| 释义 |
sponger|ˈspʌndʒə(r)|
Also 7–9 spunger.
[f. sponge v. or n.1 + -er1.]
1. One who lives meanly at another's expense; a parasite, a sponge.
1677Miége Fr. Dict. i, Ecornifleur,..a Spunger, a smell feast. 1681T. Flatman Heraclitus Ridens No. 74 (1713) II. 203 A Detachment of sorry Spungers from the Suburb Shovel-board Tables and Nine-pin Alleys. 1710Swift Lett. (1767) III. 19, I dined with some friends that board hereabout, as a spunger. 1731Medley Kolben's Cape G. Hope I. 109 My company..only listen'd as Spongers, in order to be treated with the other bottle. 1866Cornh. Mag. Sept. 287 Shameless and impudent spungers. 1888Pall Mall G. 3 Sept. 3/2 The spongers for free hospitality at scientific and other annual congresses.
b. Const. on.
a1732Gay Fables ii. viii, Crush'd in his luxury and pride, The spunger on the public dy'd. 1860Thackeray Lovel i, An old sponger on other people's kindness. 1890N. Lindsey Star 9 Aug. 5/3 Those spongers on the nation's earnings are quite happy without work.
2. One who uses a sponge, esp. in order to cleanse the bore of a cannon.
1828–32Webster, Spunger, one who uses a sponge. 1859Griffiths Artill. Man. (1862) 228, 4. The sponger. 3. The loader. 1886Cent. Mag. Apr. 909/1, I was serving on one of the thirty-two pounders, and my sponger was an old man-o'-war's man.
b. One who transfers designs to pottery by means of a piece of sponge.
1881Instr. Census Clerks (1885) 88 Earthenware, China, Porcelain, Manufacture:..Sponger,..Stamper.
3. A gatherer of, a diver or fisher for, sponges.
1880N. H. Bishop Sneak-Box 289 An almost uninhabited region, where only an occasional fisherman or sponger is met. 1887Goode Fisheries U.S. 826 To allow the slimy matter, called ‘gurry’ by the spongers, to run off easily.
b. A vessel engaged in sponge-fishing.
1885Harper's Mag. Jan. 217/1 We cast longing glances at certain Nassau spongers, trim, shapely cock-boats. |