| 释义 |
rebours, a. and n.
Forms: 4 reburs, rebours(e, robours, 5 Sc. rebowris.
[a. F. rebours rough, perverse, etc. (as n., the wrong side of a fabric):—pop. L. reburs-um, L. reburrum rough-haired, bristly.]
†A. adj. Perverse, froward. Obs. rare—1.
1340Ayenb. 68 Wyþstondynge is a zinne þet comþ of þe herte þet is rebel and hard and rebours and dyuers.
B. n. in phr. ‖ à rebours |a rəbur| (formerly (Sc.) † at rebours), in the wrong way, perversely; through perversity.
c1330R. Brunne Chron. Wace (Rolls) 5165 Androcheus..answered hym al at reburs [v.r. robours]. Ibid. 12652. c 1375 Sc. Leg. Saints l. (Katherine) 860 Þir quhelis..twa aganis twa Sall alwais turne in contrare cours As thingis beand at rebourse. c1425Wyntoun Cron. ix. viii. 48 Schyre Willame persaywyd then His myschef, and hym send succowris, Ellis had all gane at rebowris. 1906W. James Let. 3 Apr. in R. B. Perry Thought & Character W. James (1935) II. 393 How lamely I, for one, must have expressed myself to be taken so à rebours. 1939T. S. Eliot Idea Christ. Society i. 19 It [sc. a dislike of everything maintained by Germany or Russia] may..lead us to be mere imitators à rebours, in making us adopt uncritically almost any attitude which a foreign nation rejects. 1949I. Deutscher Stalin iv. 96 In making a fetish of the underground, in shying away from the broader opportunities for action, they tended to reduce the resolution to impotence. They were liquidators à rebours. 1951M. Lowry Let. 25 Aug. (1967) 262 While he took no human action at all..some principle of tyrannic yet thwarted force in his feeling has worked against him, à rebours: now he does take action..mysteriously the thing begins to work for him. |