| 释义 |
ˈpepper-and-ˈsalt
1. a. Name for a kind of cloth made of dark- and light-coloured wools woven together, showing small dots of black and white, dark grey and light grey, or the like, closely intermingled; also, a garment made of this. Usually attrib. or as adj. Hence, someone wearing pepper-and-salt clothes.
1774Lady M. Coke Jrnl. 28 Oct. (1896) IV. 420 To bring me six yards of a Cloth I saw..that is called pepper and salt. a1843Southey Comm.-pl. Bk. IV. 408 A strange looking settee..covered with pepper and salt cloth. 1844Thackeray Little Trav. i, Tall men in pepper-and-salt undress jackets. 1845Ainsworth's Mag. VII. 370 [The boy] is..installed in the usual pepper-and-salts, with the black velveteens for Sundays. 1849Marryat Valerie vi, A suit of pepper-and-salt. 1887Pall Mall G. 4 Aug. 6/1 Flourishing the striking red handkerchief which furnishes an agreeable relief to his general pepper-and-salt exterior. 1900E. Glyn Visits of Elizabeth 236 At dinner I sat between Charlie and one of the pepper-and-salts... They are going to shoot partridges tomorrow. 1907Westm. Gaz. 11 Oct. 3/2 Husband small, fussy,..violent⁓tempered, pepper-and-salt-check-trousered, and some⁓thing..in the City. 1915W. S. Maugham Of Human Bondage xxvi. 107 Very neat in his black coat and pepper-and-salt trousers. 1934G. B. Shaw Village Wooing 129 At this A sits writing. He wears pepper-and-salt trousers of country cut, with an apron. 1978N. Marsh Grave Mistake i. 16 The trousers were unmistakable: pepper-and-salt, shapeless, earthy.
b. transf. Used of greying hair, a moustache, or of objects resembling pepper-and-salt cloth in colour. Also, pepper-salt.
1853Mrs. Gaskell Ruth II. vi. 124 My hair is nearly white. The last time I looked it was only pepper-and-salt. 1909Dialect Notes III. 414 Pepper and salt,..painted with white spatters over a darker background. 1930[see law n.1 16 a]. 1934E. Bowen Cat Jumps 83 Matthew had fluffy pepper-and-salt hair. 1951T. Capote Grass Harp (1952) i. 3 A whip-thin, handsome woman with shingled pepper-salt hair. 1955J. Thomas No Banners xix. 174 A scowling Militiaman with an enormous pepper-and-salt moustache walked up. 1957E. Hyams Into Dream 128 Clear grey eyes, pepper-and-salt hair worn in the kind of bob which was fashionable about 1925. 1976A. Price War Game ii. 219 Nayler's lankiness had aged into an acceptable scholarly stoop to which his thick pepper-and-salt thatch added distinction.
2. Name for the American plant called ‘harbinger of spring’ (Erigenia bulbosa); from the colour-contrast of its white petals and dark anthers. U.S.
3. fig.
1887Lantern (New Orleans) 9 July 2/2 But let me commence my assault on the offending ones and give them pepper and salt. 1958Times 24 Oct. 15/4 In Prokofiev's work Mr. Kroll emphasised the lyrical element rather more than the composer's characteristic pepper and salt.
4. pepper-and-salt fundus, a symptom of congenital syphilis, the fundus of the eye having a speckled appearance.
1940S. Duke-Elder Text-bk. Ophthalm. III. iii. 2273 The finely pigmented or pepper-and-salt fundus, a picture characteristic of hereditary lues, wherein the entire fundus is dusted with innumerable small bluish pigmented spots between which lie round depigmented areas of a yellowish-red colour. 1975Martin-Doyle & Kemp Synopsis Ophthalm. (ed. 5) vi. 76 Syphilitic Retinitis... In congenital cases a form of peripheral pigmentation known as ‘pepper and salt’ fundus is common.
5. Forming various nonce-wds.: pepper-and-salted a., wearing pepper-and-salt clothing; pepper-and-saltiness, pepper-and-salt colour; pepper-and-salty a., pepper-and-salt coloured.
1846R. Ford Gatherings from Spain xxiii. 331 This pepper-and-salted Amphion. 1880R. Broughton Sec. Th. I. i. vi. 83 Snow..speckled with blacks into an ugly pepper-and-saltiness. 1952‘W. Cooper’ Struggles of Albert Woods i. iii. 34 Dibdin's hair was the colour that is first called sandy and later pepper-and-salty. |