| 释义 |
gaiety|ˈgeɪɪtɪ|
Forms: 7–8 gaity, gayity, 6–9 gayety, 7– gaiety.
[ad. F. gaieté, gaîté, f. gai gay.]
1. a. The quality or condition of being gay; cheerfulness, mirth. Esp. in phr. the gaiety of nations, the cheerfulness or pleasure of a large number of people; general gaiety or amusement (freq. used hyperbolically or ironically).
1647W. Browne tr. Gomberville's Polexander iv. v. 335 Carrying in her countenance a gaity, and extraordinarie calm. 1670Walton Lives iv. 273 George Herbert..manag'd it with as becoming and grave a gaiety, as any had before, or since his time. 1710Atterbury Serm. (1734) I. 328 Prophane Men..who stick not, in the Gayety of their Hearts, to say that a strict Piety is good for nothing. 1724Ramsay Tea-t. Misc. (1733) I. p. v, Our Scots tunes..have an agreeable gaiety and natural sweetness. 1779Johnson Life of Edmund Smith in Prefaces IV. 61 That stroke of death [Garrick's], which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the publick stock of harmless pleasure. 1784Cowper Task i. 587 Such health and gayety of heart enjoy The houseless rovers of the sylvan world. 1807G. Chalmers Caledonia I. iii. v. 363 We see little..of rulers..in the gaiety of their felicities. 1875Hamerton Intell. Life x. vi. (1876) 367 Gayety the best legacy of youth. 1967Guardian 15 Dec. 7/4 Nowadays..musical comedies all seem to hearken back to Old Vienna or Gay Paree, and they don't exactly contribute to the gaiety of nations. 1968Listener 29 Aug. 264/2 Analysts have added substantially to the gaiety of nations, by the cheerful and ingenious inventiveness with which they have produced fantastic and highly risible analyses of all and sundry.
†b. Levity, thoughtlessness. [So often F. gaîté de cœur.] Obs.
1647Clarendon Hist. Reb. vii. §118 Here Sr William Waller, out of pure gayety, departed from an advantage he could not again recover.
2. Merrymaking, festivity, pleasure-seeking; a festive occasion, a lively entertainment; freq. in pl.
1634Habington Castara (Arb.) 143 The soule which doth with God unite, Those gayities how doth she slight Which ore opinion sway? 1654H. L'Estrange Chas. I (1655) 129 So braue a spectacle..set the London Dames on longing to behold such gaiety within their City walls. 1681Glanvill Sadducismus (1682) Ded., The deceitful gayeties that steal us away from God. 1767J. Penn Sleepy Serm. iii, The middling people..have a taste for gaiety and extravagance. 1791Mrs. Radcliffe Rom. Forest i, He was allured by the gaieties of Paris. 1812Lady Granville Lett. (1894) I. 33 My last gaiety was at Lady Essex's on Sunday. 1873Symonds Grk. Poets x. 319 Among the mountains an Italian of the present day..is always longing for town gaieties. 1887Daily News 29 June 5/3 That funny piece..in which a little girl is carried off to a garrison gaiety.
3. Bright appearance or ornamentation; showiness; showy dress; occas. pl.
a1657Lovelace Poems (1659) 60 Have you not marked their Cœlestial play, And no more peek'd the gayeties of day. 1695Woodward Nat. Hist. Earth iii. i. 149 The Gayeities [sic] and Embelishments that we might seek for in it [the Earth]. 1695Luttrell Brief Rel. (1857) III. 538 The Jacobites appear'd in their utmost gayety. 1739J. Trapp Right. over-much (1758) 17 No sort of gayety or expensiveness in dress is permitted. 1756W. Dodd Fasting (ed. 2) 9 Solicitous about the niceties and gayeties of dress. 1838Penny Cycl. X. 326/1 A garden in which the objects desired..are show, gaiety, and neatness. 1866J. G. Murphy Comm. Exod. xxxiii. 4–6 They begin to lay aside all gaiety in dress.
4. (With capital initial.) The name of a former London theatre famous, esp. in the 1890s, for its musical shows, used attrib. of features characteristic of these shows. Gaiety girl, a performer in such a show; also transf.
1890G. B. Shaw London Mus. 1888–89 (1937) 314 These can aspire to kicking through a Gaiety pas de quatre. 1898People 27 Feb., One of the brightest and most graceful of ‘Gaiety’ girls. 1910G. K. Chesterton G. B. Shaw 143 Shaw..introduced the Gaiety Girl, but did not represent her life as all gaiety. 1946Brahms & Simon Trottie True ii. 20 There was nothing she could do to stop the man nipping off to a stage door and taking a Gaiety Girl out to supper. 1963Listener 10 Jan. 58/1 The black stockings and swirling skirts of the Gaiety Girls. 1965C. Fremlin Jealous One xx. 156 This gaiety-girl business is all fairly new. It's not natural to her. She's one of Nature's frumps, really. 1970Guardian 19 Dec. 6/2 There were Gaiety Girls on garlanded swings. |