| 释义 |
ˈnut-cracker
Also nutcracker (esp. in sense 3 b).
[f. nut n.1 Cf. Du. note(n)kraker.]
1. a. An instrument used for the purpose of breaking the shells of nuts. Also, and now usually, (a pair of) nut-crackers.
sing.1548Elyot Nucifrangibulum,..a nut cracker. 1650B. Discolliminium 14 He was fain at length to make a Nutcracker of it. 1673S'too him Bayes 16 A sword..which was as like a nut-cracker for it crack'd men clad in steel. 1710Steele Tatler No. 115 ⁋1 He had once actually laid aside his [Punch's] Head for a Nut-cracker. 1844Dickens Mart. Chuz. ii, After the manner of a toy nut-cracker.
pl.1634Massinger Very Woman iii. ii, A thousand iron mills Can be heard no further than a pair of nut-crackers. 1736Swift Corr. Wks. 1841 II. 779, I shall send..a fine pair of Cavan nut-crackers to save her white teeth. 1772Foote Nabob iii. Wks. 1799 II. 314 A pair of nut-crackers presented by Harry the Eighth to Anna Bullen. 1815J. Smith Panorama Sci. & Art I. 298 A pair of bellows, nut-crackers, &c. are composed of two levers of the second kind. 1879F. W. Robinson Coward Conscience i. viii, You need not hammer away on the table with the nut-crackers any longer.
†b. Cant. (See quot.) Obs.
a1700B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Nut-crackers, a Pillory. The Cull lookt through the Nut-crackers.
c. Used attrib. and Comb. to describe the appearance of nose and chin which is produced by the want of teeth.
c1700T. Brown Wks. (1708) III. 22 Hollow cheeks,..nut-cracker chin that almost meets her nose. 1818W. Wilberforce in S. Wilberforce Life xxiii. (1868) 380 She is a toothless, nutcracker jawed old woman, but quite upright and active. 1859Ld. Lytton Wanderer (ed. 2) 292 That gin-drinking hag, with her nut-cracker face. 1891‘J. S. Winter’ Mrs. Bob 272 A..bunch of bones, with a nut-cracker nose and chin.
†2. One who cracks nuts; a common spectator at the theatre. Obs.
1601B. Jonson Poetaster i. ii, Sirrah, you, nut-cracker, goe your waies to him againe, and tell him I must ha' money, I. 1625― Staple of N. Prol. Crt., Schollers, that can iudge, and faire report The sense they heare, aboue the vulgar sort Of Nut-crackers, that onely come for sight.
3.
†a. The cardinal grosbeak. Obs. rare.
1688Holme Armoury ii. 242/2 The Virginian Nightingale..is called the Nut-craker, because it loves to feed on Kernels.
b. A brown corvine bird (Nucifraga caryocatactes), common in various parts of Europe, but rarely seen in Britain.
The English and Latin names are translations of G. nussbrecher.
1758G. Edwards Glean. Nat. Hist. i. 63 The Nut-Cracker. This bird..is about the size of our jack-daw. 1768Pennant Brit. Zool. (1776) II. 531 Nutcracker; the specimen we took our description from is the only one we ever heard was shot in these kingdoms. 1802Montagu Ornith. Dict. (1831) 339 The Nutcracker is said to lay up a store of acorns and nuts for winter. 1840Cuvier's Anim. Kingd. 204 The Nutcrackers..have both mandibles equally pointed, straight, and without curvature. 1894Newton Dict. Birds 646 The Nutcracker breeds very early in the year, long before the snows are melted.
Comb.1853Wood Nat. Hist. 270 The Nutcracker Crow..is about the size of a jackdaw, but its form is more slender.
4. As a book-title. (Cf. nut n.1 4 a.)
1751‘F. Foot’ (title), The Nut-Cracker: Containing an agreeable Variety of well-season'd Jests, Epigrams, Epitaphs, &c.
5. Nutcracker Man, a nickname for the fossil hominid, Australopithecus robustus (or A. boisei), the maker of the oldest stone tools known, esp. the specimen discovered by L. S. B. and M. D. Leakey at Olduvai, Tanzania, in 1959; similar remains, including the characteristic large premolar teeth, have also been found in South Africa.
1959Times 4 Sept. 8/4 He [sc. L. S. B. Leakey] has named the species Zinjanthropus Boisei... The nickname given by Dr. Leakey to the world's oldest man is ‘Nutcracker Man’ because of the tremendously developed teeth. 1961New Scientist 26 Oct. 221 Not only is Zinjanthropus or Nutcracker Man ‘unquestionably’ human but some of his fairly distant ancestors were human as well. 1962Listener 5 Apr. 589/1 Dr. Leakey's famous ‘nutcracker man’ Zinjanthropus (which has now been dated as having lived over 1,000,000 years ago). 1972S. Cupitt tr. Wendt's From Ape to Adam iv. 228 He [sc. Robert Broom] found the remains of an australopithecine equipped with a particularly powerful jaw and truly nutcracker-like teeth... These ‘Nutcracker men’ even had a small sagittal crest on their skulls. Ibid. 232 At first Leakey thought that this ancient Oldowan ancestor of ours was very different from the South African ‘Nutcracker man’, despite his powerful back teeth. 1974Washburn & Moore Ape into Man iv. 107 The huge molars..could have cracked nuts, and the Leakeys sometimes liked to call their discovery ‘nutcracker man’.
Hence ˈnutcracker v.; ˈnutcrackery a.
1861Dickens Gt. Expect. xxxiii, Are infants to be nut⁓crackered into their tombs? Ibid., Babies are to be nut⁓crackered dead. 1868M. E. Braddon Birds of Prey i. i, An old lady who had been seen to arrive in a brougham, especially weird and nutcrackery of aspect. |