释义 |
ˈnubbin U.S. [f. nub n.1] A dwarfed or imperfect ear of maize. Also transf. and fig., esp. something small or something that remains when the main part is worn away.
1692in Maryland Hist. Mag. (1918) XIII. 209 Jones saw him buy one beaver skin..for thirty ears and nubbins of corn. 1838B. Drake Tales & Sketches 150 A handfull of salt and a few nubbins of corn. 1847in Webster. 1857Harper's Mag. Feb. 399/2 They served me, at the ‘American’, with a little hard nubbin of steak. 1897Gen. H. Porter in Cent. Mag. Aug. 591 Well,..that's the littlest nubbin I ever did see. 1904H. F. Day Kin O'Ktaadn 93 She'd squizzle all to nubbins a speech an hour long. 1910‘O. Henry’ Strictly Business vi. 76 A red nubbin of corn. 1915A. C. Lawson in Bull. Dept. Geol. Univ. Calif. IX. iii. 38 Broad alluvial embankments..rise by a gentle slope to the summits of the ranges, where there are residual rock crests, or ‘nubbins’. 1931Times Educ. Suppl. 11 July 275/4 One may find ‘nubbins’—hard, undeveloped, useless things—the result of non-fertilization. 1945B. MacDonald Egg & I (1946) i. iii. 45 Many of the trees bore nothing or merely two or three wizened nubbins. 1954G. I. M. Swyer Reprod. & Sex App. I. 249 Shortly before puberty..a small nubbin of tissue appears beneath the areola, converting it to a cone. 1954Dylan Thomas Quite Early One Morning i. 56 The Telecinema..blobs and nubbins and rubbery squirls receding. 1969D. Bagley Spoilers i. 10 The lipstick was worn right down... Another lipstick worn to a nubbin. |