| 释义 |
▪ I. sawney, n.|ˈsɔːnɪ|
[In sense 1, repr. a Sc. local variant of Sandy, short for Alexander; the connexion of the other senses is doubtful.]
1. colloq. A derisive nickname for a Scotchman.
a1704T. Brown Highlander Wks. 1730 I. 117 And learn from him against a time of need To husband wealth, as sawny does his weed. 1710Addison Whig Exam. No. 4 ⁋12 Sawney [i.e. a Scotchman just mentioned] turned about in a great passion. 1764Wilkes Corr. (1805) III. 125 The list of the company (of the Macs and Sawneys not in the French service) would divert you. 1785[see Sandy n.]. 1883R. Cleland Inchbracken viii. 55 To..amuse his superior mind with Sawney at his devotions.
2. colloq. A simpleton, fool. [? Cf. zany.]
a1700B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Sawny, a Fool. He's a meer Sawney, he is very soft. 1807[Ireland] Mod. Ship of Fools 226 Quite a sawney. 1882‘Edna Lyall’ Donovan xxiv, A regular sawney—..weak as water.
3. slang. Bacon.
1812J. H. Vaux Flash Dict., Sawney, bacon. 1856Mayhew Gt. World Lond. 46 ‘Sawney-hunters’, who purloin cheese or bacon from cheesemongers' doors.
4. techn. (See quots.)
1892Labour Commission Gloss., Sawney, term used to denote the accident when all the threads in a mule are broken at the same time by some faulty action of the mule. 1901N. & Q. Ser. ix. VIII. 170/1 If a minder in a cotton mill have four or five hundred ‘ends’ or threads broken through the chance intervention of an obstacle when the carriage is on the outward run, or through the sudden breaking of a band, he is said to ‘have a sawney’.
▪ II. sawney, a.|ˈsɔːnɪ|
[app. f. sawney n.]
1. Foolish; foolishly sentimental; ? canting, wheedling.
1805Foster Ess. ii. vi. 201 A sawney clown on the road. 1843J. Abbott Journ. Heraut to Khiva I. 21 A tall, sawney, miserly looking fellow. 1847Disraeli Tancred i. v, She spoke in her sawney voice of factitious enthusiasm. 1873R. Broughton Nancy vii, The bronze of his face is a little paled by emotion, but there is no sawny sentiment in his tone, none of the lover's whine. 1900H. Lawson Over Sliprails 163 A good-hearted, sawny kind of chap.
2. ? transf.
1847Disraeli Tancred i. i, Curzon Street, after a long straggling sawney course, ceasing to be a thoroughfare.
▪ III. sawney, v.|ˈsɔːnɪ|
[f. sawney n. (in sense 2).]
intr. a. To wheedle, cant. b. To act the sawney, to fool. Hence ˈsawneying ppl. a.
1808Southey Lett. (1856) II. 63 It looks like a sneaking sawneying Methodist parson. 1871Besant & Rice Ready-money Mort. viii, What's he coming sawneying over here about, I wonder? |