| 释义 |
▪ I. cuckoo, n.|ˈkʊkuː|
Forms: 3 cuccu, 4 coccou, cockou, 4–5 cukkow, cokkow, (5 cocow, co-, kockowe, cucko, cauko, kukkowe, 5–6 cuckowe, 6 cocowe, cokowe, -oue, koko, kookoo, cokow, coockow; Sc. gukkow, gukgo guk-guk; 6–7 cuckoe, 7 cukcow, cockow, (cocoe), 5–9 cuckow, 7– cuckoo.
[Identical with F. coucou (12–15th c. cucu), imitating the cry of the bird.
The OE. name was ᵹéac, rare ME. ȝeke, cognate with Ger. gauch, ON. gaukr, whence Sc. and north Eng. gowk. In many languages a tendency has been shown from time to time to abandon inherited forms of this bird's name, which, even though originally echoic, have under the operation of phonetic changes gradually ceased to be so, in order to go back anew to the call of the bird. Thus, since the 15th c. gauch has in Ger. been superseded by kuckuk, from LG. kukuk, MDu. cucûc, Du. koekoek, a form founded upon the call; and this in some Ger. dialects has given way to the entirely imitative kuku, guckgu, gúgku, kuckú (see Grimm). Cf. Gr. κόκκῡξ, cuckoo, beside κόκκυ the call; med.Gr. κοῦκος, mod.Gr. κοῦκο the bird. The L. was cuculus (cf. Skr. kôkilas) and cucūlus, whence It. cuˈculo, Pr. cogul; also in late L. (and ? Plautus) cucus, whence Sp., Pg., and It. dial. cuco. The Fr. cucu, coucou was not the representative of any L. form, but taken anew from the call of the bird itself; ME. cuccu might also be directly echoic, but being found only after the Norman conquest, it was prob. influenced by French example, though the annual lessons given by the bird have prevented the phonetic changes which the word would normally have undergone. In Scotch the stress is as in OF. on the second syllable |kuˈkuː|. With the 16th c. Sc. forms in guk- cf. Bavarian gucku, and various early variants of German kuckuk, as gucguc, guckkug, etc.]
1. a. A bird, Cuculus canorus, well known by the call of the male during mating time, of which the name is an imitation. cuckoo's note (fig.): repetition of the same words.
It is a migratory bird, arriving in the British Islands in April, and hence welcomed as the ‘harbinger of spring’; it does not hatch its own offspring, but deposits its eggs in the nests of small birds, as the hedge-sparrow, water-wagtail, yellow-hammer, and others; to this peculiarity many allusions occur: cf. also cuckold.
c1240Cuckoo Song, Sumer is icumen in..murie sing cuccu! Cuccu! cuccu! Wel singes þu cuccu; ne swik þu nauer nu. 1340Ayenb. 22 Þe yelpere is þe cockou þet ne kan naȝt zinge bote of him-zelue. c1381Chaucer Parl. Foules 358 Ther was..the cokkow [v.r. cucko, cuckow, kukkowe, cuccow] most onkynde. 14..Nominale in Wr.-Wülcker 702 Hic cuculus, cauko. c1475Pict. Voc. ibid. 762 A cocow. 1513Douglas æneis xii. Prol. 241 The gukgo [1553 gukkow] galis, and so quytteris the quaill. 1529More Dyaloge i. Wks. 132/1 No more meruailous is a koko than a cock. 1594Spenser Amoretti xix, The merry Cuckow, messenger of Spring. 1605Shakes. Lear i. iv. 235 You know Nunckle, the Hedge-Sparrow fed the Cuckoo so long, that it's had it head bit off by it young. 1649W. Blithe Eng. Improv. Impr. ii. (1653) 14 He..may as well make a hedge to keep in the Cuckow. 1728–46Thomson Spring 578 From the first note the hollow cuckoo sings, The symphony of Spring. 1749Wesley in Wks. 1872 X. 28 Sir, I must come in again with my cuckoo's note,—The proof! Where is the proof! 1804Wordsw. To the Cuckoo i, O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird, Or but a wandering Voice? 1841–44Emerson Ess., Over-Soul Wks. (Bohn) I. 111 Yonder masterful cuckoo Crowds every egg out of the nest..except its own.
b. The family name of the Cuculidæ, of which the common cuckoo is the type; the various genera and species are known as crested cuckoo, lark-heeled cuckoo, spur-heeled cuckoo, or pheasant cuckoo, etc.; also the tree cuckoo, yellow-billed cuckoo, and hook-billed cuckoos, ground cuckoos, and gregarious cuckoos, American types of the family.
