| 释义 |
little-go
[f. little a. + go n.1 Cf. great-go.]
1. A private and illegal lottery. Now Hist.
See also quot. 1867; but no authority for the statement has been discovered.
[c1710: cf. quot. 1867.] 1795Sporting Mag. VI. 274 A private lottery, or little go, was drawing at a house in Islington. 1796Colquhoun Police Metropolis 149 The Keepers of unlicensed Insurance Offices..have recently invented and set up private Lotteries, or Wheels, called by the nick-name of Little Go's. 1798Edgeworth Pract. Educ. (1811) I. 315 Unlicensed lottery-wheels are called little-goes. 1802Act 42 Geo. III, c. 119 § 1 All such Games or Lotteries, called Little Goes, shall..be deemed..common and publick Nuisances, and against Law. 1806Ann. Reg. 388 An unlawful game of chance,..formerly known by the name of the Little Go, but now distinguished, to avoid the penalty, by the name of Ivory. 1830Gen. P. Thompson Exerc. (1842) I. 195 It is a political little-go, in which everybody knows the concern to be ruinous in the main. 1867C. Walford Insur. Guide (ed. 2) 25 About this date [1710]..commenced a system of speculative assurances known as ‘the little goes’. A number of persons combined, and each subscribed 5s. fortnightly, inclusive of policy stamps and entrance money, on condition of {pstlg}200 being paid to his heirs and executors. In another of these schemes 5s. a quarter entitled the subscriber's representatives to receive {pstlg}120 on his demise. 1887Proctor Chance & Luck 133 At illegal [lottery] offices, commonly known as ‘little goes’, any sum, however small, could be risked.
2. Univ. colloq. The popular name (later superseded at Oxford by ‘smalls’) for the first examination for the degree of B.A., officially called ‘Responsions’ at Oxford and ‘The Previous Examination’ at Cambridge (discontinued in the 20th c.).
1820Gentl. Mag. XC. I. 32 At present the Examination [at Oxford] is divided into a Little-go and a Great-go; colloquial appellations of the facetious great children sucking at the bosom of Alma Mater. 1824Blackw. Mag. Oct. 461 note, The little-go is a new classical examination lately instituted at Cambridge. 1838F. W. Robertson Lett. 23 May (1882) I. 37 [dated ‘Brazenose, Oxford’], I have to take..my ‘little go’ this term. 1849Thackeray Pendennis iii, He's coaching me and some other men for the little go. 1860M. Burrows Pass & Class i. (1866) 11 Responsions, commonly called ‘Little go’ or, still more familiarly, ‘Smalls’. 1876Darwin Life & Lett. (1887) I. 47 In my second year I had to work for a month or two to pass the Little Go, which I did easily.
attrib.1882L. Campbell Life Clerk Maxwell vi. 152 Some time before the little-go examination. 1889Boy's Own Paper 3 Aug. 693/3 First came the three answers given to the ‘Little Go’ question.
3. transf. (various senses).
1852Mrs. Gaskell Let. 19 May (1966) 191, I (boldly) asked them all to come here..so we had an impromptu little-go last night. 1858Leisure Hour 15 July 448/1 This preliminary spread, or ‘little go’. 1909J. R. Ware Passing Eng. 169/1 Little go, first imprisonment, first invented by a fallen university man. 1960Wentworth & Flexner Dict. Amer. Slang 321/1 Little go, an unimportant, unexciting, or incomplete attempt, effort, task, or performance. |