| 释义 |
square-toed, a.
[square a. 13.]
1. a. Of shoes: Having broad square toes.
1785Grose Dict. Vulgar T. s.v. Square toes, Square-toed shoes were anciently worn in common, and long retained by old men. 1803Censor 1 Apr. 47 In a superfine coat with waistcoat, and..hessian boots, or square-toed shoes. 1897‘H. S. Merriman’ In Kedar's Tents xi, The priest had walked thither, as the dust on his square-toed shoes and black stockings would testify.
b. transf. in U.S. Naut. use. Now only Hist.
1851H. Melville Moby Dick I. xvi. 110 You may have seen many a quaint craft in your day, for aught I know: square-toed luggers, mountainous Japanese junks. 1886Forest & Stream 13 May 316/3 Even the regular ‘square-toed’ schooner, supposed to be original to San Francisco, flourishes up the James. 1948R. de Kerchove Internat. Maritime Dict. (1958) 771/1 Square-toed frigate,..local name given in Quincy, Mass., to the scow sloops engaged in the granite trade. (Obsolete.)
2. fig. Old-fashioned, formal, precise.
1795Burke Regic. Peace iv. (C.P.S.) 294 We old people must retain some square-toed predilection for the fashions of our youth. 1803Pegge Anecd. Eng. Lang. 131 Square-toed and old fashioned as it may be, it certainly weeds the sense at once of all equivocation. 1846Mrs. Gore Eng. Char. (1852) 127 There are two leading classes of London Bankers—the square-toed and the pointed. 1880Morley in Daily News 26 Mar. 2/6 A system of square-toed humdrum.
Hence square-toedness.
1846Mrs. Gore Eng. Char. (1852) 127 As regards this important distinction, however, neither square-toedness nor pointed-toedness is to be relied on. |