单词 | touchwood |
释义 | touchwoodn. 1. a. Tinder in the form of powdery or spongy wood from trees affected by fungal rot, or of a preparation made from the fruiting bodies of certain fungi (see sense 2). Now historical.In early use often in extended metaphors referring to kindling of faith or emotions (e.g. in quots. 1575, 1601).Tinder made from rotten wood or from fungi has also been called amadou, German tinder, punk, and spunk. ΘΚΠ society > occupation and work > materials > fuel > material for igniting > [noun] > touch-wood-paper tindera700 tache1393 toucha1500 kindlinga1522 touchwood1575 spunk1582 matchwood1597 lint1612 funk1673 firelighter1771 saltpetre paper1832 match-paper1883 1575 tr. A. del Corro Theol. Dialogue i. f. 6v God vseth it [sc. the Gospel] as a certaine touchwoode. Whereby he kindleth the fire and light of fayth in mens minds by his holy spirite. 1578 J. Lyly Euphues f. 16 I but Euphues, hath shee not hearde also that the drye touchewoode is kindled with lyme,..yt the fire quickly burneth the flaxe? 1601 A. Dent Plaine Mans Path-way to Heauen 227 Sins of oppression..be the very fire-brands of Gods wrath, and as it were touchwood, to kindle his anger. 1621 R. Burton Anat. Melancholy iii. ii. ii. i. 547 As a match or touchwood takes fire, so doth an idle person loue. 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseudodoxia Epidemica ii. v. 89 To make white powder... The best I know is by the powder of rotten willowes; spunck, or touchwood prepared, might perhaps make it russet. View more context for this quotation 1707 E. Ward Wooden World Dissected 14 He had rather see the whole Fleet parch'd up like Touchwood, for Want of Water. 1731 R. Gwinnett et al. Pylades & Corinna I. 96 Very much like Touch-wood, or what our Country-Fellows call Daddock, which is an old, rotten, light, hollow, spungy, soft-sort of Wood. 1755 Philos. Trans. 1754 (Royal Soc.) 48 811 Of which [fungus] touchwood or spunk, and the amadoue ordinaire of the French, is usually prepared. 1809 B. H. Malkin tr. A. R. Le Sage Adventures Gil Blas II. iv. vii. 162 Gonzales, dry as touchwood, with all its inflammability. 1887 T. Hardy Woodlanders III. ix. 183 The rain had imparted a phosphorescence to the pieces of touchwood. 1898 T. Watts-Dunton Aylwin xv. vi A fallen willow tree, the inside of which was all touchwood. 1947 Amer. Midland Naturalist 38 208 These phenomena may be explained by contact of birds, in tree cavities, with touchwood made luminous by fungus mycelia. 1994 R. Wiebe Discov. of Strangers ii. 25 He will muse into the..fire their mothers beyond memory have carried everywhere in the flint and touchwood of their pouches. ΘΚΠ the mind > emotion > anger > irascibility > [noun] > irascible person wasp1496 shit-fire1598 flesh-pistol1608 tinder-box1608 touchwood1617 Tartar1669 touch and go1675 spitfire1684 vengeance1712 spunkie1821 pepperbox1822 tempest1852 pepperer1864 gingersnap1889 pepperpot1894 spit-cat1898 spit kitten1912 slow burner1930 fireball1931 pop-off1938 1617 T. Middleton & W. Rowley Faire Quarrell ii. sig. C4v The Colonel soone inrag'd, (As hee's all touch-wood). a1640 J. Fletcher & P. Massinger Little French Lawyer ii. iii, in F. Beaumont & J. Fletcher Comedies & Trag. (1647) sig. I2/2 Peace touchwood. 1640 R. Brome Sparagus Garden i. i. sig. B2v Gil. What an uncharitable wretch is this? Walt. The touchiest peece of Touchwood that e're I met withall. 1717 C. Bullock Woman is Riddle ii. 24 Do'st thou prate, old Touchwood? Another Word, and I'll unscrue thy moldy Nose from thy Moth-eaten Face. 1761 G. Colman Jealous Wife i. 9 She is all Impetuosity and Fire.—A very Magazine of Touchwood and Gunpowder. 1842 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Oct. 508 You are touchwood and tinder, and may yet spoil all that has been done for you. You must behave better. 1921 Sketch 19 Oct. 97/1 A people that is touchwood to the fires of revolution. 2. More fully †touchwood boletus, touchwood fungus. Any of several bracket fungi used as tinder, esp. Fomes fomentarius (family Coriolaceae) and Phellinus igniarius (family Hymenochaetaceae). Now historical. ΘΚΠ the world > plants > particular plants > cultivated or valued plants > plants yielding fuel or manure > [noun] > fungi yielding tinder touchwood1597 agaric1812 society > occupation and work > materials > fuel > material for igniting > [noun] > fungus or rotten wood touchwood1597 punk1678 German tinder1776 punk wood1791 amadou1815 1597 J. Gerard Herball iii. clxii. 1386 Tree Mushrums be called..in Latin Fungi arborum, and Fungi arborei: in English tree Mushrums, or Touchwood. 1666 S. Pepys Diary 12 Nov. (1972) VII. 368 His Skeleton [is here seen] with the flesh on; but all tough and dry like a spongy dry leather or Touchwood all upon his bones. 1688 R. Holme Acad. Armory ii. 85/2 Touchwood [is] a kind of hard, dry, spungy Mushroom. 1777 J. Lightfoot Flora Scotica II. 1034 [Boletus igniarius] Touchwood Boletus. Anglis. 1829 A. H. Lincoln Familiar Lect. Bot. xxxv. 184 The genus Boletus contains the Touchwood, or Spunk, which is sometimes used as tinder. 1890 G. M. Gould New Med. Dict. Amadou, German tinder or touchwood, a fungus found on old tree-trunks. 1936 C. Carmer Listen for Lonesome Drum iii. iii. 109 Every day for four days I went to him and he gave me an emetic, a powder made out of touchwood fungus in a cup of water. 1996 T. Scott tr. F. W. Stöcker & L. G. Dietrich Conc. Encycl. Biol. 118/1 A similar fungus, Phellinus igniarius..(Hard amadou, Touchwood), grows on apple trees. 2014 Pretoria News (Nexis) 5 Apr. 4 Vikings..would boil touchwood for several days in urine, which would allow the material to smoulder rather than burn. Compounds General attributive and appositive. ΚΠ 1660 R. Barret Perfect & Experienced Farrier f. 2v Put in some Touchwood leaves into the same with a little honey. 1706 E. Ward Secret Hist. Calves-head Club (new ed.) 87 Fiery Whigs the Touchwood Land enflame. 1785 W. Cowper Task vi. 688 From his touchwood trunk the mulberry-tree Supplied such relics as devotion holds Still sacred. 1811 J. H. Lawrence Empire of Nairs II. v. 92 Lady Farrindon had expected, with the first spark of love, to fire the touchwood heart of an admirer. 1864 Ld. Tennyson Aylmer's Field in Enoch Arden, etc. 77 There the manorial lord too curiously Raking in that millennial touchwood-dust Found for himself a bitter treasure-trove. 1950 R. Gittings Wentworth Place 52 The incense Of underground mankind's touchwood activity. 1993 J. Hooker Their Silence Lang. 69 An enormous, rotten beech stump, streaked black and green, fungoid, the touchwood interior riddled with beetle and crumbly as cheese. This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2016; most recently modified version published online June 2022). < n.1575 |
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