| 释义 |
Podsnap|ˈpɒdsnæp|
The name of a character in Dickens's ‘Our Mutual Friend’ (1864–5) used allusively for a person embodying insular complacency and self-satisfaction and refusal to face up to unpleasant facts. So Podˈsnappery, Podˈsnap(p)ian a.
[1864Dickens Mut. Fr. (1865) I. i. xi. 97 Mr. Podsnap..stood very high in Mr. Podsnap's opinion... Mr. Podsnap settled that whatever he put behind him he put out of existence... Mr. Podsnap's world was not a very large world..he considered other countries..a mistake... Mr. Podsnap was sensible of its being required of him to take Providence under his protection... What Providence meant was invariably what Mr. Podsnap meant. ] Ibid. 98 These may be said to have been the articles of a faith and school which the present chapter takes the liberty of calling after its representative man, Podsnappery. [Ibid., A certain institution in Mr. Podsnap's mind which he called ‘the young person’..was an inconvenient and exacting institution... The question about everything was, would it bring a blush into the cheek of the young person.]1880Daily Tel. 1 Dec. 5/2 It is all very well to sneer at ‘Chauvinism’ and ‘Podsnappery’ but the claim of British children to supremacy among their kind must be resolutely upheld. 1901Daily News 16 Feb. 3/3 The Podsnappian findings of a Commission which..reported.. that a certain hospital had been infested with bugs, but not in such a degree as to incommode the patients. 1902Westm. Gaz. 21 Nov. 9/3 Podsnap General, Podsnap Financier, Podsnap Statesman we know, but it is my joy to have perceived our old friend in his last incarnation... Podsnap then, Podsnap in crimson tie of The Schools, ‘The Red Badge of Culture’, but Podsnap still, pervades the Press. 1905G. K. Chesterton Heretics 29 None..will accuse the author of the ‘Inferno’ of..a Podsnapian optimism. 1929A. Huxley Do what you Will 31 Those detestable Puritans to whom we owe..Grundyism and Podsnappery. 1944A. Thirkell Headmistress vii. 149 As You Like It might be a suitable play..for the Young Person in a Podsnappian sense. 1960Times 12 July 13/4 There are too many Podsnaps of officialdom who treat atheletes and aficionados alike as noisy nuisances. 1972G. S. Fraser in Cox & Dyson 20th-Cent. Mind II. xi. 401 The solid Podsnappian complacencies and unbudgingnesses of the male. 1977P. N. Furbank E. M. Forster viii. 138 They had a jokey and facetious relationship, based on the fiction of Thompson's extreme Podsnappery and Philistinism. |