释义 |
▪ I. woodshed, n.|ˈwʊdʃɛd| Also wood shed, wood-shed. [f. wood n.1 + shed n.2] 1. A shed for storing wood, esp. for fuel. Also euphem., a lavatory.
1844L. S. Costello Bearn & Pyrenees I. 282 We were glad to take shelter in a wood-shed. 1854H. D. Thoreau Walden 54, I have also a small wood-shed adjoining, made chiefly of the stuff which was left after building the house. 1868N. Hawthorne Passages from Amer. Notebks. II. 9 We have been employed partly in an augean labor of clearing out a wood-shed. 1921W. de la Mare Mem. Midget ii. 10 Pollie had gone to the wood⁓shed to fetch kindling. 1940W. Faulkner Hamlet ii. ii. 129 Serve you right for keeping a mare like that in a woodshed. 1974M. Hoyt Thirty Miles i. 1 The plumbing wasn't. Its place was taken by a small building known by the somewhat less-than-frank title of ‘woodshed’. 2. fig. a. Phr. to take into the woodshed and varr.: to reprimand or punish. N. Amer. colloq. From the old tradition of giving a child a spanking in the woodshed, i.e. not in the presence of others.
1907St. Nicholas July 826/2 He could save himself and most of his companions from unpleasant reckonings in various and sundry woodsheds. 1949Time 18 Apr. 22/2 If you don't do what we tell you to do we are going to take you out into the woodshed. 1966Toronto Daily Star 21 Dec. 14 (heading) Taking the Senator to the woodshed. 1983Chicago Sun-Times 16 July 34 Assuming the Fed is traditionally pliant, why does not Reagan simply take Volcker to the woodshed and tell him to ease up? b. Phr. something nasty in the woodshed: see nasty a. 7. Also in allusive varr.
1940Auden Another Time 111 What was it, Ernst, that your shadow unwittingly said? O did the child see something horrid in the woodshed Long ago? 1958Times Lit. Suppl. 17 Jan. 30/1 Mr Amis does not, however, present Garnet Bowen as a case-history, whose dislike of foreign parts could be explained on a woodshed basis. 1959Listener 8 Jan. 78/3 As the leading Torquemada, Miss Margaret Lane clearly felt some obligation to strive to uncover something—well—interesting in the woodshed. c. Mus. slang. As a place where a musician may, or should, practise in private (see also quot. 1937).
1937Printers' Ink Monthly May 45/3 Wood shed, a severe rehearsal. 1946Hollywood Note June 4 T.D. [sc. Tommy Dorsey] goes back to the woodshed. 1977Rolling Stone 16 June 66/2 Leavell's playing won't scare many jazz pianists into the woodshed. ▪ II. woodshed, v. Mus. slang.|ˈwʊdʃɛd| [f. the n.] trans. and intr. To practise or rehearse, esp. privately (see also quot. 1978).
1936L. Armstrong Swing that Music 71 We used to practice together, ‘wood-shed’ as we say (from the old-time way of going out into the wood-shed to practice a new song). 1946Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues viii. 108 I'll have to woodshed this thing awhile so I can get straight with you all. 1950Blesh & Janis They all played Ragtime (1958) x. 203, I would hear the tunes and, to make sure, go home and ‘woodshed’ them in every key, put them in major and minor and all the ninth chords. 1968A. Young in A. Chapman New Black Voices (1972) Drew's got an alto [horn]... Drew dont hardly touch it, he too busy woodsheddin his drums. 1978Amer. Speech 1975 L. 302 [Jargon of barber-shop singing.] Woodshed, work out the harmony parts (to a known melody) by ear; sing as a group for the first time..; improvise (an interpretation). Hence ˈwoodshedding vbl. n., (a) the dispensing of punishment; (b) the practice or rehearsal of music; (c) spontaneous or improvised barber-shop singing.
1940Amer. Speech XV. 205 Woodshedding, disciplinary action. 1946Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues ix. 151 Instead of woodshedding, he went out after the big money with the primitive equipment he had when he started. 1955Shapiro & Hentoff Hear me talkin' to Ya xi. 190 It was here that the term ‘woodshedding’ originated. When one of the gang wanted to rehearse his part, he would go off into the woods and practice. 1956S. Longstreet Real Jazz xiii. 101 Bix [Beiderbecke] did plenty of woodshedding, playing alone, to some recording on the family Victrola. 1973T. Pynchon Gravity's Rainbow i. 129 No head falsetto here but complete, out of the honest breast, a baritone voice brought over years of woodshedding up to this range. 1974Harmonizer Jan.-Feb. 18/2 Woodshedding is not a ‘spectator sport’—only participants can fully enjoy it. 1976Times 27 Sept. 12/4 Spontaneous barbershopping is known as woodshedding, because a woodshed is as good a place as any to burst into sudden song. |