| 释义 |
maybeadv.n.adj. Origin: Formed within English, by clipping or shortening. Etymon: English it may be. Etymology: Shortened < it may be < it pron. + may v.1 + be v. Compare may-fall at may v.1 Phrases 2, mayhap adv., mayhappen adv. French peut-être (Old French puet estre (c1160), put cel estre (a1150)) is a similar formation, and can also occur with a subordinate clause, and as a noun (from 1637).Although found in major 17th-cent. writers, the word is not frequent in standard literary English before the mid 19th cent., but becomes frequent in poetic sources in the later 19th cent. It occurs frequently in 19th-cent. novels as a marker of dialectal or colloquial speech, and is labelled in N.E.D. (1906) as ‘archaic and dialectal’ and by J. Elphinston Princ. Eng. Lang. (1750) as a colloquialism, although it is entered without comment in Johnson, Webster, Imperial Dict., and Cent. Dict. Compare also:1825 J. Jennings Observ. Dial. W. Eng. 54 May-be, mâ-be, perhaps; for which one of these words is almost invariably used.1829 J. Hunter Hallamshire Gloss. 64 May-be. This is at least as good as the hybrid word perhaps, by which it has been supplanted. Recorded in Eng. Dial. Dict. s.v. in general use in England, Scotland, and Ireland (and in the United States). With β. forms compare -s suffix1. A. adv. 1. the mind > mental capacity > belief > uncertainty, doubt, hesitation > possibility > [adverb] > perhaps a1400 (a1325) (Trin. Cambr.) 17553 May be [a1400 Vesp. Mai fall] sum goost awey him ledde. 1623 W. Shakespeare & J. Fletcher iii. ii. 92 Maybe he heares the King Does whet his Anger to him. View more context for this quotation a1627 T. Middleton & W. Rowley (1656) iii. 38 May be some Fairies child..Has pist upon that side. 1661 J. Glanvill 175 This, may be, was the reason some imagin'd Hell there. 1730 J. Swift 4 Impossible! it can't be me. Or may be I mistook the Word. 1787 W. Taylor 10 Some Doctors crack o' healin pow'r, And may-be kill instead o' cure. 1848 W. M. Thackeray 28 July Our Lord speaking quite simply to simple Syrian people, a child or two maybe at his knees. 1866 G. W. Dasent 22 Maybe that others than Arnor utter this. 1871 R. Ellis tr. Catullus lxii. 46 Maybe for all they chide, their hearts do inly desire thee. 1894 S. R. Crockett ix Ye'll maybes find yersel' whaur Jock Gordon 'll no be there to serve ye. 1905 Baroness Orczy x. 91 No doubt their thoughts were far away with husband, brother, son maybe, still in peril, or lately succumbed to a cruel fate. 1928 D. H. Lawrence vii. 84 She took another sip of brandy, which maybe was her form of repentance. 1953 20 Aug. 7 Except maybe a guy had been there two years. 1965 B. Friel Philadelphia, Here I come! in (1984) 47 Madge: I had a feeling it would be a wee girl this time. Maybe I'll take a run over on Sunday and square the place up for her. She could do with some help, with seven of them. Public: You're a brick, Madge. 1988 G. Swift 73 It was only natural for kids to play fight-games, and maybe it was actually better, getting it all out in a game, in harmless fun. c1847 J. T. Downey (1963) 60 By the Man of the Mast..that will carry us down to California and then maybe we won't kick up hell among the Mexicans. 1850 L. H. Garrard 163 Maybe thar wasn't coups counted, an' a big dance on hand, ef I was alone. 1914 R. Lardner i. 42 Looks like I got a regular girl now Al. We go up there the twenty-ninth and maybe I won't be glad to see her. 1926 J. V. A. Weaver 18 ‘Well, boys, how would you like to go to the circus?’ Say, maybe Ern and me didn't jump up! 1925 G. Kahn (song) Yes Sir, that's my baby, No sir, don't mean maybe. 1933 E. Caldwell viii. 110 We've sunk a hole twenty feet since this morning, and I don't mean maybe, either. 1987 (Nexis) 24 Apr. a2 It's rough over here in the winter and I don't mean maybe. 1999 (Nexis) 17 Jan. j2 Danny Crawford played tough guy when he robbed a rural Illinois bank last summer, holding out a nylon bag to a teller and demanding that she ‘fill it up, and I don't mean maybe’. B. n.the mind > mental capacity > belief > uncertainty, doubt, hesitation > possibility > [noun] > a possible thing or circumstance 1598 E. Dyer in Sir P. Sidney (new ed.) sig. Rr5v And thus might I for feare of may be, leaue The sweete pursute of my desired pray. 1602 N. Breton I. sig. E2v May be is a doubt: but what is, must be regarded. 1615 J. Day 335 Without all Maybees, the Lord is never more gracious to his Servants. 1707 E. Ward No. 3. 26 Ridiculous Conjecture, stuff'd..full of Maybe's. 1756 No. 9. 2 9 I will not..be scared out of my senses by improbabilities and maybe's. 1832 F. A. Butler (1835) I. 85 That pervading uncertainty of mind which stands on the brink, brooding over the unseen may-be of another world. 1892 A. Birrell vi. 168 [He] objected to our carrying on a flirtation with mystic maybe's and calling it Religion. 1970 A. Fugard i. 34 We're hanging on by a maybe in somebody else's mind. 1987 C. Simmons iii. 42 I want Belles Lettres to say who shall live and who shall die. And no maybes. 1721 J. Kelly 252 May Bees fly not this time o'the Year. 1738 J. Swift 19 May-bees don't fly now, Miss. 1832 A. Henderson 132 May-bee was ne'er a gude honey bee. 1943 L. I. Wilder xxii. 208 ‘He's getting slower about rearing. Maybe sometime he'll forget it’. ‘Maybe’, Laura doubted it. She quoted, ‘May bees don't fly in September’. C. adj.the mind > mental capacity > belief > uncertainty, doubt, hesitation > possibility > [adjective] 1687 J. Dryden iii. 89 Those may-be years thou hast to live. 1952 D. Thomas Let. 6 Nov. in (1966) 380 I..carried with me..my unfinished letters, my dying explanations and self-accusations, my lonely half of a loony maybe-play, in a heavy, hurtful bunch. 1961 S. Chaplin viii. 174 It took a second or two for the penny to drop. I gave myself a shake and made over to the maybe Old Man. This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2001; most recently modified version published online March 2022). <  adv.n.adj.a1400 |
