosp. ii. i. 58 [They] beate them downe with their right hand Tamahaukes, and left hand Iavelins. [1701C. Wolley Jrnl. New York (1860) 36 They dig their ground with a Flint, called in their Language tom-a-hea-kan.] 1705Beverley Virginia i. iii. (1722) 39 Knocking the English unawares on the Head, some with their Hatchets, which they call Tommahauks, others with the Hows and Axes of the English themselves. 1715Phil. Trans. XXIX. 308 Targets, Tomahaws, poisoned Daggers. 1716B. Church Hist. Philip's War (1865) I. 82 A great surly look'd fellow took up his Tomhog, or wooden Cutlash, to kill Mr. Church, but some others prevented him. 1756Washington Lett. Writ. 1889 I. 393 The wampum and tomahawks I have purchased. 1780Edmondson Heraldry II. Gloss., Tomahawk, an Indian war-ax. 1809A. Henry Trav. 41 They walked in single file, each with his tomahawk in one hand, and scalping-knife in the other. 1851Mayne Reid Scalp Hunt. xxvii, They [Indians] break the shanks [of buffalo] with their tomahawks. 1865Lubbock Preh. Times iv. (1869) 91 The North American stone axe or tomahawk served not merely as an implement, but also as a weapon.
b. erron. applied to a war-club or knobkerry.
1674J. Josselyn Voy. New Eng. 147 Their other weapons are Tamahawks which are staves two foot and a half long with a knob at the end as round as a bowl. a1817T. Dwight Trav. New Eng., etc. (1821) I. 118 Another of their principal weapons was the well known Tomahawk, or war-club... Since the arrival of the English, they have used fire-arms. To these they add a long knife: and a small battle-axe, to which they have transferred the name of Tomahawk.
c. transf. Applied to similar weapons used in primitive societies elsewhere; also Naut. a pole-axe used by sailors; in Australia, the usual word for hatchet.
1670Narborough Jrnl. in Acc. Sev. Late Voy. i. (1694) 23 An Indian Club..called by the Caribbe-Indians at Surinam a Tomahauke. 1681Grew Musæum iv. ii. 367 A Tamahauke, or Brazilian Fighting-Club. 1802J. Jones in Naval Chron. VII. 348, I saw him chop at him with a..tomahawk. 1833Marryat P. Simple xxxv, In a moment, pikes, tomahawks, cutlasses, and pistols were seized,..and our men poured into the eighty-gun ship, and in two minutes the decks were cleared, and all the Dons pitched below. 1866Livingstone Last Jrnls. (1873) I. i. 20 For they are accustomed to clearing spaces for gardens,..using tomahawks well adapted for the work. 1875Bedford Sailor's Pocket Bk. vi. (ed. 2) 229 A couple of tomahawks will be found useful. 1880Fison & Howitt Kamilaroi 206 The [Australian] aborigines have obtained iron tomahawks. 1898Morris Austral Eng. s.v., In Australia the word hatchet has practically disappeared, and the word Tomahawk to describe it is in every-day use. It is also applied to the stone hatchet of the Aboriginals.
d. Applied locally to various kinds of rural tools and agricultural implements: see quots.
c1825J. Clare in M. Grainger Nat. Hist. Prose Writings J. Clare (1982) 88 The hookd bill usd by hedgers & calld by them a tomahawk. 1830Q. Jrnl. Agric. III. 653 Mortises made by a centre⁓bit leave an intermediate piece between the apertures. This is taken out by the tomahawk, a tool made for the purpose. One end is a sharp stout pointed knife, which cuts each side of the middle piece left in the mortise, and the other end hooks out the piece not dislodged by the knife. 1881G. F. Jackson Shropsh. Word-bk., Tummy-awk, a dung-fork, carried at the back of the cart, and used to scrape out the manure, on the land, as it is required. 1893Wiltshire Gloss., Tommy-hawk, a potato hacker.
e. fig. As the imaginary instrument of a savage attack or vindictive onslaught.
1805T. S. Surr Winter in Lond. (1806) II. 195 His meek nature..would..sink beneath the tomahawk of such a barbarian as the writer of the article in question. 1836H. Rogers J. Howe vii. (1863) 183 Such a temper is rare at any period; but in that age of fierce and savage controversy, of the tomahawk and scalping-knife, it was indeed a phenomenon. 1897Daily News 30 Sept. 8/2 He flourished the rhetorical tomahawk over ‘those false teachers who say that the articles of Christian faith are illusions’.
2. Phrases. to blow tomahawks, of the wind, to blow with cutting violence. to bury or lay aside the tomahawk: to lay down one's arms, to cease from hostilities. to dig up, raise, or take up the tomahawk: to take up arms in warfare, to commence hostilities. Cf. hatchet n. 2.
