| 释义 |
▪ I. ˈpecking, vbl. n.1
[f. peck v.1 + -ing1.]
1. The action of peck v.1; an instance of this; also fig. fault-finding.
1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xviii. viii. (Bodl. MS.), Þe asse may vnneþe defende hym selfe aȝens his [sparowes] rese peckinge and bitinge. 1589R. Harvey Pl. Perc. (1860) 10 If thy mill stones be not worne too blunt, for want of pecking. 1692Bentley Boyle Lect. iii. 105 Superstitious Observation of the pecking of Chickens. 1757Burke Abridgem. Eng. Hist. Wks. X. 199 The Druids..attended with diligence the flight of birds, the pecking of chickens. 1885W. Cory Lett. & Jrnls. (1897) 515 The gossip and the pecking of country towns.
2. concr.
†a. A piece pecked or picked off, as in dressing stone. Obs.
b. (See quot. 1875.)
1600in Hakluyt Voy. III. 619 You shall finde it [white sand] like shauings and peckings of free stone. 1875Knight Dict. Mech. 1647/1 Peckings, Place-bricks, from the outside of the kiln and insufficiently burned.
▪ II. pecking, vbl. n.2
[f. peck v.2 + -ing1.]
1. The pitching or throwing (e.g. of stones). Hence pecking-bag.
1857Hughes Tom Brown ii. iv, He..strides away in front with his climbing-irons strapped under one arm, his pecking-bag under the other. Ibid., There close to them lay a heap of charming pebbles. ‘Look here’, shouted East, ‘here's luck! I've been longing for some good honest pecking this half-hour. Let's fill the bags’.
2. A tossing or jerking (as of the head).
1890Clark Russell Shipmate Louise I. xi. 241 With a pecking, so to speak, of her face at the gangs of men on the quarter-deck.
▪ III. ˈpecking, ppl. a.
[f. peck v.1 + -ing2.]
That pecks.
1727Bailey vol. II, Pecking, striking with the Bill as Birds do. 1827Montgomery Pelican Isl. iv. 200 She..drove him from her seat With pecking bill, and cry of fond distress.
b. fig. (cf. hacking).
1865Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc. Ser. ii. I. ii. 289 Troubled with a short ‘pecking’ cough. |