| 释义 |
nuisance|ˈnjuːsəns|
Forms: α. 5, 7–8 nusance, 5 -aunce, 7 -ans, -anze, nuzance; 6 newsance. β. 5 nuisaunce, nuysance, 7– nuisance.
[a. OF. nuisance, nusance, etc., f. nuis-, nuire to hurt, harm: see -ance.]
1. Injury, hurt, harm, annoyance. (In later use only as implying sense 2 or 2 b.)
c1410Hoccleve Mother of God 21 Helpe me to weye Ageyn the feend!.. Keepe vs from his nusance. c1412― De Reg. Princ. 810 To me thus longe walke, it doth nusance Vnto my crookid feeble lymes olde. 1512Nottingham Rec. III. 339 To the gret hurtte of owre medo and newsance to vs all.
1776E. Topham Lett. Edinb. 9 The herb-women throw about the stalks of the bad vegetables to the great nuisance of the passengers. 1862Burton Bk. Hunter (1863) 106 Actions of damages for nuisance, trespass, or assault. 188819th Cent. Jan. 6 Declaring that cremation is a legal procedure, provided it be effected without nuisance to others.
2. a. Anything injurious or obnoxious to the community, or to the individual as a member of it (esp. as an owner or occupier of property), for which some legal remedy may be found.
α1464Rolls of Parlt. V. 569/2 That if eny such nusaunce were made, that it shuld be beten down. 1495Act 11 Hen. VII, c. 26 Preamble, Many greate nusances and offences [are] not presented. 1641Commons Rem. in Chas. I. Wks. 1662 II. 60 The sale of pretended Nusanzes, as Buildings in and about London. 1691T. H[ale] Acc. New Invent. p. lxxxi, I find that a Nusance once erected may be abated by any Body. 1710Lond. Gaz. No. 4768/1 All such Lotteries are..declared to be Common Nusances. 1721Modern Rep. X. 336 The keeping of a gaming-house is an offence indictable at common law as a nusance. 1817W. Selwyn Law Nisi Prius (ed. 4) II. 1044 If A. build an house so as to hang over the land of B., whereby the rain falls upon B.'s land, and injures it, B. may maintain an action against A. for this nusance.
β1638Potter in Chillingw. Relig. Prot. i. iv. §67. 228 Shall it bee a fault to straiten and encumber the Kings high way with publique nuisances? 1773Obs. State Poor 59 In vain is there a power..in the magistrate, of removing in great measure a nuisance so flagrantly pernicious to the community. 1853T. J. Wharton Pennsylv. Digest (ed. 6) II. 361 Some actions which would otherwise be nuisances may be justified by necessity. 1896Law Times C. 488/1 Calling upon him to repair the drain so as to abate the nuisance complained of.
Comb.1853Ure Dict. Arts (ed. 4) II. 799 They..would not again return to the nuisance-creating system.
b. In more general use: Anything obnoxious or annoying to the community or individual by offensiveness of smell or appearance, by causing obstruction or damage, etc.
1661Evelyn Diary 1 Oct., My book inveighing against the nuisance of the smoke of London. 1712Steele Spect. No. 430 ⁋1 Whatsoever looks ill, and is offensive to the Sight; the worst Nusance of which kind [etc.]. 1756–7tr. Keysler's Trav. (1760) II. 396 The lumber, old cloaths,..and the herb-stalls, are a great nusance. 1774Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1776) VI. 328 The annual inundation of these fish is so great, that they cover the shores in such quantities as to become a nuisance. 1807Southey Espriella's Lett. (1814) II. 225 It is so frequent as to be quite a nuisance along the road. 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. 312 The fox..was considered as a mere nuisance. 1864C. Geikie Life in Woods iii. 54 But the pigs were not the only nuisance.
c. Applied to persons.
1695Congreve Love for L. ii. iii, I'll swear you are a nuisance to the neighbourhood.—What a bustle did you keep against the last invisible eclipse! a1732Swift Serm. Wks. 1841 II. 143/2 A wise man who does not assist with his counsels,..and a poor man with his labour, are perfect nuisances in a commonwealth. 1781Cowper Truth 508 Seest thou yon harlot,..The worn-out nuisance of the public streets. 1816Scott Antiq. iv, But here..he is a sort of privileged nuisance. 1859Sala Tw. round Clock (1861) 154, I am an intolerable little nuisance. 1880Haughton Phys. Geogr. iv. 171 The Syrian highlanders..were a perpetual nuisance to the more powerful countries that surrounded them.
d. A highly obnoxious or troublesome practice, institution, state of things, etc.
