释义 |
Definition of tall poppy in English: tall poppynoun Australian, NZ informal A person who is conspicuously successful and whose success frequently attracts envious hostility. this is a nation that likes to win, but it also prides itself on its tendency to cut down tall poppies Example sentencesExamples - I was expecting tall poppies to be gleefully lopped, hacked and triumphantly danced on, but instead they were treated with a strange degree of respect.
- "Mate, I am definitely not a Tall Poppy," he says with pained insistence.
- In 2002, the world-renowned manager and prototypical tall poppy, retired.
- Who are the tall poppies whose talent and drive must be restricted and restrained?
- Why do people get so much joy from cutting down tall poppies?
- Finns don't cut tall poppies down to size.
- Tall poppies aren't objects of admiration here, but scorn.
- Those who boo him expose themselves as the biggest morons in sport and the dark side of the tall poppy Aussie psyche.
- With his reputation for bluster and pomposity, the tall poppy was levelled in his near-death head-on on a West Australian highway.
- How does this tall poppy keep her head out of the clouds?
- He may have to make a self-transformation from a tall poppy into a shrinking violet.
- Call me Australian, but I love seeing a tall poppy get knocked down.
- Aussies rarely lose their sense of humour and love to poke fun at pomposity and 'tall poppies'.
- I'm not going to sugar-coat my personality just because an anonymous reviewer thinks that this tall poppy deserves a cutting.
- Two months ago another very rich "tall poppy" was felled by accusations of financial impropriety.
- Your country is notorious for knocking down its tall poppies.
- Abroad, he is a literary star but at home the novelist is a vulnerable, isolated and often unpopular figure - a tall poppy surrounded by sinister men with scythes.
- Australians love to deride tall poppies, and that's all very well, I love doing it myself.
- This is not the Australian way - slagging the underdog and propping up the tall poppies.
- We hate tall poppies, but woe betide the All Blacks when they lose.
Origin Mid 19th century: from an obsolete sense of poppy1 'a conspicuous or prominent person or thing', probably with reference to Tarquinius Superbus, a king of ancient Rome who demonstrated how to deal with potential enemies by cutting off the heads of the tallest poppies in his garden (Livy 1.54.6). |