| 释义 |
blackleg, v.|ˈblæklɛg|
[f. black-leg n.]
a. trans. To take the place of (a worker who is on strike), thereby helping the employer to carry on his business and defeat the ends of the strike.
1897Daily News 1 Sept. 2/4 They would be able to get many German engineers to ‘blackleg’ their English brethren. 1904Daily Chron. 23 Apr. 5/7 The employers are permitted to persuade other workmen to ‘blackleg’ the men on strike.
fig.1893Daily News 10 July 5/2 Is it fair to ‘blackleg’ these industrious men, as it were,..and adapt their researches to the needs and purposes of romance? 1906G. B. Shaw in Fabian News XVII. 2/2 One result is that the dead dramatist blacklegs the live one: Shakespeare can charge no royalty.
b. intr. To act or work as a blackleg. So to blackleg it: to return to work before a strike is settled (said of a trade-union workman).
1888Baltimore Herald 6 May (Farmer), Knights of Labor who had determined to blackleg it, regardless of the jeers and threats of their companions. 1892Chambers's Jrnl. 17 Feb. 98/1 Volunteers were also obliged..to satisfy the leaders that they never ‘black-legged’ in any Australian strike. 1907Daily Chron. 9 Mar. 6/6 If the alternative is to ‘blackleg’ or to starve. 1952Granta 15 Nov. 12/2 In the General Strike of 1926, for instance, most Cambridge and Oxford students either blacklegged or were prepared to blackleg.
So blacklegging vbl. n. [partly from blackleg n.]
1839Thackeray in Misc. (1856) II. 454 Blacklegging is as bad a trade as can be. 1894G. B. Shaw Let. 20 Mar. (1965) 421 As there is no Trade Union of dramatic authors, and I am going into the business, I can only avoid black⁓legging by asking you what are the list prices, so to speak, for the work. 1909H. G. Wells Ann Veronica x, It's a sort of blacklegging to want to have a life of one's own. 1955Times 19 July 9/6 Should all good trade unionists boycott any blacklegging? |