| 释义 |
brown study
[app. originally from brown in sense of ‘gloomy’; but this sense has been to a great extent forgotten. (The conjecture that brown ‘might be’ the Ger. braune ‘brow’ does not require serious notice.)]
A state of mental abstraction or musing: ‘gloomy meditations’ (J.); ‘serious reverie, thoughtful absent-mindedness’ (Webster); now esp. an idle or purposeless reverie.
1532Dice-Play 6 Lack of company will soon lead a man into a brown study. 1579Lyly Euphues (Arb.) 80 You are in some brown study, what colours you might best wear. 1607Topsell Serpents 772 Nothing but sadnesse, and heavinesse of minde, brown-studies. 1693Oxford-Act 2 Oft wou'd the new created Sophister Where Boy cry'd, want ye any Coffee, Sir? Start from brown-study. 1712Steele Spect. No. 286 ⁋3 He often puts me into a brown Study how to answer him. 1871Blackie Four Phases i. 13 He had been standing there in a brown study. |