| 释义 |
pen-gun Sc.
[f. pen n.2 + gun n.]
1. A toy air-gun made from a quill; a pop-gun. ‘to crack like a pen-gun: to be very loquacious’ (Jamieson).
1807T. Campbell Let. 3 Oct. in W. Beattie Life & Lett. T. Campbell (1849) II. v. 121 We crack'd, as the Scotch say, like pen-guns. 1818Scott Hrt. Midl. xvii, This mad quean, after cracking like a pen-gun, and skirling like a pea-hen for the haill night. 1821Blackw. Mag. Aug. 35 (Jam.) Pen-guns are made and fired at the season when the turnip first comes to market; which turnip, cut in thin slices and bored through with the quill, forms the charge. 1835Mrs. Carlyle Lett. I. 37 He sang, talked like a pen-gun.
2. A small cylindrical gas bomb (see quot. 19652).
Registered in the U.S. as a proprietary name.
1962N.Y. Times 26 May 27/8 Miss Dunsmore told him that the pen-gun had dropped from her pocket-book and a pellet had ruptured, releasing the tear gas. 1965Official Gaz. (U.S. Patent Office) 4 May tm42/1 Penguin Associates, Inc., Malvern, Pa... Pengun. For Tear Gas Projectors and Distress and Highway Flare Projectors. First use January 1961. 1965Consumer Bull. Sept. 18/2 The Pengun itself is a stainless steel cylinder encased in a gold-anodized aluminum tube about 4 inches long with an interior diameter of 3/8 inch. The ‘cartridge’ of gas fits into the tube and is released by a firing pin or plunger. 1973J. Di Mona Last Man at Arlington viii. 73 Before he could say another word, she got him with a pen gun filled with mace. ‘Ah Christ,’ he yelled, bending over, rubbing his eyes. 1978P. Niesewand Underground Connection 24 A pen gun which fired bursts of paralysing gas. |