| 释义 |
upˈtight, a. colloq. and slang (orig. U.S.).
[up- 3.]
1. a. Of a person: in a state of nervous tension or anxiety; inhibited, worried, ‘on edge’; angry, ‘worked up’ (about something).
Quot. 1934 is an isolated early example.
1934J. M. Cain Postman always rings Twice xvi. 190 I'm getting up tight now, and I've been thinking about Cora. Do you think she knows I didn't do it? 1966Sunday Times (Colour Suppl.) 13 Feb. 35/4 Up tight, tense. 1968Mad lxxvii. 30 ‘Uptight’ means, like, a bad scene. It's when you're hung up, or wigged out, or you can't make it. We all get ‘uptight’ once in a while. 1969C. Young Todd Dossier 38 He looked worried. Really worried. As the kids say, he was up-tight. 1973E. Caldwell Annette (1974) vi. ii. 137 I'd guess you'd gotten so uptight from being denied motherhood that you were ready to leave home. 1975D. Lodge Changing Places ii. 83 You're feeling all cold and uptight and wishing you hadn't come. 1977M. Edelman Political Lang. v. 90 To the uptight policeman everyone is a potential offender. 1981P. P. Read Villa Golitsyn ii. iv. 112, I was afraid you might be a little uptight about that sort of thing.
b. fig. Characteristically formal in manner or style; correct, strait-laced.
1969Manch. Guardian Weekly 28 Aug. 18 Who would have thought that an uptight institution like the august Oxford University Press would have done a thing like this? Here is a..spirited and spiritous piece of autobiography..served up as a book. 1970E. M. Brecher Sex Researchers ix. 253 They tended to swing in the same socially corrrect, formal, ‘up-tight’ style they followed in their other activities. 1976Chatelaine (Montreal) Jan. 73/3 In the morning, the apartment looked curiously uptight to Meredith.
2. In approbation: that reaches the desired standard; excellent, fine.
1962Down Beat Aug. 20/2 Jazz Gene Ammons Up Tight! 1966[see out-of-sight adj. phr. (n.) 2]. 1969Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 31 May 11/7 Disc jockeys..talk in a kind of sub-English..as in ‘All right baby sock-it-to-me it's allright uptight yeah.’
3. Short or out of money; ‘broke’.
1967Time 6 Jan. 18/3 ‘Up tight’ can mean anxious, emotionally involved or broke. 1968Esquire Apr. 160/3 The expression ‘uptight’, which meant being in financial straits, appeared on the soul scene in the general vicinity of 1953.
Hence upˈtightness.
1969Fabian & Byrne Groupie vi. 46 The paranoia and savage uptightness which comes from three such guys living on top of each other and attempting to lead very together type lives while being stoned most of the time. 1974A. Laski Night Music 95 It hadn't made him any looser..that rigid uptightness was still in him. 1976New Yorker 8 Mar. 57/3 In [The Entertainer]..Archie contrasted the uptightness of the British who don't make ‘a fuss’ with a fat black woman he once heard in America who sang ‘her heart out to the whole world’. |