| 释义 |
killing ground, n.
Brit. |ˈkɪlɪŋ graʊnd|, U.S. |ˈkɪlɪŋ ˌgraʊnd|
[‹ killing n. + ground n.]
1. An area in which animals, esp. seals, are hunted and killed. Freq. in pl.
1877J. B. Holder Hist. Amer. Fauna in J. Richardson et al. Museum Nat. Hist. III. p. lxxv/1 The more valuable young or middle-aged [seals] are..selected, and driven on to the killing ground. 1894R. Kipling Jungle Bk. 106 That's the first time a seal has ever come to the killing-grounds alone. 1925Science 61 406 The tiny wooden pegs used a hundred years ago by the seal-hunters to stretch out the skins to dry, could still be found in place on the old killing grounds. 1991A. Wood Hist. Siberia (BNC) 5 Private entrepreneurs..seeking not so much scientific information as further killing grounds in the pursuit of the lucrative sea otter. 1995Countryman Summer 145/1 Far from being a wilderness, these are the managed, indeed manicured, killing-grounds for the grouse.
2. Mil. An area exposed to concentrated fire or bombardment, leading to high numbers of casualties among soldiers operating there. Also (in extended use): any place in which large-scale death or destruction occurs. Cf. killing zone n. (a) at killing n. Additions
1946D. D. Eisenhower Rep. Allied Exped. Force 45 Allied guns ringed the ever-shrinking ‘killing-ground’ and..the ordinary German infantry gave themselves up in ever-increasing numbers. 1969Listener 2 Jan. 4/1 The airport after the raid was unlike anything I've seen since the Second World War, and for the Lebanese it wasn't just a macabre killing ground for airliners. 1985P. Ziegler Mountbatten ii. xxi. 271 The campaign in the Arakan had been a deception operation, designed to tie up the British reserves far from what was intended to be the real killing-ground. 1994Houston Chron. (Nexis) 29 Jan. a1 Three decades of civil war had turned the region into a killing ground. |