| 释义 |
▪ I. scrounge, n. (Formerly at scrounge v.1) colloq.|skraʊndʒ|
[f. the vb.]
1. The action of scrounging; freq. in phr. on the scrounge.
1927Daily Express 17 Aug. 3 (heading) Suffolks on the scrounge. Village trek for recruits. 1950Landfall Mar. 127, I drained my fifth warm bottle-full ages ago and have been on the scrounge ever since. 1956L. Godfrey in Pick of Today's Short Stories vii. 94 ‘Besides,’ added Trouncer..‘it's a good scrounge.’ 1981‘J. Gash’ Vatican Rip i. 7 I'm an antique dealer... I was on the scrounge and feeling very sorry for myself.
2. One who scrounges; a scrounger.
1937Partridge Dict. Slang 739/1 Scrounge,..a ‘scrounger’. 1960Wentworth & Flexner Dict. Amer. Slang 453/2 Scrounge, 1 a habitual borrower;..2 one who asks for small items that others are about to throw away or sell. 1980Quilt World Sept./Oct. 4/1 When you're a scrounge, a consistent scrounge, a garage sale sign is a call to adventure.
▪ II. scrounge, v.1 colloq. (orig. dial.).|skraʊndʒ|
Also scrunge.
[Prob. altered f. dialectal scringe to pry about (see Eng. Dial. Dict.); the word gained general currency through its widespread use amongst servicemen in the war of 1914–18.]
1. intr. To sponge on or live at the expense of others. Also with off.
1909Webster, Scrunge. 1922Glasgow Herald 1 May 6, I did not see anything in front of me except scrounging on my own people. 1950G. Greene Third Man ii. 20, I badly need another drink, but I can't keep on scrounging on a stranger. Could you change me a pound..into Austrian money? 1978R. Westall Devil on Road xiii. 97, I could go and scrounge off the parents for the rest of the vac.
2. a. intr. To seek to obtain by irregular means, as by stealth or begging; to hunt about or rummage (for something).
1909J. R. Ware Passing Eng. 217/2 Scrunging (Country Boys'), stealing unripe apples and pears—probably from the noise made in masticating. 1915W. H. L. Watson Adv. Despatch Rider v. 58 George and I..‘scrounged’ for eggs and bread. 1918G. Goodchild Behind Barrage vi. 94 You may scrounge for rations, kit, pay, or leave. Signallers..usually scrounge for wire. Scrounging for wire is legitimized by the War Office. 1930Brophy & Partridge Songs & Slang 1914–18 160 To scrounge about, to go seeking an opportunity of stealing. 1961‘E. McBain’ 'Til Death xiii. 153 Facing the world outside the police department, scrounging for a job when I'm no longer a boy. 1973M. & G. Gordon Informant xliv. 165 Scrounging around in her case for a freshly laundered slip, she cast curious glances at Chris.
b. trans. To appropriate; to acquire by irregular means, by stealth, or by begging; to ‘pinch’, to ‘cadge’.
1917A. G. Lee Let. 24 Nov. in No Parachute (1968) viii. 172 Now to scrounge the watch from its casing! 1919[see buckshee n. and a.]. 1923G. McKnight Eng. Words & their Background 67 British supplies were scrounged. 1939Star 2 Dec. 4/1 The Southern Railway gave a staggering figure for the specially dimmed bulbs which had been stolen (I beg pardon, scrounged) from their carriages in the first weeks of the war. 1945Sun (Baltimore) 14 Dec. 6/5 Food, cigarettes, chocolate, clothing, flour and canned meat which the supply team has ‘scrounged’ from excess military stores. 1958Times Lit. Suppl. 10 Oct. 573/3 The crude overtures of Moondoggie and the other Huck Finn louts who scrounge a lazy summer from any foolish young woman whose parents can provide them with a meal. 1976National Observer (U.S.) 31 Jan., Some of these [newspapers] I picked up free in the press room; others I scrounged at the lower-lobby newsstand.
Hence scrounge n., the action of scrounging; scrounged ppl. a.; ˈscrounger, one who scrounges; ˈscrounging vbl. n. and ppl. a.
1909Webster, Scrunger. 1918E. S. Farrow Dict. Mil. Terms, Scrounger, a slang term for a soldier with plenty of resource in getting what he wants. 1919tr. A. L. Vischer's Barbed Wire Dis. 44 The complaints about ‘scrounging’, which are nothing but outbreaks of loss of moral judgment. 1927Daily Express 17 Aug. 3 (heading) Suffolks on the scrounge. Village trek for recruits. 1941New Statesman 29 Mar. 316/2 ‘Scrounged’ cups, plates, cutlery and even food. 1946Sun (Baltimore) 23 Oct. 4/3 There is a blunt reminder that ‘pilfering’ by a native is indistinguishable from ‘scrounging’ by an American soldier, and that ‘chiseling’ and resale of Post Exchange supplies is not an act peculiar to Filipinos. 1950Landfall Mar. 127, I drained my fifth warm bottle-full ages ago and have been on the scrounge ever since. 1956L. Godfrey in Pick of Today's Short Stories 94 ‘Besides,’ added Trouncer..‘it's a good scrounge.’ 1956A. L. Rowse Early Churchills viii. 151 The King, who sank back into the more consoling, if hardly less scrounging, arms of the Duchess of Portsmouth and Nell Gwynn. 1959Times Lit. Suppl. 26 June 382/4 A curious collection of notes assembled under the title ‘Autolycism’, after Autolycus, an Athenian of scrounging habits. 1968Science 3 May 522 He was a talented scrounger who in the early stages of the development of the cyclotron was able to find an available 85-ton magnet. 1974Listener 7 Nov. 593/3 Reading an old, scrounged Daily Mirror. 1978P. Marsh et al. Rules of Disorder ii. 31 You learn to scrounge. Anybody's a good scrounger around here. 1981‘J. Gash’ Vatican Rip i. 7 I'm an antique dealer... I was on the scrounge and feeling very sorry for myself.
▪ III. scrounge, v.2 U.S. colloq.|skraʊndʒ|
[Cf. scrouge v., but perh. related to dialectal scringe, scrunge to rub with force (Eng. Dial. Dict.: see prec.).]
trans. To move with a rubbing or squeezing action.
1939J. Steinbeck Grapes of Wrath x. 123 Ma chuckled lightly and scrounged the clothes in and out of the bucket. 1954― Sweet Thursday xxii. 139 You keep an old lemon rind, and every time you wash your hands you scrounge your fingernails around in it. |