| 释义 |
puffer|ˈpʌfə(r)|
[f. puff v. + -er1.]
One who or that which puffs.
1. a. A person or thing that blows in short abrupt blasts, or emits puffs of smoke, steam, etc.: as a tobacco-smoker, a steam-engine or steamboat, etc. Also, spec. (chiefly Sc.) a small steamboat used for carrying cargo in coastal waters.
1629Abp. Harsnett Rules Chigwell Sch. in Vict. Co. Hist., Essex (1907) II. 544 [The Latin schoolmaster was to be] a man..of a grave behaviour, of a sober and honest conversation, no tipler nor Haunter of ale houses, no Puffer of Tobacco. 1664Cotton Scarron. i. Wks. (1765) 9 Jove..made him [æolus] King of all the Puffers. 1801in Westm. Gaz. 24 Dec. (1901) 10/2 [On Christmas Eve, 1801, the first load of passengers ever moved by the force of steam was conveyed by Trevithick's locomotive] ‘Captain Dick's Puffer’ [as it was called—through Camborne]. 1901Scotsman 19 Dec. 5/4 One of the crew of the puffer had fallen overboard. 1922R. Cruising Club Jrnl. 1921 98 We got under way half an hour later, having been delayed by the puffer Anna Bhan, which had let go almost over our anchor. 1927[see choo-choo]. 1946J. Irving Royal Navalese 139 Puffer, a heavily-built fishing-boat type of vessel, usually fitted with a single cylinder Diesel engine. 1959Times 12 Dec. 9/7 Para Handy and his crew of three run a ‘puffer’ (a small cargo boat) between the towns and villages on the Firth of Clyde. 1968‘D. Halliday’ Dolly & Singing Bird x. 112, I saw the anchor light of a big boat, a puffer. 1974Times 7 Dec. 3/2 Mr Alan Pegler bought the majestic old LNER puffer [sc. the Flying Scotsman] in 1962. 1975Stornoway Gaz. 5 July 1/9 A call for help was heard, stating that the puffer ‘Lady Morven’ had broken down and was drifting ashore in Loch Cuan.
b. Local name of various birds: see quots.
1773Gentl. Mag. XLIII. 220/1 Among upwards of 160 species of birds, natives of or killed in England, are the following,..a kind of Puffer not described. 18..Atkinson Prov. Names Birds, Puffer, North England for Blue Tit⁓mouse, Parus cærulea. 1903Eng. Dial. Dict., Puffer..2. The little grebe, Tachybaptes fluviatilis. n[orth] Y[or]ks. Yks. Weekly Post (Dec. 31, 1898).
c. In full, puffer fish. A carnivorous globe-fish that can swallow air to inflate itself, belonging to the family Tetraodontidæ, which includes about ninety species found in warm or temperate seas; also, a porcupine-fish belonging to the closely related tropical family Diodontidæ; cf. puff-fish s.v. puff n. 9 b.
1814S. L. Mitchell Fishes N.Y. 473 Puffer... He is called in some places, toad-fish, because his back is mottled with yellow & dark. 1883Bull. U.S. Nat. Mus. XXVII. 428 Tetrodon nephelus... Rough Swell-fish; Puffer; Blower; Swell Toad. Gulf of Mexico, abundant. 1884G. B. Goode Fisheries U.S.: Nat. Hist. Aquatic Animals I. iii. 170 The Porcupine Fishes—Diodontidæ. Swell Fishes and Puffers. 1930Times Educ. Suppl. 18 Oct. (Home & Classroom Section) p. ii/2 Puffer fish have the habit of inflating themselves with air, which they swallow. 1941J. Steinbeck Sea of Cortez x. 77 Small spine-covered puffer fish..bloat themselves when they are attacked, erecting the spines. 1947[see blaasop]. 1962K. F. Lagler et al. Ichthyology v. 151 A remarkable modification of the stomach exists in the puffers (Tetraodontidae) and porcupinefishes (Diodontidae) which can inflate themselves with water or air to assume often an almost globular shape. 1967–8Bahamas Handbk. & Businessmen's Ann. (ed. 7) 456 Here and there..the wader will find a solitary porcupine fish, also called puffers or blowfish. 1974M. C. Gerald Pharmacol. i. 3 The ovaries of the pufferfish (an excellent source of tetrodotoxin, one of the most powerful poisons known to man).
d. A porpoise: cf. puff-pig (puff n. 9 b), puffing-pig (puffing ppl. a. 1). U.S.
