| 单词 | tar-baby |
| 释义 | > as lemmastar-baby tar-baby n. (a) the doll smeared with tar, set to catch Brer Rabbit (see quot. 1881); hence transferred, spec. an object of censure; a sticky problem, or one which is only aggravated by attempts to solve it (colloquial); (b) a derog. term for a black person (U.S.) or a Maori (New Zealand). Π 1881 J. C. Harris Uncle Remus ii. 20 Brer Fox..got 'im some tar, en mix it wid some turkentime, en fix up a contrapshun what he call a Tar-Baby. 1893 Richmond (Va.) Dispatch 26 Jan. 4/1 Hezekiah Brown, a little negro much resembling a tar-baby. a1910 ‘M. Twain’ Autobiography (1925) II. 18 For two years the Courant had been making a ‘tar baby’ of Mr. Blaine, and adding tar every day—and now it was called upon to praise him. 1924 R. Kipling Debits & Credits (1926) 97 Number Five Study..were toiling inspiredly at a Tar Baby made up of Beetle's sweater, and half-a-dozen lavatory-towels;..and most of Richard's weekly blacking-allowance for Prout's House's boots. 1948 S. Lewis Kingsblood Royal (U.K. ed.) 334 ‘I didn't know she was a tar-baby.’.. ‘Don't be so dumb. Can't you see it by her jaw?’ 1959 M. Shadbolt New Zealanders 140 ‘What a hide, though—’ ‘Those tar-babies and that fellow in the sweater.’ 1976 National Observer (U.S.) 29 May 15 a/3 The troubled U.S. Postal Service is fast becoming the political tar baby of the year. 1978 J. Updike Coup (1979) iv. 135 She was one of those white women who cannot leave black men alone... Some questing chromosome within holds her sexually fast to the tarbaby. < as lemmas |
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