| 释义 |
▪ I. ˈhot-foot, adv. and n.
Also 6 Sc. hait-fute.
[f. hot a. + foot n. See also foot-hot.]
A. adv.
1. With eager or rapid pace; in hot haste; hastily.
a1300Body & Soul in Map's Poems (Camden) 339 Ȝwan tho fendes hot fot come to fette me away. 1536Bellenden Cron. Scot. (1821) II. 139 King Athelstane..followit, hait-fute, on the Pichtis. 1647Trapp Comm. Matt. vi. 12 An evil conscience..follows him up..like a blood-hound, hot foot. 1827Sir J. Barrington Pers. Sketches I. 154 If your honour's in a hurry, I can run on hot-foot and tell the squire your honour's galloping after me. 1893Stevenson Catriona 4 To go to him hot-foot from Appin's agent.
2. attrib. or as adj. Acting with haste or promptitude.
1901Spectator 2 Nov. 631/1 He had to make the most arduous hot-foot journeys across the country. 1904‘O. Henry’ Cabbages & Kings v. 90 He was private secretary of the late hot-foot president of this grocery and fruit stand that they call a country. 1940C. Day Lewis tr. Georgics of Virgil i. 28 If you observe the hotfoot sun and the moon's phases, To-morrow will never cheat you.
B. n.
1. Prompt or rapid action or movement; a quick escape, as in the phrases to do a hot foot (or foots), to give (someone) the hot foot, to come (or go) on the hot foot. U.S. slang.
1869Congress. Globe 15 Jan. 389/3 The honorable Senator..admonishes us of the importance of hot-foot in this business, if I may say so, of allowing the testimony to be taken at once. 1897Pop. Sci. Monthly Apr. 833 To run from a police officer is to do a hot foot. 1903‘H. McHugh’ Back to Woods iv. 66 Did somebody give you the hot-foot and make a quick exit? 1905― You can search Me iii. 55 If somebody ever steals his hammer he'll be doing hotfoots for the handout. 1915H. L. Wilson Ruggles of Red Gap (1917) ii. 27 We'd better report to her before she does a hot-foot over here. 1926Flynn's 16 Jan. 639/1, I know that th'fly was jerry because he gave me th'once over as I was comin' out and I went on th' hoot-foot... I beat it. 1929C. F. Coe Hooch! x. 241 You dress an' grab a cab, see? Come down here to Zuroto's on the hot foot.
2. A beating on the soles of the feet; more usually, a practical joke in which a match is put against the victim's foot and then lit. Also fig.
1906A. H. Lewis Confessions of Detective i. iii. 32 I'd become learned in certain mysteries, among others, the ‘hot foot’... Given a man, unconscious by..rum,..you can restore him..by smartly beating the soles of his feet. 1934D. Runyon in Hearst's International Sept. 84/1 The way you give a hot foot is to sneak up behind some guy..and stick a paper match in his shoe between the sole and the upper along about where his little toe ought to be, and then light the match. 1943J. Mitchell McSorley's Wonderful Saloon (1946) 18 Drunks reel over from the Bowery and..the kids give them hotfoots with kitchen matches. 1948Mencken Amer. Lang. Suppl. I. v. 392 The Army also discourages the old soldiers' game of hot-foot, which consists in inserting matches between the soles and uppers of a sleeping comrade's shoes, and then lighting them. 1959Encounter Dec. 30/2 His prose should never be quiet. It must always shock with the hot-foot.
▪ II. hot-foot, v. colloq. (chiefly U.S.).
[f. prec.]
intr. To go hot-foot; to make haste. Also with it. Hence hot-ˈfooted ppl. a.
1896Ade Artie iii. 22, I hot-foots up to the dance. 1896[see dinky a.1]. 1903W. B. Yeats In Seven Woods 37 The hot-footed sun, And the cold sliding slippery-footed moon. 1904Sun (N.Y.) 27 Aug. 10 Thousands hot footed to the corner of Broadway. 1906Dialect Notes III. ii. 141 Hotfoot it, to hasten. 1911R. D. Saunders Col. Todhunter ii. 34 Great Scott and Maria, you must have hot-footed it away from your vittles, young man! 1926C. Harris Flapper Anne ii. 92 At the present nothing was further from her thoughts than marrying Sealy, but she craved the triumph of bringing him hotfooted to Milledge. 1928Observer 29 Jan. 22/3 Words of such enthusiasm send one at once hot-footed to the [Crystal] palace to see for oneself. 1934J. O'Hara Appointment in Samarra (1935) vii. 214 When O'Dowd did hear..he would hot-foot out to Quilty and make the sale. 1951Manch. Guardian Weekly 18 Jan. 15 He short-circuits Mr. Kingley's pedestrian approach and makes a bee-line for Koestler's original like the prodigal hot-footing it home. 1970G. Greer Female Eunuch 195 She hotfoots to Mexico. |