| 释义 |
maypole|ˈmeɪpəʊl|
[f. May n.3 + pole n.]
1. A high pole, painted with spiral stripes of different colours and decked with flowers, set up on a green or other open space, for the merrymakers to dance round on May-day.
In quot. 1597 applied for the nonce to a barber's pole.
1554in Vicary's Anat. (1888) App. iii. 176 That no..persones..cause to be..sett vpp eny maner of maye pole..in any opyn streat. 1597G. Harvey Trimming T. Nashe Wks. (Grosart) III. 25 My shoppe in the towne, the teeth that hange out of my Windowe, my painted may-poole. 1642Milton Apol. Smect. Wks. 1851 III. 306 He had the whole bevie at command whether in morrice or at May pole. 1702Lond. Gaz. No. 3783/4 The Wine-Cellar under the Flower-de-Luce against the May Pole in the Strand. 1863Chambers' Bk. Days I. 572/2 The May Queen..was placed in a sort of bower or arbour near the maypole, there to sit in pretty state.
b. transf. Applied jocularly to a tall object, esp. a tall slender man or woman.
1590Shakes. Mids. N. iii. ii. 296 How low am I, thou painted May-pole? 1611Rich Honest. Age (Percy Soc.) 37 Such monstrous May-powles of hayre. 1648J. Raymond Il Merc. Ital. 201 This Place is much frequented by the Venetian walking May Poles, I meane the women. 1765E. Thompson Meretriciad (ed. 6) 33 Maypoles love you because you're wonderous small. 1773Goldsm. Stoops to Conq. i. ii, The daughter, a tall, trapesing, trolloping, talkative maypole. 1871Mrs. H. Wood Dene Hollow i, He was turned sixty, a lean maypole of a man.
2. a. The American Aloe, Agave americana. b. The tree Spathelia simplex of Jamaica (Treas. Bot. 1866).
1750G. Hughes Barbados 223 The May-Pole; Lat. Aloe Americana muricata. 1769E. Bancroft Nat. Hist. Guiana 46. 1848 Schomburgk Hist. Barbados 588.
3. attrib., as maypole dancer, maypole green; maypole-like adj.; also quasi-adj. = (1) very tall, as maypole figure, maypole freshman; (2) such as are associated with maypole festivities, as maypole face, maypole virtue.
1610in 3rd Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm. 57/2 Acting a stage play..upon a Maypole green. 1632Lithgow Trav. ix. 406 What a May pole Dauncer, was Iohn 12...who made the Lateran..a playne Stewes or Brothel house. a1634Randolph Muses' Looking-glass v. i, Will virtues dance? O vile, absurd, maypole, maid-marian virtue! 1647–8Wood Life (O.H.S.) I. 140, I am none of those May-pole freshmen, that are tall cedars before they come to be planted in the academian garden. 1670J. Smith Eng. Improv. Reviv'd 74 So many May-pole-like-Trees. 1789C. Smith Ethelinde (1814) II. 222 That maypole-like figure. 1902Lowndes Camping Sk. 85 We soon descried his maypole figure on the opposite side against the sky. |