| 释义 |
poor man
1. lit. A man who is poor (in any sense of the adj.); esp. a man who is indigent or needy, or who belongs to the class of the poor. Also attrib.
a1225Ancr. R. 86 Ase þe þe seið to þe knihte þet robbeð his poure men. a1350Cursor M. 10386 (Gött) To godd he gaue þe lambis to lottis, And to þe pore men þe bole stottis. c1400Mandeville (Roxb.) xxii. 101 In þat land es na beggar, ne na pouer man. c1450in Parker Dom. Archit. III. 82 Be hit distributed & deportyd to poure men, beggers, syke folke & febull. 1677A. Yarranton Eng. Improv. 169 But the poor Man is forced many times to buy his Materials he makes his Commodity with, of some of his own Trade. 1831J. Banim Smuggler I. xi. 127 What have you to do with..my poor-man sneers at a viscount?
2. Applied in Banffsh., Aberdeensh., etc., with the local pronunciation peerman |ˈpirmən|, to a rude device for holding a fir-candle (i.e. a splinter of resinous wood), formerly the ordinary source of artificial light in farm-houses, barns, and cottages.
In the times of licensed mendicancy, the duty of holding and attending to the fir-candle was usually imposed upon the ‘bedesman’ or vagrant ‘poor man’, who was granted a night's shelter; and it is generally believed that from him the name peer-man passed to the mechanical holder.
1866Gregor Dialect of Banffsh. 123 Peer-man, a candle⁓stick for candles made of bog-fir..with a cleft piece of iron into which the candle was fixed. 1870― Echo of Olden Time 20 Light was given either by pieces of bog-fir laid on the fire, or by fir-can'les, that is thin splinters of bog-fir, from one to two and a half or three feet long, fixed in a sort of candle⁓stick called the peer-man or peer-page. 1880–83J. Linn in Trans. Inverness Scientific Soc. II. 342 It was from this [employment of a mendicant] that the stand on which the fir-candle..was fixed..got its name Peer-Man, Pure-Man, or Puir-Man, these being local pronunciations of Poor Man.
3. poor man of mutton (Sc. colloq.): name for the remains of a shoulder of mutton, consisting mainly of the blade bone, broiled.
1818Scott Br. Lamm. xix, I should like well..to return to my sowens and my poor-man-of-mutton. Ibid. (note), I think, landlord..I could eat a morsel of a poor man.
4. Also poorman. = poorman('s orange (see sense 5 a below).
1912Jrnl. Dept. Agric. N.Z. IV. 141 He has several varieties all doing well, amongst them Paramatta, Poor Man, Navel. 1956F. T. Bowman Citrus-Growing in Austral. ii. 20 Poorman was mentioned in Shepherd's catalogue (1851) as having been recently introduced from Shanghai by a Captain Simpson.
5. a. Combs. with poor man's (or poor men's): poor man's diggings U.S., Austral., and N.Z. (see quot. 1941); † poor man's (men's) box = poor-box (obs.); poorman('s orange, a variety of grapefruit, Citrus paradisi, once cultivated in New Zealand; poor man's orchid, an annual or biennial plant belonging to the genus Schizanthus of the family Solanaceæ, native to Chile and bearing flowers thought to resemble orchids; poor man's remedy, local name for wild valerian, Valeriana officinalis; poor man's salve, local name for Scrophularia nodosa and S. aquatica (Britten & Holl.); poor man's sauce: see quots.; poor man's torment U.S. (see quot.); poor man's weather-glass, the pimpernel, Anagallis arvensis, from its closing its flowers before rain; poor man's mustard, parmacety, pepper, plaster, treacle (see these words).
1548–9(Mar.) Bk. Com. Prayer, Communion, So many as are disposed, shall offer vnto the *poore mennes boxe. 1560J. Daus tr. Sleidane's Comm. 70 The rest to be geven to the poore mens boxe.
