| 释义 |
▪ I. bug, n.1 Obs. or dial.|bʌg|
Forms: 4–7 bugge, 6–8 bugg, 6– bug.
[c gray][ME. bugge, possibly from Welsh bwg (= bug[/c]) ‘a ghost’, quoted in Lhwyd's Archæologia Brit. (1707) 214, from the MS. Welsh Vocabulary of Henry Salesbury (born 1561). Owen Pugh has bwg ‘hobgoblin, scarecrow’; but the word is apparently now known chiefly in its derivatives. When bug became current as the name of an insect (see bug n.2), this sense fell into disuse, and now survives only in the compound bugbear. Cf. bogy1, bugaboo.
Although Salesbury's evidence takes the Welsh word back only to the latter half of the 16th c., before which there was plenty of time for its adoption from the Eng. bugge, bug, its Welsh nativity is strongly supported by a numerous family of derivatives, e.g. bwgan (= ˈbugan) bugbear, scarer, bwgwth to terrify, threaten, bwgwl (= ˈbugul) terror, terrifying, threatening, whence bygylu (= bʌˈgʌly) to terrify, threaten, bygwydd (= ˈbʌgw;ð) hobgoblin, phantom. The S. Wales bwci |ˈbuki| can however scarcely be a derivative, but looks like an adoption of ME. bugge, or modern bogy. With these Welsh words cf. Manx boag, boagáne ‘bugbear, bogle, sprite’ (whence boaganach frightful, boagandoo scarecrow), the Irish bocán hobgoblin, Gael. bochdan (? for bocan) hobgoblin (though these cannot be actually cognate with Welsh bwgan). Owen Pugh has also bygel nos ‘phantom’, which seems however to be an error for bugail nos, in Breton buguel-nos ‘shepherd or lad of the night’.]
1. a. An object of terror, usually an imaginary one; a bugbear, hobgoblin, bogy; a scarecrow. to swear by no bugs: to take a genuine oath, not a mere pretence of one.
1388Wyclif Baruch vi. 69 As a bugge, either a man of raggis [1611 scarcrow] in a place where gourdis wexen. c1440Promp. Parv. 55 Bugge, or buglarde, maurus, ducius. 1529More Comfort agst. Trib. i. Wks. (1557) 1161/2 Lest there happe to be such black bugges in dede as folke call deuilles. 1535Coverdale Ps. xc[i]. 5 Thou shalt not nede to be afrayed for eny bugges by night. 1565Jewel Def. Apol. (1611) 285 A bug meet only to fray Children. 1579Gosson Sch. Abuse 23 Caligula..bid his horse to supper..and swore by no bugs that hee would make him a Consul. 1593Shakes. 3 Hen. VI, v. ii. 2 Warwicke was a Bugge that fear'd vs all. 1611Speed Hist. Gt. Brit. vii. xlii. 3. 349 Champions against the maried Clergy (for women in those dayes were great bugs in their eyes). 1681Glanvill Sadducismus ii. (1726) 453 Timerous Fools that are afraid of Buggs. 1719D'Urfey Pills (1872) II. 306 Let the bug Predestination Fright the Fools no better know.
b. ? A person of assumed importance. Possibly this may survive in the U.S. slang ‘a big bug’ for an aristocrat, ‘swell’, though the latter is regarded by those who use it as referring to bug n.2
1771Smollett Humph. Cl. (1815) 255 That I'm nine times as good a man as he, or e'er a bug of his country. 1827Harvard Reg. Oct. 247 He who desires to be a big-Bug, rattling in a natty gig. 1843Haliburton Sam Slick Eng. xxiv. (Bartlett), We'll go to the Lord's house..pick out the big bugs. 1892J. Nie Rob. Crusoe (MS.) 21 That you're a big bug here is understood. 1932E. Waugh Black Mischief viii. 300 He seems to have been quite a big bug under the Emperor. Ran the army for him. 1939‘G. Orwell’ Coming Up ii. ix. 156, I saw..a big bug. You know how it is with these big business men.
2. Comb., as bug-boy (? corruption of bugaboo); bug-law, a law intended to inspire terror. Also bugbear, bug-word.
1601Deacon & Walker Spirits & Divels 354 The countrey hath been free from such dangerous bug-boyes. 1601― Ans. to Darel 222 Hobgoblings, Bugboies, Night-sprites, or Fairies. 1694R. L'Estrange Fables lxxi. (1714) 87 'Tis much the same Case betwixt the People and Bugg-Laws..that it is here betwixt the Fox and the Lyon.
