| 释义 |
▪ I. Coventry|ˈkɒvəntrɪ, ˈkʌv-|
[An ancient town in Warwickshire.]
1. to send (a person) to Coventry: to exclude him from the society of which he is a member on account of objectionable conduct; to refuse to associate or have intercourse with him. So also to be in Coventry.
[The origin of the phrase has been the subject of numerous ingenious conjectures: see Brewer, Phrase and Fable, etc. A probable suggestion refers it to the circumstances recorded in quot. 1647; a less likely source has been suggested in quot. 1691.
1647Clarendon Hist. Reb. vi. §83 At Bromigham a town so generally wicked that it had risen upon small parties of the king's, and killed or taken them prisoners and sent them to Coventry [then strongly held for the Parliament]. a1691Baxter in Reliq. Baxt. i. i. (1696) 44 Thus when I was at Coventry the Religious part of my Neighbours at Kidderminster that would fain have lived quietly at home, were forced..to be gone, and to Coventry they came. ]
1765Club bk. Tarporley Hunt in Eg. Warburton Hunting Songs Introd. (1877) 16 Mr. John Barry having sent the Fox Hounds to a different place to what was ordered..was sent to Coventry, but return'd upon giving six bottles of Claret to the Hunt. 1787F. Burney Diary Aug., I sent his dependence and his building to Coventry, by not seeming to hear him. 1792W. Roberts Looker-on (1794) I. 34 No. 3 [He] paid thirty shillings and sixpence for contumacy, and swore himselve to Coventry. 1821Croker in C. Papers I. 203 (Farmer) I found MacMahon in a kind of Coventry, and was warned not to continue my acquaintance with him. 1829Marryat F. Mildmay iii, The oldsters..had sent me to the most rigid Coventry. 1885W. E. Norris Adrian Vidal xxxiv, She ended by virtually sending him to Coventry in his own house.
2. slang. A kind of cake (see quot.).
1851Mayhew Lond. Labour I. 198 Among the regular articles of this street-sale are ‘Coventrys’, or three-cornered puffs with jam inside.
†3. Coventry bells. Obs.
a. An old name for Campanula Medium. Also called Coventry rapes, Coventry Marians. It is possible that some British species, as C. Trachelium, C. Rapunculus, were sometimes included under the name: cf. Canterbury bell.
b. In Gerarde also for Anemone Pulsatilla.
1578Lyte Dodoens ii. xx. 171 Like the Belfloures, or Couentrie Marians..the Couentrie Marians violet. Ibid. ii. xxii. 173 Of Marians violet, or Couentrie Belles..These pleasant floures grow about Couentrie in England. Ibid. 174 We may also cal them Couentrie Rapes. 1597Gerarde Herbal ii. lxxiii. §3. 309 In Cambridgeshire, where they [Passe Flowers] grow, they are named Couentry bels. Ibid. ii. cx. §2. 363 Couentrie bels are called..Mercuries violets, and Couentrie Rapes, and of some, Mariettes. 1657W. Coles Adam in Eden lxi. 117. 1776 J. Lee Introd. Bot. (ed. 3) 329 Coventry-bells, Campanula.
†4. Coventry blue. Obs. A kind of blue thread manufactured at Coventry, and used for embroidery. (Also simply Coventry.)
[1581W. Stafford Exam. Compl. 49 a, I have heard say that the chiefe trade of Coventry was heretofore in making of blew thred.] a1592Greene Jas. IV (1861) 208 Edge me the sleeves with Coventry blue. c1600Roxb. Ball. VI. 463 She hath a cloute of mine, wrought with good Coventry. 1621B. Jonson Gipsies Metamorph. Wks. (Rtldg.) 625/1 A skein of Coventry blue I had to work Gregory Litchfield a handkerchief.
▪ II. † ˈCoventry, v. Obs.—1
[f. the surname of Sir John Coventry, on whose mutilation by the king's friends in 1670 the Coventry Act (22–3 Chas. II, c. 1) against nose-slitting and maiming was passed.]
To slit the nose of.
1704W. Bisset Plain Eng. 55 Sure to be cudgell'd or Coventry'd; or have my Throat cut the next hour. |