| 释义 |
berserk, -er
(ˈbɜːsɜːk, -ə(r); as adj., also pronounced bəˈsɜːk, bəˈzɜːk)
Also berserkar, -ir; bersark. Cf. baresark.
[Icel. berserkr, acc. berserk, pl. -ir, of disputed etymology; Vigfusson and Fritzner show that it was probably = ‘bear-sark,’ ‘bear-coat.’]
A wild Norse warrior of great strength and ferocious courage, who fought on the battle-field with a frenzied fury known as the ‘berserker rage’; often a lawless bravo or freebooter. Also fig. and attrib. Now usu. as adj., frenzied, furiously or madly violent; esp. in phr. to go berserk.
1822Scott Pirate Note B, The berserkars were so called from fighting without armour. 1837Emerson Misc. 85 Out of terrible Druids and Berserkers, come at last Alfred and Shakspeare. 1839Carlyle Chartism (1858) 19 Let no man awaken it, this same Berserkir rage! 1851Kingsley Yeast i. 16 Yelling, like Berserk fiends, among the frowning tombstones. 1861Pearson Early & Mid. Ages Eng. 430 Mere brotherhood in arms..did not distinguish the civilized man from the berserkar. 1867H. Kingsley Silcote I. xii. 136 With her kindly, uncontrollable vivacity, in the brisk winter air she became more ‘berserk’ as she went on. 1879E. Gosse Lit. N. Europe 166 He was a dangerous old literary bersark to the last. 1887E. C. Dawson Bp. Hannington v. 57 He..was filled with a Berserk rage and thirst for retribution. 1908Kipling Diversity of Creatures (1917) 264 You went Berserk. I've read all about it in Hypatia..you'll probably be liable to fits of it all your life. 1940Chicago Daily Tribune 20 Nov. 10/3 America goes berserk. Ibid., The recent addition of the word ‘berserk’, as a synonym for crackpot behaviour, to the slang of the young and untutored... American stenographers..are telling one another not to be ‘berserk’. 1944‘P. Quentin’ Puzzle for Puppets xvii. 121 Edwina [sc. an elephant], had gone berserk. 1961G. Smith Business of Loving iii. 124 Hammond converted and Shallerton came back as if berserk. Ibid. 132, I think Ken Heppel will go berserk. 1962P. Brickhill Deadline xviii. 213, I went berserk, kicking his head again and again. Ibid. 214 In that berserk mood I think I could have bent an iron bar. 1964J. Symons End of S. Grundy i. i. 27 If you have chaps like old Sol going berserk, it's enough to break up any party. |