| 释义 |
cat's tail, ˈcat's-tail
Also cat-tail.
1. The tail of a cat; a fur for the neck, so called.
1550Lever Serm. (Arb.) 131 Bryngynge home sylkes and sables, cat-tayls, and folyshe fethers to fil the realm full of such baggage. 1578Lyte Dodoens vi. lvi. 730 Yellowe ragged things compact of certayne scales, hanging vpon the tree, like smal Cattes tayles. 1731–7Miller Gard. Dict., Catkins..join'd together in Form of a Rope or Cat's-tail.
2. A name given to several plants from the resemblance of parts to the tail of a cat.
†a. ? The Great Mullein, Verbascum Thapsus.
c1450Alphita (Anecd. Oxon.) 68 Flosmus..tapsus barbatus..angl. feltwort uel cattestayl. 1483Cath. Angl. 55 A Cattyle [v.r. Catalle], lanugo, herba est.
b. The Reed-Mace, Typha latifolia; from the long cylindrical furry spikes which form its fruit.
1548Turner Names of Herbes 79 It is called in englishe cattes tayle or reed-mace. 1578Lyte Dodoens iv. liii. 512 Typha palustris, Reede Mace, Cattes tayle, or Water torche. Ibid. 513 This plant yeeldeth his cattes tayles. 1597Gerard Herbal (1633) 46 (L.). 1612Drayton Poly-olb. xx, Cat-tails..which from the sedge doth grow. 1794Martyn Rousseau's Bot. xxviii. 430 The greater, or broad-leaved Cat's-tail, otherwise called Reed-Mace. 1873R. Broughton Nancy II. 109 The tall cat's tails, and all the flags, stand absolutely motionless.
c. The Horse-tail, Equisetum.
1552Huloet, Cattes tayle, herbe, which some cal horse taile, cauda equina, equisetum. 1649W. Blithe Eng. Improv. Impr. (1652) 26 So bad and boggy it was that..it bore nothing but Cattayles. 1880Jefferies Gt. Estate 25 She pulled the ‘cat's-tails’, as she learned to call the horse-tails, to see the stem part at the joints.
†d. Viper's Bugloss, Echium vulgare.
e. Monk's-hood, Aconitum Napellus.
f. Horse-tail Rush, Eriophorum vaginatum.
g. = Cat's-tail grass (see 3).
1538Turner Libellus, Cattes tayle, cirsion. 1551― Herbal i. (1568) 29 Thys herbe is called in some places of Englande cattys tayles, in other places wylde buglose. 1789D. Davidson Poems 10 (Jam.) The cat-tails whiten through the verdant bog: All vivifying Nature does her work. 1789Mrs. Piozzi Journ. France II. 229 Slopes all flourishing with cat's-tail and poppy. 1837W. Irving Capt. Bonneville (1849) 329. 1861 Miss Pratt Flower. Pl. VI. 63 Alpine Cat's-tail.
3. cat's-tail grass: the name of the genus Phleum; esp. P. pratense, one of the earliest and most productive of British grasses, Timothy Grass.
1597Gerard Herbal i. viii. 11 Great Cats-taile Grasse hath very small roots. 1794Martyn Rousseau's Bot. xiii. 133 [Of] Cat's-tail grass..the spike..seems rough. 1863Baring-Gould Iceland 242 Among the marshes I found the alpine catstail grass.
4. A catkin.
[Cf.1578in 1.] 1611Cotgr., Minons, Cat-tailes, or Catkins: the long aglet-like buds of nut-trees. 1656W. Dugard Gate Lat. Unl. §119 In the Hazel the Cats-tail [breaketh out] before the budding. 1721Bailey, Cats-tail, a Substance, growing upon Nut-trees, Pines, etc. 1875Parish Sussex Dial., Cats Tails, the male blossom of hazel or willow.
5. Naut. The inner end of the cat-head n. (sense 1). |