| 释义 |
strait waistcoat, n.
A garment for the upper part of the body, made of strong material and admitting of being tightly laced, used for the restraint of violent lunatics or prisoners, and sometimes as a means of punishment.
There are various forms of this appliance; in some there are long sleeves with no opening, which can be tied together at the back; in others the arms are covered by the body of the garment.
1753Richardson Grandison (1754) III. xxi. 271 She threatened her then with the Strait Waistcoat, a punishment at which the unhappy Lady was always greatly terrified. 1773Crisp Let. in Mme. D'Arblay's Early Diary (1889) I. 261, I shall..have a strait waistcoat immediately put on him, debar him the use of pen, ink, and paper [etc.]. 1837Carlyle Fr. Rev. III. iii. viii, Within year and day we hear of her in madhouse and strait-waistcoat. 1881Besant & Rice Chapl. Fleet ii. xviii, They had put the strait-waistcoat over him, which pinned his arms to his sides.
fig.1824Lady Granville Lett. 23 June (1894) I. 304, I put a strait-waistcoat upon my thoughts as the only way of keeping them within bounds. 1851Ruskin Stones Ven. I. i. 22 The English Gothic was confined, in its insanity, by a strait-waistcoat of perpendicular lines.
b. attrib.
1837Carlyle Fr. Rev. II. i. ii, Neither indeed is there madness, of the strait-waistcoat sort. 1891C. T. C. James Rom. Rigmarole 159 Assuming as jaunty..a step as the strait-waistcoat tightness of my riding costume permitted.
Hence strait-ˈwaistcoat v. trans., to confine in a strait waistcoat; strait-ˈwaistcoating vbl. n.
1837Dickens Pickw. xxxix, Ve thought ve should ha' been obliged to strait-veskit him last night. 1859W. Anderson Disc. Ser. ii. (1860) 89 The maniac-like strait-waistcoating of worldliness. 1859Sala Tw. round Clock (1861) 213 Till their own troublesome bodies..are securely shackled and strait-waistcoated up, and carted away in police-vans to deep-holded ships. 1874Hardy Far from Madding Crowd xli, Such strait-waistcoating as you treat me to is not becoming in you at so early a date. |