| 释义 |
ˈrot-gut, ˈrotgut
[f. rot v. + gut n.]
1. An adulterated or unwholesome liquor; spec. bad small beer, or (in U.S.) inferior whiskey.
1633Heywood Eng. Trav. iv. Wks. 1874 IV. 72 Let not a Teaster scape To be consum'd in rot-gut. 1666G. Harvey Morb. Angl. xxviii. (1672) 76 They overwhelming their panch daily with a kind of flat Scarbier, or Rot-gut; we with a bitter dreggish small liquor. 1715Addison Drummer v. Wks. 1830 II. 208 Sir George. Drink nothing but smallbeer for a fortnight ―. But. Smallbeer! Rot-gut! 1831S. Lover Leg. 222 To the divil I pitch sitch rot-gut. 1867P. Fitzgerald 75 Brooke St. II. 67 What is it to me..if you fill your cellars with all the ‘rotgut’ in the kingdom? 1892Henley & Stevenson Deacon Brodie i. iv, What brings the man from stuff like this to rotgut and spittoons at Mother Clarke's. 1911E. M. Clowes On Wallaby vi. 164 The cattle-men, shearers, and shepherds get their internal machinery completely ruined in time by the quantity of inferior boiled sugar and fruit that they consume, and which they have inelegantly christened ‘rot-gut’. 1923C. E. Mulford Black Buttes xiv. 220 Yes, even a drink of rot-gut would 'a' bought you! 1939Joyce Finnegans Wake (1964) 381 And suck up..whatever surplus rotgut, sorra much, was left by the lazy lousers of maltknights and beer-churls. 1946Time 7 Oct. 10/2 For 50 years we have been hearing how the drought-smitten Jayhawkers were poisoning themselves on bootleg rotgut because we couldn't get decent liquor. 1952E. O'Neill Moon for Misbegotten iv. 173 That isn't Phil's rotgut. That's real, honest-to-God bonded Bourbon. 1969Private Eye 4 July 14/3 But don't drink that rotgut. Here warm your gizzard with a tot of rum from my flask. 1976Times 8 July 16/4 It was being killed mercilessly by the whisky posts with their rotgut.
2. attrib. or as adj. Of liquor: Unwholesome, deleterious, injurious to the system. Also transf. and fig.
1706T. Baker Tunbridge Walks iii. i, Damn rotgut Rhenish: we'll have Mrs. Motion's health in a bumper of Barcelona. 1767S. Paterson Anoth. Trav. II. 42 Their only drink was a cursed rot-gut stuff, which they called wine. 1830Marryat King's Own xxxiv, The rotgut French wines had given him a pain in the bowels. 1871Daily News 19 Jan., To take glass after glass of rotgut rum, schnapps, or arrack. 1877H. Ruede Let. 24 Apr. in Sod-House Days (1937) 57 They have a brand called ‘Old Style’, some of Catlin's (St. Louis) cheap rotgut tobacco, and from that price up. 1927L. Bromfield Good Woman xiii. 140 A glass filled many times with the rot-gut whisky that Hennessy sold. 1948F. Blake Johnny Christmas i. 5 Not a man in that line but hated Santa Ana and his Mexicans, hated their talk, the way they killed, their rot-gut laughter. 1970J. Howard Please Touch 6 Many kinds of wine: sweet, dry, nutty, fruity, insouciant, rotgut, presumptuous and noble. 1978Sunday Times (Colour Suppl.) 18 June 42/3 Traders stack their boats with liquor, rotgut whisky and cachaca, cheap spirit.
b. spec. (See quot.) U.S.
1888Goode Amer. Fishes 432 Its flesh spoils very quickly after the fish is taken from the water, hence the name ‘Rot⁓gut Minnow’, applied to it in Alabama. |