| 释义 |
▪ I. placer1|ˈpleɪsə(r)|
[f. place v. + -er1.]
1. One who places, puts, or sets; one who puts in place or arranges; in various technical uses, e.g. in Bookbinding, a workman employed in arranging the sheets; in Pottery, the workman who puts the ware ready for burning.
1579Spenser Sheph. Cal. Feb. 164 Thou placer of plants both humble and tall. 1599Life Sir T. More in Wordsw. Eccl. Biog. (1853) II. 135 A sorter out and placer of the principall matters in the same [book] contained. 1802Sporting Mag. XX. 16 Setters of broken bones, and placers of dislocations. 1862T. Wright Hist. Dom. Manners viii. 153 An asséeur, or placer, took the dishes from the hands of the valets, and arranged them in their places on the table. 1898C. F. Binns Story of Potter 206 The art of putting the ware ready for burning is called ‘placing’, and upon the skill of the placer much of the success of the oven depends. 1902Daily Chron. 18 June 10/5 Collaters and Placers wanted.
2. (See quots.) slang.
1969Guardian 6 Mar. 10/2 There are ‘placers’ who run crime on business lines—who find markets for stolen goods..even before the theft takes place, who..organise drug smuggling, fraudulent bankruptcies, and whatever other activity seems most profitable. 1970P. Laurie Scotland Yard viii. 185 There are thieves and dealers—we call them placers. 1972G. F. Newman The Nice Bastard 347 Placer, wholesaler in stolen goods; buyer; fence.
3. One who is awarded a (usu. specified) place in a competition, race, etc. U.S.
1942Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §731/20 Placer, a horse that runs second. 1958Tuscaloosa (Alabama) News 13 July 24 (caption) Runner-up Lynne Galvin..and third placer Lucille Strazza..took the news happily. 1961in Webster, Fifth placer in the..Miss America competition. 1976Billings (Montana) Gaz. 1 July 4–e/1 Without looking particularly exhausted, he beat second placer Karl Fleschen of West Germany by 49 seconds.
▪ II. placer2 Mining. (Chiefly U.S.)|ˈpleɪsə(r)|
[a. Amer. Sp. placer (plaˈser) ‘deposit, shoal’, allied to placel a sand-bank, f. plaza place.]
a. A deposit of sand, gravel, or earth, in the bed of a stream, or any alluvial or diluvial detritus, containing gold or other valuable minerals in particles; a place where this detritus is washed for gold, etc. Also fig.
In U.S. law, placer includes all forms of mineral deposits excepting veins in place.
1842Niles' Reg. 8 Oct. 96/1 They have at last discovered gold [in California]... Those who are acquainted with these ‘placeres’, as they call them, (for it is not a mine), say it will grow richer, and may lead to a mine. 1848Wislizenus Tour N. Mexico 24 (Stanf.) The old and the new Placer, near Santa Fe, have attracted most attention, and not only gold washes, but some gold mines..are worked there. 1851Appleton in Longfellow's Life (1891) II. 219 Why it is a Golden Legend..if it be not that it is such a placer of richness. 1856Emerson Eng. Traits, Lit. Wks. (Bohn) II. 113 Like diggers in California ‘prospecting for a placer’. 1858Lowell Study Wind. (1870) 296 It is a vast placer full of nuggets for the philologist. 1874Raymond Statist. Mines & Mining 325 This placer covers an area of perhaps two hundred acres, with probably an average depth of 25 feet of gold-bearing earth.
b. attrib. and Comb., as placer camp, placer-diggings, placer-gold, placer-mine, placer-miner, placer-mining, placer-working; placer-mine vb.
1848in E. Bryant California App. 463 The ‘placer’ gold is now substituted as the currency of this country. 1856Porter's Spirit of Times 22 Nov. 194/2 The success of those engaged in placer mining generally, is said to be extraordinarily good. 1865H. W. Baxley What I saw on W. Coast of S. & N. Amer. 419 This entire mountain..was once placer-mined over its entire surface. 1867Murchison Siluria xix. (ed. 4) 471 There are placer-workings on rocks containing Jurassic fossils. 1868I. Saxon Five years within Gold. Gate 84 Almost wholly ‘placer’ or surface diggings. 1872Raymond Statist. Mines & Mining 208 Sixty-one placer-claims..nearly all located in the southern part of the county. 1872R. W. Raymond Statistics of Mines 1870 192 In the great placer⁓mining region of Idaho there is an underlying basis for permanent mining. Ibid. 199 The bars on the Snake River have long been the resort of placer-miners. 1874T. B. Aldrich Prudence Palfrey vii. 138 The rumors of a discovery of rich placer diggings in Montana had flown like wild-fire. 1874R. W. Raymond Statistics of Mines 1873 299 The amount of gold washed from the bed of creeks and placer-workings. 1879H. George Progr. & Pov. i. iii. (1881) 55 In the early days of California..the placer miner..picked up..his ‘wages’..in actual money. 1880G. T. Ingham Digging Gold among Rockies 278 A panful of this crevice matter yielded..gold of a very clear, bright nature, greatly resembling placer gold. 1881Lit. World (Boston U.S.) 21 May 177/1 The Chinaman..has found it lucrative to continue placer mining where the whites have given it up. 1890Stock Grower & Farmer 19 July 4/4 A man who came to Arizona,..lived on brown beans and placer-mined on Hassayampa creek. 1897Daily News 21 July 5/4 The workings on the Klondyke or Deer River are placer mines, i.e., the earth is dug up and washed with sluices. 1902L. McKee Land of Nome 1 The rich placer-gold deposits were discovered by a small party of prospectors in the late autumn of 1898. 1906Outlook 9 June 773/1 It will bring the historic placer-camps of Caniar and Omenica within reach of the mining capitalist. 1928Bull. Amer. Soil Survey Assoc. IX. 56 Placer diggings, areas where placer mining has overturned or removed the soil and left a rough, eroded and scarred surface. 1934Times Lit. Suppl. 1 Feb. 78/1 After having tried their luck at Californian ‘placer-mining’. 1944Life 20 Nov. 11/2 She is now the wife of Johnny Matson, a prospector, who placer-mines for gold up the Seventy Mile River. 1946[see back-track v. 1]. 1948A. Williams Early Calif. Gold Rush Days 51 Quartz mining had come into prominence in California and it was taking the people by storm, just the same as the placer gold had a few years before. 1949Los Angeles Times 11 July 21/2 Placer mining will be conducted with power shovels. 1958Times 22 Aug. 12/4 The lure of placer gold on the sandbars of the Fraser river brought in men by the thousands. 1958Times 13 Sept. 11/1 Songs of a Sourdough, a title that invoked the old-time placer⁓miner..appeared in 1907. 1972Prof. Papers U.S. Geol. Survey No. 341–j. 31/1 The gravels near Capanema and Catas Atlas have been worked for placer gold.
▪ III. placer3 Austral. and N.Z. slang.|ˈpleɪsə(r)|
[f. place n. + -er1.]
a. (See quot. 1921.)
b. (See quot. 1959.)
1921H. Guthrie-Smith Tutira xxxviii. 383 ‘Placer’ is a term used to denote a gold digger who remains year after year on the one spot, on the one place. Ibid., I have never known a ‘placer’ produce a lamb. 1940A. Wall in Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Jan. 41/2 (title of poem) The placer sheep. 1941Baker N.Z. Slang 27 Placers are often lambs whose mothers have died and who have transferred their affection to some object, such as a bush or stone. 1959― Drum ii. 135 Placer, a sheep which attaches itself to a certain spot. Rural sl[ang]. |