1884G. B. Goode Fisheries U.S.: Nat. Hist. Aquatic Animals I. i. 14 On the Atlantic coast occurs most abundantly the little Harbor Porpoise Phocæna brachycion Cope, known to the fishermen as ‘Puffer’, ‘Snuffer’, [etc.]. 1911Fisheries U.S. 1908 (U.S. Bur. Census Spec. Rep.) 314/1 Porpoise (Phocæna communis).—A cetacean found on the north Atlantic and north Pacific coasts, ascending rivers. It is known as ‘harbor porpoise’, ‘herring-hog’, ‘puffer’, [etc.].
e. A wheel-lock pistol.
1970G. Boothroyd Handgun i. 16/2 The French makers equalled the Germans in ingenuity but..were able to combine with that ingenuity an elegance of form that is totally lacking in..the ball-butted Puffer, the German wheellock pistol. 1973Country Life 29 Mar. 881 Antique Firearms..Saxon wheel-lock Puffer, dated 1590, length 23 inches. 1973Times 22 May 18/3 A Nuremberg wheel-lock ‘puffer’ made {pstlg}7,000.
f. A soft plastic container designed to blow powder on to the skin, etc., when squeezed; freq. attrib., as puffer bottle, puffer pack; also talc puffer.
1971Homes & Gardens Aug. 89/2 An insect powder in a puffer pack is convenient for this job. 1971Petticoat 24 July 9/3 A must for your handbag is the..Travel Trio which contains a puffer talc. 1973J. Wood North Beat ii. 27 It's fine powder you get in a puffer bottle—puff it on your hair to make it look right grey. 1974Harpers & Queen Sept. 50/1 Talc puffer 55 p. 1978R. Westall Devil on Road viii. 52 I'll take..a puffer-bottle for the [cat's] ear-mites.
2. a. One who extols a person or thing in inflated terms, and usually for some interested reason; a writer of ‘puffs’ (see puff n. 7).
c1736Hogarth in A. Dobson Life iv. (1883) 33 What the puffers in books call the great style of history-painting. 1779F. Burney Diary 12 Oct., He is..a prodigious puffer—now of his fortune, now of his family. a1788N. Cotton Fable Poems (1810) 25/1 Now, like the doctors of to day [He] Retains his puffers too in pay. 1883S. C. Hall Retrospect I. 273 The gross devices resorted to by puffers of quack medicines.
b. A person employed by the vendor to bid at an auction for the purpose of ‘inflating’ or running up the price and inciting others to buy.
1760C. Johnston Chrysal (1822) III. 213 It is only slipping a puffer or two at them..and they may be raised to any price. 1818–19Leigh New Pict. London (1823) 101 (Mock Auctions) Associates, called puffers, are in waiting to raise the article beyond its value. 1867Act 30 & 31 Vict. c. 48 §3 ‘Puffer’ shall mean a person appointed to bid on the part of the owner. 1877Williams Real Prop. 168 The sale of real estate by auction is now regulated by an act which renders invalid every such sale where a puffer is employed.
†c. A teacher who ‘inflates’ his pupils with superficial knowledge; a ‘crammer’. Obs.
1786Cumberland Observer No. 28 I. 270 The Polishing Puffers.. who are endowed with the happy faculty of instilling arts and sciences into their disciples, like fixed air into a vapid menstruum.
3. Something that puffs up or inflates one with pride or the like. Cf. puff v. 5.
1789J. Brown Sel. Rem. (1807) 141 My knowledge but an accursed puffer up! A murderer of my soul!
4. A bucking-kier: see bucking vbl. n.1 and kier. Also in Comb. puffer-pipe.
1875Knight Dict. Mech., Puffer, a vat in which goods are boiled in an alkaline solution... Puffer-pipe, the vertical axial pipe in a kier in which cotton goods are washed during the bleaching process. |