1820Edin. Rev. XXXIII. 350 The nuisance of monopoly completely put down. 1828Carlyle Misc. (1857) I. 163 In the eyes of Voltaire and his disciples, Religion was a superfluity, indeed a nuisance. 1865Mill in Morn. Star 6 July, Of all the political nuisances of the day this is one which it most behoves everyone to make a stand against.
e. A source of annoyance; something personally unpleasant or disagreeable.
1831Lytton Godolphin viii, The other set,..who go little into parties, and vote balls a nuisance. 1865Trollope Belton Est. vii, The journey..was always a nuisance, and was more so now than usual. 1897M. Kingsley W. Africa 363 Neither de Ballay nor the steamer had arrived, and a very bitter nuisance this must have been.
f. In phr. to commit a nuisance.
1863Harper's Mag. Dec. 24/1 Commit no Nuisance. a1922T. S. Eliot Waste Land Drafts (1971) 5 We'd just gone up the alley, a fly cop came along, Looking for trouble; committing a nuisance, he said. 1942Partridge Usage & Abusage 122/1 Euphemism may be obtained by using an extremely vague phrase, as in commit a nuisance.
3. attrib. and Comb., as nuisance action, nuisance aspect, nuisance candidate, nuisance tactics, nuisance tax; nuisance ground Canad., a rubbish dump; nuisance raid, a wartime bomb attack intended only to inconvenience or disrupt the enemy; also nuisance-bombing, -raider; nuisance value, the value or importance of a person or thing arising from a capacity to be a nuisance.
1964C. Chaplin Autobiogr. xxix. 499 It's nothing but a nuisance action, Charlie; all the same I want you to keep from being served a summons.
1941Scrutiny X. 80 There is a certain savage heightening of his nuisance-aspect towards the end.
1940Times Weekly 27 Nov. 6 The change in the enemy's air tactics from general nuisance bombing to concentrated attacks on more restricted targets. 1968Globe & Mail (Toronto) 13 Feb. 7/6 The only apple carts that Mr. Trudeau could not upset are those of..the three nuisance candidates.
1889in Herald Mag. (Calgary) (1961) 11 Jan. 8/6 A well-grounded complaint has been made..in reference to dumping of filth in to the old cellar holes along the main road..instead of taking it to the nuisance ground. 1970J. H. Gray Boy from Winnipeg 72 He had hauling contracts with the city that included carrying the manure from the city stables to the nuisance grounds. 1972Maclean's Mag. (Toronto) Dec. 23/3 The town dump was known as the nuisance grounds, a phrase fraught with weird connotations, as though the effluvia of our lives was beneath contempt but at the same time was subtly threatening to the determined and sometimes hysterical propriety of our ways.
1942Hutchinson's Pict. Hist. of War 18 Mar.–9 June 110 Some of the raids into enemy territory are merely nuisance raids to upset enemy nerves. 1943R.A.F. Jrnl. Aug. 34 Cases of..nuisance raids by single rodents had been reported. 1944Ann. Reg. 1943 341 The Germans..began a series of nuisance raids. 1944Daily Tel. 11 July 1 German radio early to-day reported several nuisance raiders over the Berlin area. 1952Ann. Reg. 1951 325 Government workers, forbidden..to strike, resorted to go-slow, work to rule, and other nuisance tactics.
1933Sun (Baltimore) 4 July 6/6 (heading) Nuisance taxes help careerists. Ibid., Authorities on taxation recently persuaded the State Legislature to abolish this tax as a nuisance, although its nuisance value was the chief reason for its existence. 1937Harper's Mag. Jan. 846 If Hitler has a high nuisance value to France and England. 1958A. Hocking Epitaph for Nurse v. 82 To add to her other nuisance-values, Geraldine complained and made trouble from morning to night. 1961P. W. Brooks Mod. Airliner i. 22 ‘Nuisance value’ of the aircraft to the general public on the ground (defined as the external overall noise level at climbing power at 650 ft.). 1972Guardian 5 Jan. 4/6 Muskie's aides dismiss them airily as being no threat at all except for the nuisance value they may have in primaries.
Hence ˈnuisancer, one who causes a nuisance.
1769Blackstone Comm. IV. xvi. 223 The animadversion of the law upon eaves-droppers, nusancers, and incendiaries.
Add: ˈnuisancy a. colloq., causing a nuisance; annoying or irritating.
1971K. Grubb Crypts of Power vi. 124 Some nuisancey telegram from Nicaragua. a1974R. Crossman Diaries (1976) II. 617 After that one of our rather nuisancy back-benchers, Marcus Lipton, got up to ask me why I wasn't announcing next Monday's business. 1989Washington Post 15 Apr. c7/1 His newly hired French valet, Passepartout, played with an irritating accent by nuisancey Eric Idle. |