| 释义 |
gormless, a. orig. dial.|ˈgɔːmlɪs|
Also 8– (dial.) gaumless, gawm(b)less.
[f. gaum, dial. f. gome notice, understanding + -less.]
Wanting sense, or discernment. Hence ˈgormlessness, the quality of being gormless.
c1746J. Collier (Tim Bobbin) Lanc. Dialect Wks. (1862) 55, I steart like o Wilcat, on wur welly gawmless. 1845E. Brontë Wuthering Heights xxi, Did I ever look so stupid: so ‘gaumless’ as Joseph calls it? 1861Waugh Birtle Carter's Tale 19 Eh, thae greyt, gawmbless foo! Wheer arto for up theer! 1881‘Basil’ Love the Debt iii, You lazy, idle, gaumless good-for-nowt! 1883in B. Webb My Apprenticeship (1926) iii. 161 Parliament is such a far-off thing, that [they]..say that it is ‘gormless meddling with it’. 1925J. Agate Contemporary Theatre 1924 44 Cordelia is a ‘gumph’ or, as we say in Lancashire, ‘gormless’. 1932L. Golding Magnolia St. ii. ii. 304 She just went on pulling the [beer] handle and in a moment..the floor was swilling. ‘Mother!’ cried little Nellie sharply. ‘You are gormless!’ 1934A. Ransome Coot Club xix. 233 Ye'd better. He'll ferget the salt else, the gormless old lummocks! 1940Illustr. London News CXCVII. 164/2 He looks at once genial and ‘gormless’. 1951‘E. Crispin’ Long Divorce viii. 84 Pen's been running after a gormless little twerp of a foreign school⁓master. 1958Times 12 Nov. 3/3 Mr. Danny Ross suffers terrific indignities as the youth and makes his gormlessness not only amusing but genuinely likeable. 1959Punch 17 June 813/2 As a result of this unorthodox treatment Quince's gormless Thespians emerge not as rough comics but as decent, sensible men. 1970Daily Tel. 4 Sept. 11/2 That other skilled writer in the genre..depended on queers or gormlessness for two West End successes.
Add: ˈgormlessly adv.
1958L. Little Dear Boys ix. 167 Joe came back into the room smiling gormlessly. He was far away. 1986Financial Times 3 July 29/2 His gormlessly inept RADA audition (Macbeth's dagger speech) belongs to farce. |