| 释义 |
▪ I. ˈleap-frog, n.
[f. leap v.]
1. A boys' game in which one player places his hands upon the bent back or shoulders of another and leaps or vaults over him. Also, a jump or leap of this description.
1599Shakes. Hen. V, v. ii. 142 If I could winne a Lady at Leape-frogge, or by vawlting into my Saddle, with my Armour on my backe. 1672Marvell Reh. Transp. i. 15 Like fair gamsters at Leap-frog. 1797Holcroft Stolberg's Trav. (ed. 2) III. lxxxvi. 402 They..exercised themselves at leap frog. 1834M. Scott Cruise Midge xix, Massa Twig..clapping his hands on the old lady's shoulders cleared her and her tub cleverly by a regular leap frog. 1854Hawthorne Eng. Note-Bks. (1883) I. 464 And ended..by jumping leap-frog over the backs of the whole company. 1888Burgon Lives 12 Gd. Men I. i. 8 A double row of posts—where boys played leap-frog.
fig.1704Swift Mech. Operat. Spirit Misc. (1711) 299 There is a perpetual Game at Leap-Frog between both; and sometimes the Flesh is uppermost, and sometimes the Spirit. 1856Mrs. Browning Aur. Leigh i. (1857) 35 We play at leap-frog over the god Term.
2. Croquet. (See quot.)
1874J. D. Heath Croquet Player 33 The Leapfrog or Jump Stroke. This may be called a ‘fancy’ stroke..The object is, when a hoop or another ball is in the way of the striker's ball, to make the latter jump over the obstacle.
3. Mil. (See quot.)
1918E. S. Farrow Dict. Mil. Terms 340 Leapfrog, a method of maintaining constant communication with a moving command by using two or more instruments with a single unit, keeping one in operation while another is moving past it to a position in front.
4. transf. Competing for higher wages by ‘leap-frogging’. Cf. leap-frog v. 2 a.
1958Spectator 31 Jan. 123/2 Nobody has much sympathy with the wage demands of busworkers, town or country; if you use dubious methods of wage bargaining, like the leap-frog, you must expect few tears to be shed if a leap lands you into a ditch. 1961Daily Tel. 14 Oct. 16/6 ‘Leap-frog’ in pay may be checked. 1974Times 25 May 13/1 The wage ‘leap frog’..is the cause of a large part of our present tensions.
5. attrib. (in various fig. senses).
1904Daily Chron. 13 July 6/5 Mr. Morley exposed what may be called the ‘leap-frog’ logic of the Protectionists. 1917Q. Rev. July 190 The ‘leap-frog’ game of fleeting Ministries. 1952L. Ross Picture i. 41 The ‘leapfrog’ director..whose job it would be to arrange things so that Huston would not have to wait between scenes. 1962Gloss. Terms Automatic Data Processing (B.S.I.) 50 Leap⁓frog test, a test program stored in locations which are progressively changed by the program itself in order to test the store. 1972Times 19 Dec. 14/1 An attempt to invoke the ‘leap-frog’ procedure under section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act, 1969, and go direct to the House of Lords from a decision of a judge of the High Court failed.
▪ II. leap-frog, v.
[f. the n.]
1. a. intr. and trans. To leap or vault as at leap-frog.
1872G. Macdonald Wilf. Cumb. I. xiii. 215 All I had to do was to go on leap-frogging. 1891Kipling Life's Handicap 210 He..tried to leapfrog into the saddle. 1894Blackmore Perlycross xxxii. 329 Leap-frogged it [a tombstone], hundreds of times, when I were a boy, I have.
b. Mil. Of detachments or units, esp. in an attack: to go in advance of each other by turns (see also quot. 1942).
1920National Rev. Nov. 355 Behind them marched other divisions who, on the first momentum of the offensive slackening, were to ‘leap-frog’ over their comrades and continue the drive. 1922C. E. Montague Disenchantment ix. 133 Leap-frogging waves of assault. 1927Daily Tel. 30 Aug. 8/7 Two pairs of mobile picket groups, moving by long bounds and one pair ‘leapfrogging’ the other. 1942R.A.F. Jrnl. 16 May 32 The Air Force followed on their heels..leap-frogging over huge stretches of desert... As the armies retreated, they leap-frogged back again. 1966A. J. Barker Eritrea iv. 85 Due to the lack of transport it was possible only to lift two companies forward at any one time, the rest had to march. The two rear companies were picked up in turn and leap-frogged to the head of the main column.
2. transf.
a. In wage negotiations: to pursue a policy of demanding higher wages every time a group or groups of comparable wage-earners have succeeded in pulling level or ahead. Chiefly as leap-frogging vbl. n. and ppl. a.
1955Times 6 June 7/2 And if the British Transport Commission and the Government were to give in now it could never again be fought with certainty, no matter how long the leap-frogging between the two unions went on. 1958Times 30 Jan. 4/3 Sir Robert Grimston..said that there was much concern among the fare-paying public at the continual leap frogging in wages between London and the provinces. 1958Times Rev. Industry June (London & Cambridge Bull.) p. x, Engineers..could not be well granted less than was granted to workers in prosperous industries. This seems to produce a threat of leap-frogging wages. 1959Listener 2 July 6/1 The long-term contract relieves the strain of annual efforts to surpass the previous year's gains, or to leap-frog the advances won in another industry. 1967Times 18 Jan. 16 There is leap-frogging in newspaper offices, such that when one department negotiates a rise the others follow regardless of justification. 1970Daily Tel. 15 June 2/5 For the first time collective negotiations on new claims by all unions will replace individual ‘leapfrogging’ demands. 1973Times 21 Dec. 1/7 To breach Phase Three..would lead to leap-frogging claims which would erode the miners' position in the league table.
b. Other fig. uses.
1935J. C. Squire Reflections & Memories 6 It is a time before the jolly vulgarity of Earl's Court had leap-frogged westward to the White City, and then to Wembley. 1949I. Deutscher Stalin xiii. 498 Only in 1943 did the newly built factories and those that had been ‘leap-frogged’ from the west to the Urals and beyond begin to pour out great quantities of tanks, planes, and guns. 1961Times 28 Mar. 4/5 They [sc. Oxford] were accompanied by Imperial College, with whom they paddled in the familiar leap-frogging pattern to Chiswick Eyot. 1962Punch 5 Sept. 330/2 The leap-frogged zones beyond [the Green Belts]. 1964T. W. McRae Impact of Computers on Accounting vi. 175 In fact, they [sc. auditors] ‘leapfrog’ over the entire EDP system. 1971P. Gresswell Environment 122 Development leap-frogs green belts. 1971J. Wainwright Last Buccaneer iii. 313 When a man leap-frogs me in the promotion stakes I'm human enough to feel narked. 1972Times 23 Feb. 27/6 So soon as a case at first instance arose involving the ratio decidendi of Rookes v Barnard the parties concerned might use the ‘leap-frogging’ procedure now available. 1973Listener 17 May 653/1 Haldeman..was put in charge of the advance men, leap-frogging ahead of the candidate and arranging for crowds.
Hence leap-frogger, one who plays at leap-frog.
1890Pall Mall G. 4 Jan. 2/1 Sometimes a too ambitious leap-frogger ruined his party by overbalancing and falling off. |