1797P. Wakefield Mental Improv. (1801) I. 115 It is a species of cuckow. 1813Bingley Zool. II. 118 The different species of cuckoos are scattered through the four quarters of the globe. 1837Swainson in Penny Cycl. VIII. 207/1, I have no doubt that the great length of tail possessed by nearly all the cuckoos is given to them as a sort of balance. 1861Swinhoe N. China Camp. 16 You hear the soft notes of the striated cuckoo.
2. The note of the bird, or an imitation of it.
c1240[see 1]. 1562J. Heywood Prov. & Epigr. (1867) 216 In Apryll the Koocoo can syng hir song by rote..At fyrst, kooco, kooco, syng styll can she do. 1549Compl. Scot. vi. 39 The titlene followit the goilk, ande gart hyr sing guk guk. 1588Shakes. L.L.L. v. ii. 911 Cuckow, Cuckow: O word of feare, Vnpleasing to a married eare. 1856E. Capern Poems (ed. 2) 92 Cuckoo, cuckoo, singing mellow, Ever when the fields are yellow.
3. Applied to a person; esp. in reference to the bird's monotonous call, or its habit of laying its eggs in the nests of other birds; also = fool, ‘gowk’. Now usu. slang for ‘a silly person’.
1581J. Bell Haddon's Answ. Osor. 59 b, This lesson you learned of your Cowled Coockowes, to braule alwayes with bare names. 1596Shakes. 1 Hen. IV, ii. iv. 387 A Horsebacke (ye Cuckoe), but a foot hee will not budge a foot. 1609Ev. Woman in Hum. ii. i. in Bullen O. Pl. IV, An excellent Cuckoo, hee keepes his note in winter. 1612Pasquils Night-Cap (1877) 75 What Cuckoe laid this egge within your nest. 1823Scott Peveril xxiii, The cuckoo I travel with..he also has his uses. 1872O. W. Holmes Poet Breakf.-t. i. 12 We Americans are all cuckoos,—we make our homes in the nests of other birds. 1889J. K. Jerome Three Men in Boat x. 152 Give us a hand here, can't you, you cuckoo; standing there like a stuffed mummy. 1921H. C. Witwer Leather Pushers i. 4 On account of this cuckoo forgettin' he was a box fighter,..we lose five other bouts. 1924Galsworthy White Monkey i. ix. 77 ‘Don't worry, we'll dig up the just-right cuckoos, somehow.’ ‘A Chinese Minister would be perfect,’ mused Fleur.
†4. Gardening. See quot.; = F. coucou. Obs.
1693Evelyn De La Quint. Compl. Gard. II. 158 We must take exact care to pluck all the Cuckows among them, that is, those Strawberry plants that blossom much without knitting.
5. (Usually in pl.) The local name of several spring flowers, as the Cuckoo-flower Cardamine pratensis, the Orchis mascula and O. Morio, the common Blue-bell Scilla nutans, the Ragged Robin, etc. Cf. Britten and Holland Plant Names.
1878Mrs. H. Wood Pomeroy Ab. (ed. 3) 56 The long, deep-pink flowers that children call cookoos.
6. A species of fish; also called cuckoo-fish, -wrasse. local.
1848C. A. Johns Week at Lizard 230 One species [Labrus variegatus]..is called by the fishermen a cuckoo, and is probably the ‘striped wrasse’ of authors.
‖7. = F. coucou, a small coach running from Paris to the suburbs.
1821W. Irving in Life & Lett. (1864) II. ii. 46 Took a place in a cuckoo to St. Cloud.
8. attrib.
a. Of or pertaining to the cuckoo.
