| 释义 |
rail-splitter U.S.
[f. rail n.2 + splitter n.2]
One who splits wood for rails; used transf. of Abraham Lincoln. Hence fig., a Republican. Also attrib. in apposition.
1860Congress Globe 36th Congress 1 Sess. App. 462/2 They call him ‘Uncle Abe’, ‘Old Abe’, ‘Honest old Abe’, ‘The old rail-splitter’, ‘The flat-boatman’, &c. 1864A. Gurowski Diary 17 Sept. (1866) III. 350, I rejoice that Lincoln's mind is not befogged by that limited scholarship; and..I prefer the railsplitter to any narrow, classical hairsplitter. 1865Harper's Mag. July 227/2 His [sc. Lincoln's] national reputation as a rail-splitter. 1885Mag. Amer. Hist. Mar. 298/1 Clubs of ‘Rail-Splitters’ were formed during the campaign. 1887J. D. Billings Hardtack & Coffee i. 19, I had taken an active part in the torchlight parades of the ‘Wide-awakes’ and ‘Rail-splitters’, as the political clubs of the Republicans were called. 1901W. Churchill Crisis i. v. 150 What they seemed proudest of was that he had been a rail-splitter. 1903J. G. Nicolay in Cambr. Mod. Hist. VII. xvi. 548 Both classes very naturally doubted whether a rail-splitter candidate..possessed the wisdom and the strength of will to conquer a formidable rebellion. 1925Scribner's Mag. Oct. 361/1 Did Lincoln say that to America? He was only a rail-splitter. He had reason to think that he might not count. 1952Manch. Guardian Weekly 17 July 3 The patron saint of the Republicans is an uncouth rail⁓splitter. 1960B. Keaton My Wonderful World of Slapstick i. 11 James Agee described my face as ranking ‘almost with Lincoln's’. I can't imagine what the great rail splitter's reaction would have been to this. |