1705R. Beverley Hist. Virginia iii. 27 They use..very ceremonious ways in concluding of Peace..such as burying a tomahawk. 1775Adair Amer. Ind. 239, I persuaded the Choktah to take up the bloody tomohawk against those perfidious French. 1775in Virginia Hist. Coll. (1887) VI. 80, I..resolve never to bury the Tomahawk untill liberty shall be fixed on an immovable basis thro' the whole Continent. 1806Pike Sources Mississ. (1810) 86 Grateful that the two nations had laid aside the tomahawk at my request. 1812Brackenridge Views Louisiana (1814) 123 They may come here in peace, or for the purpose of trade, but it will be far hence that they will dare to raise the tomahawk. 1848Bartlett Dict. Amer. s.v., It was and is the custom of the Indians to go through the ceremony of burying the tomahawk, when they made peace; when they went to war, they dug it up again. Hence the phrases ‘to bury the tomahawk’, and ‘to dig up the tomahawk’,..sometimes used by political speakers and writers. 1903Ld. R. Gower Rec. & Remin. 297 The weather is boisterous; it blows tomahawks and tornadoes.
3. attrib. and Comb., as tomahawk-blow, tomahawk-critic, tomahawk-dance, tomahawk-pipe (quot. 1860), tomahawk tongue; tomahawk improvement, an ‘improvement’ of a slight character, made to secure a right of pre-emption (Thornton); so tomahawk settler.
1873R. Brown Races Man. I. 235 Until the *tomahawk-blow puts an end to him.
1886J. Payn Heir of Ages xxxviii, He was not..a *tomahawk critic; he thought less of being smart himself..than of doing justice to a book.
1856Emerson Eng. Traits, Ability Wks. (Bohn) II. 39 They have no Indian taste for a *tomahawk-dance.
1842L. Munsell in M. Cutler's Life, etc. (1888) I. 133 They were determined to hold the lands by what is called ‘*tomahawk improvements’.
1860Domenech Deserts N. Amer. II. 272 The Comanches, in Texas,..have *tomahawk-pipes (small hatchets, the head of which is made hollow like the bowl of a pipe, and the handle perforated in its whole length to serve for a tube).
1907Q. Rev. July 161 A recipe for *tomahawk punch.
1788M. Cutler in Life, etc. (1888) I. 425 Stopped and breakfasted at a little clump of houses on the Indian side. They were *tomahawk settlers.
1849C. Brontë Shirley x, Of whose observant faculties and *tomahawk tongue Caroline stood in awe.
Hence ˈtomahawked a., provided or armed with a tomahawk.
1895K. Grahame Golden Age (1904) 3 A prairie studded with herds of buffalo, which it was our delight, moccasined and tomahawked, to ride down.
▪ II. tomahawk, v.|ˈtɒməhɔːk|
[f. prec. n.]
1. trans. To strike, cut, or kill with a tomahawk.
1755Gentl. Mag. XXV. 579/2 Mac Swine was ordered by the Indian to make a fire, and upon his not doing it so readily or so nimbly as was expected, he was threatened to be tomohawk'd. 1769Middlesex Jrnl. 14–16 Sept. 1/4 By six Indians, the man and woman were tomahawked and scalped. 1791J. Long Voy. Ind. Interpr. 96 The instant the animal drops they tomahawk it. 1829Southey O. Newman iv. 45 Stragglers tomahawk'd And scalp'd, or dragg'd away that they may die By piecemeal murder. 1889H. H. Romilly Verandah in N. Guinea 74 They..were treacherously tomahawked.
b. fig. To attack savagely or mercilessly in speech or (more usually) in writing; to ‘cut up’ or demolish in a review or criticism.
1815‘Agrestis’ Feudal Hall xlv, [She] tomahawks me with sharp words. 1820Blackw. Mag. VII. 388 He afterwards goes out of his way to tomahawk Dryden, for an allusion to Abraham in a dedication. 1895Daily News 19 June 6/2 Her second daughter, Lady Charlotte,..wrote the book which Thackeray tomahawked.
2. To cut (a sheep) in shearing it. Australia.
1859H. Kingsley G. Hamlyn xx, Shearers were very scarce, and the poor sheep got fearfully ‘tomahawked’ by the new hands. 1872Eden My Wife & I in Queensland iv. 96 Some men never get the better of this habit, but ‘tomahawk’ as badly after years of practice as when they first began. 1896Paterson Man fr. Snowy River 162 The novice who..had tommyhawked half a score.
Hence ˈtomahawking vbl. n. and ppl. a.; also ˈtomahawker, one who tomahawks (lit. and fig.).
1819Metropolis III. 69 The tomahawkers of the Edinburgh Review. 1833Boston, etc. Herald 9 Apr. 2/1 We have not a tomahawking article in the whole number. 1839–40W. Irving Wolfert's R. i. (1855) 2 They recreated themselves occasionally with a little tomahawking and scalping. 1862Times 8 Apr. 11/4 A large body of scalping and tomahawking Indians. 1886Pall Mall G. 2 Oct. 6/1 My father,..noticing that the sheep were particularly badly shorn, remarked to the manager that ‘it was mere tomahawking’. 1886Manch. Exam. 3 Nov. 3/1 A return to a style of literary tomahawking which we had hoped was for ever extinct. 1897Athenæum 20 Mar. 372 Lest he should find himself tomahawked instead of being the tomahawker. |