▪ II. bug, n.2|bʌg|
[Etymology unknown. Usually supposed to be a transferred sense of prec.; but this is merely a conjecture, without actual evidence, and it has not been shown how a word meaning ‘object of terror, bogle’, became a generic name for beetles, grubs, etc. Sense 1 shows either connexion or confusion with the earlier budde; in quot. 1783 shorn bug appears for ME. scearn-budde (-bude):—OE. scearn-budda dung-beetle, and in Kent the ‘stag-beetle’ is still called shawn-bug. Cf. Cheshire ‘buggin, a louse’ (Holland).]
1. A name given vaguely to various insects, esp. of the beetle kind, also to grubs, larvæ of insects, etc. Now chiefly dial. and in U.S.; esp. with defining words, as field bug, harvest bug, May bug, June bug, potato bug; also fire-bug, in U.S. applied colloq. to an incendiary.
1642Rogers Naaman 74 Gods rare workmanship in the Ant, the poorest bugge that creeps. 1691Ray S. & E. C. Wds., Bugge: Any insect of the Scarabæi kind. It is, I suppose, a word of general use. 1710Shaftesbury Charac. ii. §4 (1737) II. 314 The Bug which breeds the Butterfly. 1783Ainsworth Lat. Dict. (Morell) ii, Blatta..a shorn bug, the chafer, or beetle. 1856Sat. Rev. II. 258/1 In the field bug we have an instance, etc. 1861Emerson Cond. Life ii. 38 A good tree..will grow in spite of blight or bug. c1880Whittier in Harper's Mag. Feb. (1883) 358/1 A big black bug came flying in.
2. spec.
a. The Cimex lectularius, more fully bed-bug or house-bug, a blood-sucking hemipterous insect found in bedsteads and other furniture, of a flattened form, and emitting an offensive smell when touched.
b. Applied to insects of the order Hemiptera or Heteroptera, to which the bed-bug belongs.
1622Massinger & Dekker Virgin Mart. iii. iii, Harpax. Come, let my bosom touch you. Spungius. We have bugs, Sir. 1683Tryon Way to Health 588 The Original of these Creatures called Bugs, is from Putrifaction. 1730Southall Bugs 1 Buggs have been known to be in England above sixty Years, and every Season increasing upon us. 1798W. Hutton Autobiog. 40 The doctor visited me..and..said, ‘You are as safe as a bug in a rug’. 1845Darwin Voy. Nat. xv. (1852) 330 An attack (for it deserves no other name) of the Benchuca..the great black bug of the Pampas. 1847Carpenter Zool. §721 The Geocorisæ or Land-Bugs, and the Hydrocorisæ or Water-Bugs. 1861Hulme tr. Moquin-Tandon ii. iv. i. 219 The Cimicidæ, or Bugs, belong to the order Hemiptera. Ibid. ii. vi. v. 304.
3. In various slang uses.
a. A person obsessed by an idea; an enthusiast. Freq. with defining word, as jitterbug, litterbug; cf. fire-bug under sense 1 and s.v. fire n. B 5 a. Also, an obsession, a craze. orig. U.S.
1841Congress. Globe June 133 Mr. Alford of Georgia warned the ‘tariff bugs’ of the South that..he would read them out of church. 1909‘O. Henry’ Roads of Destiny xiii. 208 He's got bugs. Sitting on ice and calling his best friends pseudonyms. 1911Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) (Magazine Section) 18 Apr. 1/2 There are no more critical people than what are generally classified as baseball ‘bugs’. 1937N. Coward Present Indicative ix. 377 Bushell and Guerrier, having firmly inoculated me with the naval bug, obtained permission from their captain..for us both to travel..with them. 1946Penguin New Writing XXVIII. 26 The boy's got the religious bug. 1948‘N. Shute’ No Highway xii. 303, I love being on aerodromes and seeing aeroplanes. It's a sort of bug that gets in you. 1959Which? Dec. 171 A boy bitten by the railway bug.
b. A defect or fault in a machine, plan, or the like. orig. U.S.
1889Pall Mall Gaz. 11 Mar. 1/1 Mr. Edison, I was informed, had been up the two previous nights discovering ‘a bug’ in his phonograph—an expression for solving a difficulty, and implying that some imaginary insect has secreted itself inside and is causing all the trouble. 1935Jrnl. R. Aeronaut. Soc. XXXIX. 43 Casting, forging and riveting are processes hundreds of years old, and, to use an Americanism, ‘have the bugs ironed out of them’. 1956‘N. Shute’ Beyond Black Stump v. 138 They worked..until the rig had settled down and all the bugs had been ironed out. 1958Engineering 14 Mar. 336/2 The seven-and-a-half years..was not an excessive time to..get the ‘bugs’ out of a new system of that kind.
c. Schoolboys' slang for ‘boy’; usu. with defining word, as day-bug.
1909[see day n. 24]. 1927W. E. Collinson Contemp. Eng. 29 Day-bugs and boarder-bugs. 1936A. Huxley Eyeless in Gaza vi. 63 It really wasn't right to treat New Bugs the way he did—as though they were equals. 1960J. Rae Custard Boys i. i. 17 You're new, Curlew, and new bugs should be seen and not heard.
d. A microbe or germ; also, a disease. Hence in pl., bacteriology or biology.
