| 释义 |
ˈstock-in-trade
Also † stock of trade (obs.).
a. The goods kept on sale by a dealer, shopkeeper, or pedlar. Also, a workman's tools, appliances, or apparatus.
[1666Marvell Let. 13 Nov., Wks. 1776 I. 59 Catell, corn, and houshold furniture shall be excepted, and all such stock for trade, as is already tax'd by the land tax.] 1762–71H. Walpole Vertue's Anecd. Paint. (1786) V. 214 He retired to Richmond, and..sold part of his plates and stock in trade by auction. 1775Pennsylv. Even. Post 20 June 258/1 To be sold, The Stock in Trade of the late Evan Morgan, deceased. 1851Borrow Lavengro III. xix. 235–6 She..died, leaving me her cart and stock in trade.
b. transf. and fig. (esp. of mental equipment and resources). Also attrib.
1784Barry Lect. Painting iv. Wks. 1809 I. 481 Men of mean intellects, who, incapable of meddling with the ideal, will operate solely with these mechanical principles, as their entire stock of trade. 1842De Quincey Cicero Wks. VI. 185 Such charges were the standing material, the stock-in-trade of every orator. 1874Sayce Compar. Philol. vii. 274 The conception of plurality was not part of the primary stock-in-trade of mankind. 1877Black Green Past. i, A whole stock-in-trade of things that a good many girls seem to get on very well without. 1878Lockyer Stargazing 233 The stock-in-trade of the modern astronomer. 1910Q. Rev. Jan. 162 The manual labourer is himself his own stock-in-trade.
attrib.1931L. H. Myers Prince Jali ii. 26 The point was that his parents and the world each presented the other with something intelligible, they presented stock-in-trade figures between whom a stock-in-trade intercourse was possible. 1970P. Oliver Savannah Syncopators 100 These repertoires of traditional songs, stock-in-trade lines and phrases and sudden original words and verses. 1977Word 1972 XXVIII. 190 Bloomfield discussed such stock-in-trade instances as adder (for nadder), newt (for eft), and apron (for napron), to illustrate one type. |