| 释义 |
ˈracehorse
Also race-horse.
[f. race n.1 + horse.]
1. a. A horse bred or kept for racing.
a1626Middleton Wom. beware Wom. iii. ii, I will allow you..Your race-horses. 1657R. Ligon Barbadoes (1673) 105 Another pleasure, the better sort of the people of England take delight in,..is Race-Horses. 1754Ess. Manning Fleet 42 A Race Horse is..generally computed to stand his Owner in 100l. a Year. 1797Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) XV. 774/2 Race-horses have been for some time an object of taxation. 1859Darwin Orig. Spec. i. 26 English racehorses have come to surpass in fleetness and size the parent Arabs. 1878Smiles Robt. Dick. v. 41 With the speed of a race-horse.
attrib.1839Dickens Let. 25 Nov. (1965) I. 605 Barnaby moves—not at racehorse speed. 1868H. Woodruff Trotting Horse ii. 47, I do not undertake to disparage the method pursued by the race-horse men. 1870Regul. Rlwy. Clearing-house §298 The charges for Race Horses conveyed in Race Horse Vans. 1962D. Francis Dead Cert iii. 27 Pete Gregory, racehorse trainer. 1973N.Y. Law Jrnl. 1 Aug. 11/6 An arrest of other persons..who were involved in ‘racehorse policy’ gambling activities.
b. pl. A gambling game in which small models of horses are used.
1853Ld. Malmesbury Mem. (1884) I. 414 We played at race-horses after dinner.
2. A logger-head or steamer duck.
1773J. Hawkesworth Voy. I. 406 Other Indians..brought with them some of the birds called Race-horses. 1777G. Forster Voy. round World II. 520 Five large ducks of the short-winged sort, which our sailors called race-horses. 1845Darwin Voy. Nat. ix. (1873) 200 These ducks were called, from their extraordinary manner of paddling or splashing upon the water, race-horses.
3. transf. and fig. Anything racy, sleek, or speedy. Also attrib.
1845W. G. Simms Wigwam & Cabin 1st Ser. 32 He had the sanguine, the race-horse temperament. 1903[see monthly ship s.v. monthly a. 4]. 1953K. Tennant Joyful Condemned xviii. 164 He sat rolling a very thin cigarette, known as a ‘racehorse’. 1974State (Columbia, S. Carolina) 15 Feb. 5-b/2 Freshman flash Adrian Dantley triggered a racehorse offense for Notre Dame with 27 points. 1978English Jrnl. Dec. 72/1 What Charles Cooper refers to as ‘race-horse studies’..often compared tactics for forcing students through the hoops handed down from the textbook writers.
4. racehorse lizard, a small Australian lizard, Amphibolurus caudicinctus, the ring-tailed dragon.
1937Discovery May 137/1 The Racehorse or Cycling Lizard..runs at an incredible speed. Ibid., Place a Racehorse Lizard on a pink handkerchief and it will quickly assume that colour. 1978O. White Silent Reach iv. 50 The little racehorse lizards skittering away through the spinifex with their tails up.
Hence ˈrace-horsing vbl. n. and ppl. a.
1745H. Walpole Lett. (1846) II. 69 A silly race-horsing boy. 1894Westm. Gaz. 7 June 2/3 Preferring supreme race-horsing to the supreme political office which he holds. |