1919W. A. Fraser Bulldog Carney iii. 129 ‘Gee! now I will get well,’ he said; ‘I'll beat the bug out now—I'll have heart.’ 1927W. E. Collinson Contemp. Eng. 58 Disease-germs are sometimes referred to as bugs. 1932Kipling Limits & Renewals 350 He's bugs—agar-agar—guinea-pigs—slides—slices. The microbe game. Ibid. 362 He used to talk bugs to me, too. 1933Partridge Slang To-day & Yesterday iii. 191 Bugs, according to the context, bacteria or bacteriology. 1941J. Cary House of Children lxvii. 279 May I get into your bed, Harry?—I'm freezing. I won't breathe any of my bugs on you. 1943Koestler Arrival & Departure iv. i. 128 The whole thing had probably been due to some new kind of influenza, an unknown variety of the bug. 1963New Society 22 Aug. 5/2 ‘Bugs’ may still be used for biology.
e. A burglar-alarm system. U.S.
1925in Partridge Dict. Underworld. 1930J. P. Burke in Amer. Mercury Dec. 454/2 Bug, a burglar-alarm. ‘The casa's bugged.’ 1950H. E. Goldin Dict. Amer. Underworld 35/2 There ain't no bug on this joint... Let's charge out (go to work).
f. A concealed microphone (see quots.). orig. U.S.
1946W. L. Gresham Nightmare Alley (1947) xi. 171 That would have been a beautiful place to plant a bug if you wanted to work the waiting room gab angle. 1948F. Brown Murder can be Fun (1951) xiv. 215 There's been a bug on your phone line for three days. Man on duty in the basement. 1955N.Y. Times 4 May 1/3 A telephone ‘bug’, or tiny microphone and wire, attached to Mr. Celler's own phone in the hearing room. 1961A. Christie Pale Horse xvi. 164 Perhaps you have some idea that this office of mine might have a bug in it?
4. Comb., as bug-bite, bug-destroyer, bug-fly, bug-killer; bug-agaric, Agaricus muscarius, ‘a mushroom that used to be smeared over bedsteads to destroy bugs’ (Prior Plant-n.); bug-bane, Cimicifuga fœtida and other allied plants, used to drive away bugs; bug-hunter, in various slang uses (see quots.); spec. an entomologist, a naturalist; so bug-hunt v. intr., bug-hunting; bug-juice U.S. slang, bad whisky; bug-trap, Naut. slang (see quot.); bug-wort = bug-bane.
1804T. Bewick Brit. Birds (1847) II. 165 It is made of..the roots of *bugbane, stalks of water lily, pond weed, and water violet. 1880Libr. Univ. Knowl. III. 862 Cimicifuga, or bugbane, an herb of the order ranunculaceæ.
1760Goldsm. Cit. W. lxviii, One doctor who is modestly content with securing them from *bugbites. 1831Carlyle Sart. Res. i. xi. 88 Poisoned by bad cookery, blistered with bugbites.
1809Syd. Smith Wks. (1859) I. 135/1 The *bug-destroyer seizes on his bug with delight.
1711Phil. Trans. XXVII. 352, 10 and 11 are *Bug-flies observed in the Woods about Hampsted Heath.
1796Grose Dict. Vulgar T. (ed. 3), *Bug-hunter, an upholsterer. 1862Bug-hunter [see moocher 3]. 1889M. E. Bamford Up & down Brooks 46 It seems sometimes to the bug-hunter as though there would be but very few vacant rooms to rent in Nature's house. 1962A. Wise Death's-Head vii. 70 Was she one of them? I thought—a passionate bughunter?
1855Kingsley Glaucus 7 The naturalist was looked on as a harmless enthusiast, who went ‘*bug-hunting’, simply because he had not spirit to follow a fox. 1905Westm. Gaz. 19 May 4/2 The pursuit that in schoolboy days of irreverence we used to call ‘bug-hunting’.
1869New No. West (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 22 Oct. 1/5 Citizens glad to see us—freedom of the city—‘*bug juice’, ad lib. 1888Farmer Americanisms, Bug-juice, the Schlechter whiskey of the Pennsylvania Dutch—a very inferior spirit. Also called bug-poison. These terms are now applied to bad whiskey of all kinds.
1791Huddesford Salmag. 111 Shrimp-scalders and *bug-killers.
1895Boy's Own Paper XVII. 427/1 Small vessels are..commonly called ‘*bug-traps’, because they soon get filled up with cockroaches.
▪ III. † bug, a. Obs. exc. dial.
Also 6 bugge, byg.
[Etymology unknown: cf. big, bog a. and budge a.]
