| 释义 |
ménage, menage|meɪˈnɑːʒ|
Now only as Fr. Also 4 mayngnage, manage, 5 maynage, manyage, meynage, menaige.
[a. OF. manaige, menaige (mod.F. ménage):—popular L. *mansiōnāticum, f. L. mansiōn-em dwelling (see mansion), whence F. maison house. Cf. mesnage.]
†1. The members of a household; a man's household or ‘meinie’. Obs.
1297R. Glouc. (Rolls) 3799 Al þe bachelerie þat aȝt was in þe lond he nom in is compaynie & of is mayngnage [v. rr. maynage, manyage]. 13..K. Alis. 2087 Darye..With his children, and with his wyve, And with his suster, and his menage. 1490Caxton Eneydos vi. 29 Jubyter..wyth his wyf and meynage, wente anone wyth theym.
2. a. The management of a household, housekeeping; hence, a domestic establishment (often concr. or semi-concr.).
1698W. King tr. Sorbière's Journ. Lond. 3 In Paris, there are from Four to Five, and to Ten menages or distinct Families in many Houses. 1790Sir S. Romilly in Life (1842) I. 297, I long to..see you in your ménage, which I cannot express in English, because we have no word for it. 1808H. More Cœlebs (1809) I. iii. 32 Nothing tended to make ladies so..inefficient in the menage as the study of the dead languages. 1842De Quincey Mod. Greece Wks. 1863 XIII. 460 No single Greek nuisance can be placed on the same scale with the dogs attached to every menage, whether household or pastoral. 1848Thackeray Van. Fair lxiv, She tried keeping house with a female friend; then the double ménage began to quarrel and get into debt. 1887Dowden Shelley II. iv. 115 An annual sufficiency to support a little ménage would be desirable.
¶b. transf. Applied to the staff or company of a theatre. ? nonce-use.
1746H. Walpole Lett. to Mann 12 Aug., Lord Middlesex took the opportunity of a rivalship between his own mistress, the Nardi, and the Violette,..to involve the whole ménage of the Opera in the quarrel, and has paid nobody.
3. Sc. and north.
a. ‘A friendly society, of which every member pays in a fixed sum weekly, to be continued for a given term’ (Jamieson 1825).
b. (See quot. 1829.) Hence Comb. menage-man, an itinerant vendor of goods which are to be paid for by instalments. (See also Eng. Dial. Dict.)
1829Brockett Gloss. N.C. Words (ed. 2), Manadge, a box or club instituted by inferior shop-keepers—generally linen-drapers—for supplying goods to poor or improvident people, who agree to pay for them by instalments. 1866Mitchell Hist. Montrose ix. 85 They would have got their clothing by joining a menage to which they paid 1/- in the week. 1893Newcastle Even. Chron. 11 Dec. 2/4 He gave his wife to understand that she had to contract no debts with the menage-man. 1904A. Griffiths 50 Years Public Service xix. 283 note, The number of debtors was always large at York on account of the widespread practices of the ‘menage men’ as they were called.
4. ‖ ménage à trois [Fr., lit. ‘household of three’], an arrangement or relationship in which three people live together, usually consisting of a husband, his wife, and the lover of one of these. Also transf. and fig. Cf. à trois. Hence ‖ ménage à deux, an arrangement of two people living together.
1891G. B. Shaw Quintessence of Ibsenism 116 An elderly gallant who quite understands how little she cares for her husband, and proposes a ménage à trois to her. 1911― Getting Married 114 Nelson..formed a menage à trois with Sir William and Lady Hamilton. 1929D. H. Lawrence Lovely Lady (1932) 106 The scheme of a ménage à deux with her mother had not succeeded. 1933Times Lit. Suppl. 19 Oct. 713/3 He meets, and marries..a highly sexed waitress, who inevitably tires of..the mother's dominance of the ménage à trois. 1944H. G. Wells '42 to '44 102 They [sc. a Roman Catholic husband and wife]..submit to a domestic ménage à trois, with the priest as controlling intervener. 1958P. Kemp No Colours or Crest xii. 249 That curious ménage à trois, the Anglo-American honeymoon with Russia. 1959N. Mailer Advts. for Myself (1961) 285 A ménage-à-trois was completed—the bohemian and the juvenile delinquent came face-to-face with the Negro, and the hipster was a fact in American life. 1959Times 28 Dec. 3/6 This happy ménage-à-trois—the errant wife, the lover and the unsuspecting husband. 1960Times 30 Apr. 9/2 Primarily it [sc. a song] is a marriage of voice and verse, but since an instrument is soon added it turns the relationship into a ménage à trois. 1973Country Life 14 June 1768/3 Pauline Viardot..the opera singer who with her husband and Turgenev formed a ménage à trois.
Sense 4 in Dict. becomes 4 a. Add: [4.] b. Hence, a romantic or sexual relationship, an affair; collect., the parties involved in such a relationship. Also fig.
1949P. Hastings Cases in Court v. 264 He was a good-looking young man and she was said to be very fond of him although the menage was punctuated by repeated altercations. 1959Economist 4 Apr. 17/2 Instead of bilateral relationships between Britain and Europe and between Britain and the Commonwealth, the objective must be a triangular ménage. 1980Daily Tel. 6 June 15/1 He turns up on what appears to be a regular visit from Milan with his ‘friend’, Picchio, the two being accepted as a ménage. |