| 释义 |
treadmill, n.|ˈtrɛdmɪl|
[f. tread v. + mill n.1]
A horizontal cylinder made to revolve by the weight of persons treading on boards arranged as equidistant steps around its periphery. Formerly in use as an instrument of prison discipline.
1822(title) Description of the Tread Mill invented by Mr. William Cubitt of Ipswich, for the Employment of Prisoners. 1824Syd. Smith Wks. (1859) II. 36/1 The labour of the tread-mill is irksome, dull, monotonous, and disgusting to the last degree. 1836Gen. P. Thompson Exerc. (1842) IV. 107 Religious observances of other people..forced upon us with a faggot or a treadmill. 1886J. K. Jerome Idle Thoughts xii. 139 Too much getting up and down stairs..puts one unpleasantly in mind of the tread-mill.
transf. and fig.1827Scott Chron. Canongate i, A kind of mental tread-mill, where you are perpetually climbing, but can never rise an inch. 1862H. Aïdé Carr of Carrlyon I. 262 A return to the treadmill of London society. 1897G. Allen Typewriter Girl xv, The squirrel who turns the unceasing treadmill of his cage. 1905Lyall Life Mrq. Dufferin II. v. 173 He found himself again on the official treadmill.
attrib.1849E. B. Eastwick Dry Leaves 5 There is no winding or sloping here... No! all is fair treadmill work. 1885C. Harrison in Harper's Mag. Mar. 548/1 Back again at the tread-mill round of business.
Hence ˈtreadmill v., intr. to labour on or as on the treadmill; ˈtreadmiller, a person who is ‘on the treadmill’ (fig.), esp. one who follows a dull and arduous working life.
1899Westm. Gaz. 18 Nov. 3/2 My feet..slipped on the pedal till I was treadmilling clumsily with the middle instead of the ball of the foot. 1902Messenger (N.S.W.) 5 Dec. 253 The..prison discipline of past days, in which tread⁓milling was the only work prisoners were permitted to do. 1923D. H. Lawrence Kangaroo viii. 164 Better a ‘wicked creature’ any day, than a mechanical tread⁓miller of a careerist. 1956H. Gold Man who was not with It (1965) viii. 66, I even thought of..that shy treadmiller Joy. |