Pompous; big; proud, conceited, fine. (Still widely prevalent dial.)
1567Drant Horace's De Arte P. A. viij, Bugge verses which cum to the stage With waight of wordes alone. 1642H. More Song of Soul ii. iii. iii. lxiii, Then 'gins she [the moon] swell, and waxen bug with horn. 1682― Annot. Glanvill's Lux O. 55 A Bug and sturdy Mendicant, that pretends to be some person of Quality. 1881Leicestersh. Gloss. (E.D.S.) s.v., How bug y' are o' yer new cloo'es!
▪ IV. bug, v.1|bʌg|
[f. bug n.2]
1. a. trans. To clear (plants, etc.) of insects. b. intr. (See quot. 1889.)
1869Champaign Co. (Ill.) Gazette 26 May 2/1 If every tree in the township was ‘bugged’ daily..the destruction of this little pest would be certain. 1889Cent. Dict., Bug.., to hunt for bugs; collect or destroy insects: chiefly in the present participle: as, to go bugging. 1895Voice (N.Y.) 8 Aug. 7/6 While ‘bugging’ potatoes this season I came across a number of beetles..that I have never seen any mention of.
2. trans. To equip with an alarm system or a concealed microphone. (Cf. bug n.2 3 e, f.) Also intr. and in extended use. slang (orig. U.S.). So bugged ppl. a., bugging vbl. n. and ppl. a.
1919M. Acklom in Bookman Apr. 209/1 The possibilities of the joint being bugged. 1931Amer. Speech VII. 104 Bugged, wired to a burglar alarm. 1949Times (Los Angeles) 16 Aug. i. 4/6 Cohen seemed well aware that his house was ‘bugged’ and that his conversations were tapped. 1955Newsweek 24 Oct. 32/1 ‘I'll guarantee you that you're not going to do any more bugging!’.. Kalven's group had hidden microphones in Wichita, Kans., district court jury rooms and recorded the jurors' traditionally secret deliberations. 1958J. D. MacDonald Executioners (1959) v. 81 We bugged both suites. 1958Times 9 July 8/6 The police..explained that ‘bugging’ as distinct from wire-tapping, was no crime. 1960News Chron. 13 Sept. 4/8 The ‘bugged’ conversations of a foreign Government's leaders.
3. To annoy, irritate. slang (orig. and chiefly U.S.).
1949Music Library Assoc. Notes Dec. 40/2 Bug, popularized by swing musicians and now much used by be-boppers: to be annoying. 1952B. Ulanov Hist. Jazz in Amer. 350 Bug, to bewilder or irritate. 1959J. Osborne Paul Slickey ii. ix. 71 It will surely bug you when there is no man to hug... You will be bugged for ever. 1959Times 31 Oct. 7/3 The heroine..inquires picturesquely of the hero ‘What's bugging you?’ and he replies, succinctly, ‘Life.’
▪ V. bug, v.2 intr.|bʌg|
Of the eyes: to bulge out. U.S. colloq. Also trans. (rare).
1877‘Mark Twain’ in Atlantic Monthly XL. 446 His dead-lights were bugged out like tompions; and his mouth stood..wide open. 1883― Life on Mississippi xxxvi. 346 Wouldn't their eyes bug out, to see 'em handled like that? 1929W. Faulkner Sartoris iii. 225 They was..buggin' their eyes at him. 1961D. M. Douglass Saba's Treasure (1963) vi. 97 Her mouth dropped open and her eyes bugged.
▪ VI. bug, v.3 slang (chiefly U.S.).|bʌg|
[Origin uncertain; perh. connected with bug v.1 or bug v.2]
intr. To get out; to leave quickly; to ‘scram’.
1953in Partridge Dict. Slang Suppl. (1961) 1304/2 If one were to ‘swan’ southward with the purpose of moving on from the enemy, the act would be called ‘bugging out’. 1959J. Christopher Scent of White Poppies vii. 114 There was no sign of movement... ‘Give it five minutes. If there's nothing showing by then, either he's bugged out or he's asleep.’ 1969Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 21 Oct. 1/7 He also said that Canada is not ‘bugging out’ of NATO.
Add:2. With off: to depart, go away. Freq. imp.
1973Mad Oct. 32/1 Bug off ye merry gentlemen, Our Christmas you won't mar—Without a woman giving birth You'd have no Super Star. 1974Guidelines to Volunteer Services (N.Y. State Dept. Correctional Services) 38 Bug off, get away from me. 1982M. Piercy Braided Lives ii. 25 Freddie tried to get me to go upstairs with him. ‘Bug off,’ I said. 1983J. Wilcox Mod. Baptists (1984) xxxiii. 227 I'm telling you to bug off. I'm tired of your advice, hear? 1989M. Atwood Cat's Eye xvii. 97 Why don't you and your little friends bug off! |