| 释义 |
whole cloth
A piece of cloth of the full size as manufactured, as distinguished from a piece that may be cut off or out of it for a garment, etc.
1433Rolls of Parlt. IV. 451/2 Hole Clothes, called brode Clothes. 1525Wydow Edyth in Hazl. Shaks. Jest-bks. (1864) 58 Might I be so bolde as of your hole cloth To desire you for to deliuer vnto me As much as wyll suffyse..To make a large Gowne and a Kyrtell. 1724Act 11 Geo. I c. 24 §1 Every Woollen Broad Cloth,..whether..called an End or Half Cloth, or a Long or Whole Cloth.
b. fig. or in fig. context, esp. in phr. cut (etc.) out of (the) whole cloth, used in various senses; now esp. (U.S. colloq. or slang) of a statement wholly fabricated or false.
1579G. Harvey Letter-bk. (Camden) 77, I shalbe contente..to lende you the choyce of as many gentle wordes and loovelye termes as we..use to deliver ower thankes in. Choose whether you will have them given or yeeldid,..kutt owte of the whole cloathe, or otherwise powrid owte. 1594Nashe Christ's T. 46 Two or three thousand pound... When hee hath it all in his handes, for a month or two he reuels it, and cuts it out in the whole cloth. 1630R. Brathwait Eng. Gent. 333 They cut it out of the whole cloth, and divide their acres peece-meale into shreds. 1634Peacham Compl. Gentl. i. (1906) 5 The valiant Souldier..measureth out of the whole cloath his Honour with his sword. 1639Fuller Holy War iv. vi. 177 This rent (not in the seam but whole cloth) betwixt these Churches. 1677Hubbard Pres. St. New-Eng. ii. 1 The List or Border here being known to be more worth then the whole Cloth; That whole Tract of Land, being of little worth, unless it were for the Borders thereof upon the Sea-coast. 1843C. Mathews Writ. 68 (Thornton) Isn't this entire story..made out of whole cloth? 1897Fortn. Rev. July 140 Absolutely untruthful telegrams were manufactured out of ‘whole cloth’. 1905H. A. Vachell Hill xii, That Eton captain is cut out of whole cloth; no shoddy there. |