| 释义 |
ˈsteam-whistle
A powerful whistle worked by a jet of steam (usually from a steam-boiler): used as a signal.
1840H. S. Tanner Canals & Rail Roads U.S. 261 Steam whistle, a device for warning people when the engine is approaching. 1856Emerson Eng. Traits xiv, The voice of their modern muse has a slight hint of the steam-whistle. 1899T. M. Ellis Three Cat's-eye Rings 123 A bullet..shrieked past Clayside's ear like a steam-whistle.
attrib.1870Ruskin Let. in Athenæum (1905) 30 Sept. 428/3 Dickens was a pure modernist—a leader of the steam⁓whistle party par excellence. 1887F. Hume Myst. Hansom Cab viii, Let us go outside, for I see your father has got that girl with the steam-whistle voice to sing.
Hence steam-whistling vbl. n.
1866Ruskin Crown of Wild Olive iv. §152 Steam-piston labour on the earth, and the harvest of it brought forth with steam-whistling. |