1627P. Fletcher Locusts ii. xxxiv, There layd they cuckoe eggs, and hatch't their brood unblest. 1742Young Nt. Th. iii. 375 The cuckow-seasons sing The same dull note to such as nothing prize. 1802Bingley Anim. Biog. (1813) II. 118 Of the Cuckoo tribe in general.
b. Resembling, or suggestive of, the cuckoo and its uniformly repeated call.
1650T. B[ayley] Worcester's Apoph. 78 Not a little angry with this Redmans cukcow play. 1797A. M. Bennett Beggar Girl (1813) III. 159 The hundred thousand rix-dollars were the cuckoo song with Christiana. 1831Capt. Berkeley in Ho. Com. 5 July, The cuckoo note..of ‘the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill’. 1858Sat. Rev. 6 Nov. 438/1 The cuckoo cry that party is extinct. 1859Helps Friends in C. Ser. ii. I. viii. 238 Tired of hearing this cuckoo exclamation.
9. Comb., as cuckoo-bird; cuckoo-echoing adj. (poet.); cuckoo-like adj. and adv.; cuckoo-ale, ‘ale drunk out of doors to welcome the cuckoo's return’ (Halliwell); cuckoo-ball, ‘a light ball made of party-coloured rags, for young children’ (Forby); cuckoo-bee, a genus of bees which deposit their eggs in the nests of other bees; † cuckoo-bone, the coccyx; cuckoo('s)bread, the Wood-sorrel; also the Lady's Smock; cuckoo-dove, a genus of doves of the East Indies and Australia; cuckoo-feeder, a form of feeder in the bellows of an organ; cuckoo-fish, see 6 above; also the boar-fish; cuckoo fowl (see quot.); cuckoo('s)fool, maid(en, mate, the Wryneck, which arrives at or about the same time as the cuckoo; cuckoo-froth, = cuckoo-spit2; cuckoo-gilliflower, the Ragged Robin, Lychnis Flos-cuculi; cuckoo-grass, the Field-Rush, Luzula campestris, flowering in spring; cuckoo gurnard, a fish, Trigla cuculus, which emits a sound resembling the cuckoo's call when taken out of the water; cuckoo-lamb, a lamb born between April and June; cuckoo('s)-maid, (a) = cuckoo-fool; (b) in Hereford, the Red-backed Shrike; cuckoo-orchis, Orchis mascula; cuckoo-point = cuckoo-pint; cuckoo-ray, a fish, a species of ray; cuckoo scab Austral. and N.Z., a skin disease of sheep; cuckoo's-eye, Geranium Robertianum and Veronica chamœdryo; cuckoo-shell, a local name of the whelk; cuckoo('s)shoe, Dog Violet; cuckoo-shrike, the Caterpillar-catcher; cuckoo's mate = cukoo('s)-maid (a); † cuckoo-spell, name suggested by Puttenham for the rhetorical figure Epizeuxis; cuckoo-wrasse, see 6 above.
1839Todd Cycl. Anat. II. 930/2 In the *cuckoo-bee..there are..four imperfectly developed spines.
1598Shakes. Merry W. ii. i. 127 Ere sommer comes, or *Cuckoo-birds do sing.
1668Culpepper & Cole Barthol. Anat. iv. xv. 351 Os Coccygis the *Cockow-bone, so called from the shape it hath of a Cuckows-bill.
1516Gt. Herbal l. (1529) C vj b, Alleluya is an herbe called *cuckowes brede. 1578Lyte Dodoens i. xl. 58 The leaues of Cuckowbread, sower Tryfoly, or Alleluya. 1776Withering Brit. Plants (1796) II. 431 Yellow-flowered Cuckowbread.
1879G. M. Hopkins Poems (1918) 41 *Cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmèd, lark-charmèd.
1661Lovell Hist. Anim. & Min. Introd., The Mullet, swallow fish, *cuckow-fish. 1884J. C. Brevoort in G. B. Goode Fisheries & Fishing Industries U.S. I. 257 When freshly taken from the water they grunt quite loudly, whence their popular name of Grunter, or Cuckoo-fish.
1850D. J. Browne Amer. Poultry Yard 56 The ‘*cuckoo fowl’..was so called from its barred plumage, resembling the breast of the cuckoo.