1875Chicago Tribune 14 Oct. 7/3 If it did pay, it would be what is called *poor man's diggings, for it was no place where capital could be successfully employed. 1876R. I. Dodge Black Hills 109 It has passed into a proverb that ‘placer’ mining is the poor man's diggings, while ‘quartz’ mining is only for the rich. 1941Baker Dict. Austral. Slang 56 Poor man's diggings, alluvial gold deposits, i.e., gold which a poor man can work, contrasting with reef⁓gold which requires capital to develop.
1884G. E. Alderton Treat. & Handbk. Orange-Culture in Auckland 66 The *Poor Man's Orange is only good for preserving. 1929Jrnl. N.Z. Inst. Hort. I. 65 The Poorman Orange is really a Pomelo. 1949R. Park (title) Poor man's orange. 1966Encycl. N.Z. I. 758/2 The main kinds of citrus grown commercially in New Zealand include..so-called New Zealand grapefruit (‘Poorman’ orange, selected strains).
1959Listener 20 Aug. 298/3 Now is the time to sow schizanthus—the ‘*poor man's orchid’—for next May. 1976Hortus Third (L. H. Bailey Hortorium) 1018/1 Schizanthus... Butterfly Flower, Poorman's orchid.
1657W. Coles Adam in Eden 220 Of Valerian... They never make any pottage or broath for any one that is sick, but they put some of this Herb therein, be the disease what it will, and is called of them, The *Poor Mans Remedy.
1706Phillips, *Poor-man's Sauce or Carrier's Sauce, Sauce made of a Shalot, cut very small, with Salt, white Pepper, Vinegar and Oil. 1723J. Nott Cook's & Confectioner's Dict. sig. Mm3 Poor Man's Sauce, i.e. a Shalot cut small, white Pepper, Vinegar, and Oil.
1899W. Stevens Jrnl. 17 July in Lett. (1967) 28 Snap-dragon, or as it is vulgarly known: the weed—‘*poor man's torment’ is a close-knit, yellow, tumbled sort of thing.
1847Nat. Cycl. I. 661 The Pimpernel, or ‘*Poor Man's Weather-Glass’, so called because its flowers..refuse to expand in rainy weather.
b. Now commonly used fig. in Combs. to denote a cheaper, usu. simpler or inferior version or imitation of something, or a less satisfactory substitute for something or someone.
1854H. Melville in Harper's Mag. June 95/2 A cup of cold rain water..is called by housewives a ‘Poor Man's Egg’. Ibid. 97/1 ‘It is only rice, milk, and salt boiled together.’ ‘Ah, what they call ‘Poor Man's Pudding’, I suppose you mean.’ 1891Tit-Bits 8 Aug. 277/2 There are thousands of costers who earn a livelihood by the sale of..mussels, which are regarded as the poor man's oyster. 1906Dialect Notes III. 151 Poor man's pudding,..cottage pudding. 1924R. Lardner in Cosmopolitan July 60/2 Another nickname for the town [sc. St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S.A.] is the Poor Man's Palm Beach. 1949Amer. Speech XXIV. 94 The cheapness and abundance of rabbit pelts..have made them the ‘poor man's mink’. 1951M. McLuhan Mech. Bride (1967) 63/1 Huck Finn, the poor man's Thoreau, is to be read there, too. 1959Observer 9 Aug. 11/2 I.T.V.'s This Week has recently become not much better than a very poor man's ‘Panorama’. 1962A. Huxley Island v. 46 Chemical and biological weapons—Colonel Dipa calls them the poor man's H-bombs. 1963Guardian 8 Feb. 9/3 The long, many-scened story..is superficially like a poor man's ‘Peer Gynt’. 1963‘R. Erskine’ Passion Flowers in Italy iv. 42 The porter was heavy-set, with burning Latin eyes: a kind of poor man's Marlon Brando. 1971Jrnl. Chem. Documentation X. 249/1 A general-purpose text-editing system can be a valuable ‘poor man's’ information-handling tool. 1973Times 21 Apr. 12/1 ‘Good King Henry’ or ‘Poor Man's Spinage’ must have been tried out for centuries before being used traditionally and regularly, in spring ‘messes’. |