| 释义 |
▪ I. blockhouse, n.|ˈblɒkhaʊs|
[Common since c 1500: of uncertain history. The Ger. equivalent blochhaus (‘einen steinen Blochhaus’) is quoted by Grimm 1557 and 1602; the Du. blokhuis is in Kilian 1599; Fr. blocus, generally considered to be the same word, and orig. in same sense, is quoted by Littré in the 16th c. (cf. bloccuz). So far as evidence goes, the Eng. is thus the earliest; but we should expect it to be of Du. or Ger. origin. In any case the sense was not originally (as in modern notion) a house composed of blocks of wood, but one which blocks or obstructs a passage. The history and age of the Ger. blockhaus and F. blocus require more investigation.]
1. a. orig. A detached fort blocking or covering the access to a landing, a narrow channel, a mountain pass, a bridge, or other strategical point. b. In later use: An edifice of one or (formerly) more storeys, constructed chiefly of timber, loop-holed and embrasured for firing.
1512Act 4 Hen. VIII, i. §1 Nother pile blokhouse ne Bulwork is made to greve or annoye theym at theyr landyng. 1538Leland Itin. III. 21 There is a Blok House and a fair Pere in the Est side of the Peninsula. 1550Lever Serm. 94 Block houses and bulwarkes, made and kepte ..for the saue garde of thys realm. 1577Holinshed Chron. III. 946/2 All the havens to be fensed with bulworks, and blockehouses. 1597Gerard Herbal xli. §4. 257 It..groweth by the blockhouse of Tilberie. 1615G. Sandys Trav. 210 At the end of the peir stands a paltry blockhouse furnished with suitable artillery. 1712Lond. Gaz. No. 5014/1 The Highway between Highgate Gatehouse..and Barnet Blockhouse. 1813Wellington Disp. X. 502 A strong stone block house which served as a head to the bridge. 1816C. James Milit. Dict. 54/1 Block-house..a kind of wooden fort or fortification, sometimes mounted on rollers, or on a flat-bottomed vessel, serving either on the lakes or rivers, or in counterscarps or counter-approaches. 1859Turner Dom. Archit. III. ii. vii. 322 Calshot Castle is one of the block-houses erected by Henry VIII. to defend the coast. 1878Black Green Past. xliv. 356 A curious little inn which had originally been a blockhouse against the Indians.
c. slang. A prison.
[cf.1624Capt. Smith Virginia iii. xi. 85 To stop the disorders of our disorderly Theeues..built a Blockhouse.] 1796Grose Dict. Vulgar Tongue, Block Houses, prisons, houses of correction, &c.
d. A house of squared logs of timber.
1857Penny Mag. VI. 437 Block-houses, which are built of blocks, or squared logs of timber. 1878M. E. Herbert tr. Hübner's Ramble i. ii. 18 The Backwoodsman who begins by building a blockhouse.
e. A reinforced concrete shelter used as an observation point, etc.
1953Monsanto Mag. July 4 This blockhouse is as close as anyone gets to a missile at take off. 1962A. Shepard in Into Orbit 104 All the training we had gone through with the blockhouse crew and booster crew was really paying off.
2. transf. and fig.
1559Mirr. Mag., Rudacke i. 7 Bloudshead a blockehouse to beat away ill. 1615Curry-c. for Cox-c. v. 230 The Scripture is a sufficient shelter against Atheisme, were the Blockhouses of your Miracles battered to the ground. 1856Kane Arct. Exp. I. xxix. 385 Flour, beans, and dried apples make a quadrangular blockhouse on the floe.
3. blockhouse system, the system of separating the theatre of war by chains of blockhouses, devised by Lord Kitchener in the later stages of the South African war, 1899–1902, and also used elsewhere.
1901Daily Chron. 4 Sept. 5/3 The section of the line south of Pienaars River..is not yet fully protected by blockhouses, the blockhouse system having been first applied to those sections most requiring such protection. 1946Ann. Reg. 1945 270 The Communists were..moving freely through the gaps in the Japanese block-house system.
▪ II. blockhouse, v.|ˈblɒkhaʊs|
[f. the n.]
trans. To cut off from occupation or attack by a line of blockhouses under the blockhouse system.
1901Daily Chron. 4 Sept. 5/3 Two thousand miles of railway are already ‘blockhoused’. Ibid. 27 Dec. 4/5 General De Wet..is doing his best to prevent the ‘block⁓housing’ of the north-eastern angle of the Orange River Colony. |