| 释义 |
grand tour
[Originally Fr. = ‘great circuit’; but now apprehended as an English phrase.]
a. A tour of the principal cities and places of interest in Europe, formerly supposed to be an essential part of the education of young men of good birth or fortune. Chiefly in phr. to make the grand tour.
[1670R. Lassels Voy. Italy Pref. a vj, And no man under⁓stands Livy and Cæsar..like him who hath made exactly the Grand Tour of France and the Giro of Italy.] 1748Richardson Clarissa (1768) IV. 261 Should we not make the Grand Tour upon this occasion? 1748Smollett Rod. Rand. i. (1760) I. 3 You have made the grand tour. 1837Penny Cycl. VII. 56/2 In 1714 he [Chesterfield] left the University to make the usual grand tour of Europe. 1869Rogers Pref. to Adam Smith's W.N. I. 12 Young men of fortune and fashion made what was called the ‘grand tour’ under the guidance of a tutor.
b. transf. to take the grand tour of: to make the circuit of, go round.
1843Haliburton Attaché I. xv. 270 The decanters now take the ‘grand tour’ of the table. 1970Sci. Jrnl. May 9/3 The ‘grand tour of the planets’ (the opportunity at the end of this decade to send a single rocket around Jupiter, Saturn and the outer planets, using the gravitational pull of each planet it passes to send it on to the next one). 1971Daily Tel. 2 Dec. 6 (Advt.), The complete story of man's conquest of the moon—glimpses of the future and the fantastic ‘grand tour’ of the planets.
Hence grand-tour v., nonce-wd., to ‘make the grand tour’.
1886Ruskin Præterita I. 392 [They] were grand-touring in Italy and Sicily. |