1872Proc. Berw. Nat. Club VI. 386 *Cuckoo-froth, which is secreted by the little frogskip insect.
1578Lyte Dodoens ii. vii. 157 It is called..Wilde Williams, Marshe gillofers, and *Cockow gillofers.
1749W. Ellis Shepherd's Guide 73 All lambs yeaned in April or May are called with us, in Hertfordsire, the *cuckoo lambs, because they fall in cuckoo time.
1570B. Googe Pop. Kingd. iii. 40 Or *coocoolike continually, one kinde of musique sing. 1601Bp. W. Barlow Defence 95 This Cuckow-like Palinodie of Councels, Doctours, and Church. 1832G. Downes Lett. Cont. Countries I. 183 He had two English words, ‘very good! very good!’ which, cuckoo-like, he was constantly reiterating.
1865Cornh. Mag. July 36 In the North the wryneck is called the *‘cuckoo-maiden’, because its song foretells the cuckoo's approach.
1597Gerarde Herbal i. xcix. §6. 159 Called male Foole stones, and *Cuckow Orchis.
1941Baker Dict. Austral. Slang 21 *Cuckoo scab, a skin disease on sheep on the back of the head and ears. 1951L. G. D. Acland Early Canterbury Runs 372 Cuckoo scab, a skin disease sheep get at the back of their heads and on their ears. I have only noticed it among merinos and in the back country.
1877Ouida Puck xxi. 234 The sunny azure of the little *cuckoo's-eye flowers.
[1802G. Montagu Ornith. Dict. II, s.v. Wryneck, Appearing at the same time with the Cuckow, it has been termed that bird's servant or attendant.] 1831G. Montagu Ornith. Dict. (ed. 2) 123 *Cuckoo's mate.—A name for the Wryneck. 1898C. M. Yonge John Keble's Parishes xvi. 202 Wryneck..or Cuckoo's mate, squeaks all round the woods..just as the cuckoo comes. 1955D. A. Bannerman Birds Brit. Isles IV. 119 The approximate dates of its [sc. the wryneck's] arrival in Britain, where it is commonly known as ‘the cuckoo's mate’, have already been given.
1589Puttenham Eng. Poesie iii. xix. (Arb.) 211 We might very properly, in our vulgar and for pleasure call him the *cuckowspell.
1865J. C. Wilcocks Sea Fisherman (1875) 122 The Cook or *Cuckoo-Wrasse, of which the blue marks are very beautiful.
▪ II. cuckoo, v.|ˈkʊkuː|
[f. prec.]
1. intr. To utter the call of the cuckoo, or an imitation of it.
1620Rowlands Nt. Raven 4 Nor with your hopping cage birds sing, Nor cuckow it about the spring. 1656W. D. tr. Comenius' Gate Lat. Unl. §142. 43 The Cuckoe which bewrayeth herself by cuckoing. 1879Baring-Gould Germany II. 310 Clocks..some that strike, some that cuckoo.
2. trans. To repeat incessantly and without variation.
1648Cuckows Nest in Harl. Misc. 1745 V. 552 These always..cuckow forth one Tune, No King, no King. 1822Blackw. Mag. XII. 633 He cuckooed the old song of reduction. 1857E. Fitzgerald Lett. (1889) I. 251 Their Religion and Philosophy..always seems to me cuckooed over like a borrowed thing.
3. To push out from the nest like a cuckoo.
1870W. Thornbury Tour Eng. I. i. 19 The government had an eye on him, and soon cuckooed him out by passing a bill to prevent clergymen being representatives in parliament.
▪ III. cuckoo, a. slang (orig. U.S.).|ˈkʊkuː|
[f. the n.]
Crazy, out of one's wits.
1918Wine, Women & War (1926) 75 Wish my daughter would grow up like that... [fn.] Seen her since. Certainly must have been cuckoo! 1923Wodehouse Inimit. Jeeves xvii. 241 He pottered about the room for a bit, babbling at intervals. The boy seemed cuckoo. 1928Collier's 29 Dec. 28/1 When everything..failed to reduce Jack's bulk, I was nearly cuckoo with rage and fear. 1955M. Gilbert Sky High vi. 76 Never asked for references?.. She must be cuckoo. |