释义 |
kinglet|ˈkɪŋlɪt| [f. king n. + -let.] 1. A petty king; a king ruling over a small territory. Mostly contemptuous. Cf. kingling 1.
1603Florio Montaigne i. xlii. (1632) 143 Cæsar termeth all the Lords..to be Kinglets, or pettie Kings [= reguli]. Ibid. (1634) 146 So many petty-kings, and petty-petty kinglets have we now adayes. 1807G. Chalmers Caledonia I. iii. vii. 388 Sitrig, the kinglet of Northumberland. 1831Carlyle Misc., Early Germ. Lit. (1872) III. 198 Who..ventured into the field against even the greatest of these kinglets. 1865Pall Mall G. 12 Aug. 11/1 The Kinglets of Tuscany, Modena, and Parma. 1882Daily News 16 Aug. 5/2 The Zulu King is to be restored under conditions..the same as those that Sir Garnet Wolseley imposed upon his thirteen Kinglets. 2. A popular name of the Golden-crested Wren, Regulus cristatus: also of two allied N. American species, R. satrapa and R. calendula.
1839–43Yarrell Hist. Birds I. 347 The little Golden-Crested Regulus, or Kinglet..has a soft and pleasing song. 1869J. Burroughs in Galaxy Mag. Aug., Wilson called the Kinglets Wrens. 1884E. P. Roe in Harper's Mag. Mar. 614/2 The golden-crested kinglet is a little mite of a bird. |