释义 |
desperado|dɛspəˈreɪdəʊ, -ˈrɑːd-| Also 7 (erron.) desparado. [In form, identical with OSp. desperado out of hope, desperate (:—L. dēspērātus), pa. pple. of desperar to despair:—L. dēspērāre. (In mod.Sp. desesperado from desesperar.) The word does not appear to have been used substantively in Spanish, and in English use it is perhaps merely a sonorous refashioning, after Sp. words in -ado, of desperate n., used in same sense.] †1. A person in despair, or in a desperate condition; = desperate n. 1. Obs.
1610G. Fletcher Christ's Vict. i. lxix, The holy Desperado wip't her swollen eyes. 1686Goad Celest. Bodies iii. iv. 507 Grief, Lunacy, and the Melancholly desperado are carryed forth on the same Weekly Sheet to be buryed. 1720De Foe Duncan Campbell viii. (1841) 164 Poor and miserable desperado. 2. A desperate or reckless man; one ready for any deed of lawlessness or violence; = desperate n. 2.
1647Ward Simp. Cobler 69 Peevish Galthropes and rascall desparadoes which the Prince of lyes imployes. 1651Animadv. Macdonnel's Answ. Eng. Ambass. 56 Our English Fugitives and Desperado's. c1790Willock Voy. 95 These desperadoes had taken some rich Portuguese vessels from the Brazils, which they had plundered and sunk. 1807T. Jefferson Writ. (1830) IV. 97 He found himself left with about thirty desperadoes only. 1818Jas. Mill Brit. India I. iii. iv. 606 He had associated with himself..another desperado..in a conspiracy..to assassinate the Ameer. 1877Black Green Past. xxxii. (1878) 255 One of the wild desperadoes of Colorado. attrib.1805Holcroft Bryan Perdue I. 39 The desperado bully. Hence despeˈradoism nonce-wd.
1874Nation (N.Y.) XIX. 207/2 The sort of sneaking desperadoism of the disguised bands of thieves infesting the rural neighborhood. |