| 释义 |
ˈone-ˌhorse, a.
1. Drawn, or worked, by a single horse (as a vehicle, a machine, etc.); having or using only one horse.
1750Jenyns Mod. Fine Lady Misc. Pieces 1761 I. 78 Severely humbled to her one-horse chair. 1795Seward Anecd. (ed. 2) II. 367 He used to drive himself about the country in a one-horse chaise. 1839Planting iii. 24 (L.U.K.) The one-horse drill. 1858O. W. Holmes Aut. Breakf.-t. xi, The Deacon's Masterpiece: or the Wonderful ‘One-hoss-shay’. 1887Edin. Rev. Jan. 18 ‘One-horse farmers’..had to struggle with the inconvenience of borrowing and lending horses.
2. fig. (colloq., orig. U.S.) On a small scale; petty; of small and limited resources or capacity. Esp. one-horse town, a small or rural town; a town where nothing important or exciting happens.
1853Oregonian (Portland) 19 Nov. 2/1 These one-horse meetings are got up by men whose capital consists in brass. 1855Knickerbocker XLVI. 106 ‘In this ‘one-horse town’,’ writes a Mobile friend, ‘as our New-Orleans neighbors designate it, [etc.].’ 1858O. W. Holmes Aut. Breakf.-t. xi. (1891) 257, I have seen a country-clergyman, with a one-story intellect and a one-horse vocabulary. 1866Lowell Biglow P. Introd., Americanisms properly so called,..such as carry, a one-horse affair, a prairie, to vamoose. 1883E. E. Hale in Harper's Mag. Dec. 143/2 They have a one-horse sort of a tannery. 1884Liverpool Daily Post 15 Oct. 5/1 The first thing it is to do is to take possession of that ‘one-horsiest’ of railways, from the Dock Cottages to West Kirby, and to make it into a channel of communication fit for civilised men. 1897B. Barnato in Westm. Gaz. 15 June 9/1 My company is not a one-horse show. 1933P. Fleming Brazilian Adventure iii. x. 378 Doctor Amyntas was the big noise; in this one horse town he might be said to own the horse. 1940L. A. G. Strong Sun on Water 161, I was sick with I don't know what early summer passion in that one-horse store. 1969L. Kennedy Very Lovely People i. 73 Their names were Homer and Arnold and they worked in a one-horse garage down a side street in Botafogo. 1973‘D. Jordan’ Nile Green viii. 39, I said, ‘It's a one-horse town.’ 1977Zigzag June 23/2 I've a new song..about a girl of sixteen trying to get out of a one horse town. |