| 释义 |
▪ I. bow-wow, int. and n.
Also 7 bowgh-wawgh, bough-wough, 8 bough waugh.
[Imitative. Other forms are baugh, bough, baw-waw, q.v.]
1. |ˈbaʊˈwaʊ| An imitation of the barking of a dog.
[1576: See baw-waw.] 1610Shakes. Temp. i. ii. 382 Harke, harke, bowgh wawgh: the watch-Dogges barke. 1651Ogilby æsop (1665) 53 Bough wough, Whose that dare break Into my master's House? 1682Otway Venice Pres. iii. i. 35 Now, bough waugh, waugh, bough waugh (Barks like a dog). 1855Browning Holy-Cross Day in Men & Women II. 160 Bow, wow, wow,—a bone for the dog!
2. a. as n. The bark of a dog; also fig.
1785[see barking ppl. a.1 2 b]. 1826Galt Last of Lairds xviii. 165 It's a sore thing for a man to be frightened into his first marriage by the bow wow o' a kirk session. 1849W. Irving Crayon Misc. 211 With a deep-mouthed bow-wow. 1854Gilfillan Beattie's Poems Introd. 16 The deep bow-wows of Johnson's talk.
b. attrib. |ˈbaʊwaʊ|, as in bow-wow theory, applied in ridicule to the theory that human speech originated in the imitiation of animal sounds.
1826Scott Jrnl. 14 Mar. (1939) I. 135 The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going. 1864Max Müller Sc. Lang. Ser. ii. 87 The strong objection..to what I called the Bow-wow and the Pooh-pooh theories. 1883Century Mag. XXVI. 33 Advocates of the ‘Bow-wow’ theory of the origin of language may find convincing facts among the Zuñis.
c. quasi-adj. Dog-like, snarling, barking.
1785Ld. Pembroke in Boswell Jrnl. Tour Hebrides 8 Dr. Johnson's sayings would not appear so extraordinary, were it not for his bow-wow way. 1854H. Miller Sch. & Schm. (1858) 344 He could recite in the ‘big bow-wow style’.
3. transf. A dog. humorous or as nursery term. Also to go to the bow-wows: to go ‘to the dogs’. jocular colloq.
1785Grose Dict. Vulgar T., Bow-wow, the childish name for a dog. a1800Cowper Beau's Reply (D.) Nor some reproof yourself refuse From your aggrieved bow-wow. 1839Dickens Nich. Nick. lxiv. 617 It is all up with its handsome friend, he has gone to the demnition bow-wows. 1893W. K. Post Harvard Stories 114 Everything was going to the bow-wows. 1917H. A. Vachell Fishpingle xiii. 263 He was going fast to the bowwows before I went to India. 1931R. Campbell Georgiad i. 20 All the bow-wows, poodles, tykes and curs.
▪ II. bow-wow, v.|baʊˈwaʊ|
[f. prec.]
intr. To bark; also fig. to snarl, growl. Hence bow-ˈwower, bow-ˈwowing.
1832Marryat N. Forster i, To be snarled at, and bow-wowed at, in this manner, by those who find fault. a1845Hood To Hahnemann vi, Stop his bow-wow-ing. 1850Carlyle Latter-d. Pamph. viii, To be bullied and bowowed out of your loyalty to the God of Light. |