| 释义 |
demijohn|ˈdɛmɪdʒɒn|
Forms: 8 demijan, 9 demijean, demi-john, demijohn.
[In F. dame-jeanne (1694 Th. Corneille dame-jane, 1701 Furetière Dame Jeanne, lit. ‘Dame Jane’); so Sp. dama-juana (as if Dama Juana); mod.Pr., in different dialects, dama-jana, damajano, damojano, damejano, dabajano, debajano; Cat. damajana; It. damigiana; mod. Arabic damajānaħ, dāmajānaħ, etc. in 19th c. lexicons.
The current Eng. form is the result of popular perversion as in ‘sparrow-grass’; the earlier demijan, demijean, approach more closely to the F. and Romanic, whence the word was adopted. The original nationality and etymology of the word are disputed: see Rev. A. L. Mayhew in Academy 14 Oct. 1893. Some have assumed the Arabic to be the source of the Romanic forms, and have sought to explain this as of Persian origin, and derived from the name of the town Damghān or Damaghān, a commercial emporium S.E. of the Caspian. But this is not supported by any historical evidence; moreover, the word does not occur in Persian dictionaries, nor in Arabic lexicons before the 19th c., and the unfixedness of its form (dāmijānaħ, dāmajānaħ, damajānaħ, damanjānaħ) points, in the opinion of Arabic scholars, to its recent adoption from some foreign language, probably from Levantine use of It. damigiana. Assuming the word to be Romanic, some have taken the Provençal and Catalan forms as the starting-point, and conjectured for these either a L. type *dīmidiāna from dīmidium half (Alart in Rev. Lang. Rom. Jan. 1877), or the phrase dē mediāna of middle or mean (size) (in illustration of which Darmesteter cites from a 13th c. tariff of Narbonne the phrase ‘ampolas de mieja megeira’ = L. ampullās dē mediā mensūrā). But these suggestions fail to explain the initial da- prevalent in all the langs.; on account of which M. Paul Meyer (like Littré) thinks that all the Romanic forms are simply adaptations or transliterations of the French, this being simply Dame Jeanne ‘Dame Jane’, as a popular appellation (cf. Bellarmine, greybeard, etc.). This is also most in accordance with the historical evidence at present known, since the word occurs in French in the 17th c., while no trace of it equally early has been found elsewhere.]
A large bottle with bulging body and narrow neck, holding from 3 to 10 (or, in extreme cases, 2 to 15) gallons, and usually cased in wicker- or rush-work, with one or two handles of the same, for convenience of transport.
An ordinary size is 5 gallons. Demijohns of clear glass, of ovate-quadrilateral section in the body (14 × 16 inches diam.), are employed to export vinegar and spirits to the West Indies, and are in common household use in the islands. The name is sometimes also given to vessels of earthenware or stoneware similarly cased.
1769Falconer Dict. Marine (1776), Dame-jeanne, a demijan, or large bottle, containing about four or five gallons, covered with basket-work, and much used in merchant-ships. 1803Capt. Fellowes in Naval Chron. X. 183, I perceived one of the seamen emptying a demijean..containing five gallons. [Not in Todd 1818, nor in Pantologia 1819.] 1828Webster, Demijohn, a glass vessel or bottle enclosed in wicker-work. 1842Dickens Amer. Notes (1850) 122/2 Two large stone jars in wicker cases, technically known as demi⁓johns. 1859Leisure Hour No. 406. 626 Archy paraded round the table with a huge demijohn made of unglazed brick-earth. 1880Times 7 May 3 The price paid for them was said to be a ‘demijohn’ of rum. 1894Letter fr. Messrs. Scrutton, Sons, & Co., We have at present 500 demijohns filled with vinegar going by one of our steamers to the West Indies.
Comb.1884L. Oliphant Haifa (1887) 134 Cisterns..some of them demijohn-shaped. |