| 释义 |
ˈsupple-jack
[f. supple a. + Jack n.1 (cf. sense 32).]
1. a. A name for various climbing and twining shrubs with tough pliable stems found in tropical and subtropical forests; applied in the West Indies to various sapindaceous plants, as species of Paullinia and Serjania, and Cardiospermum grandiflorum; in central America, to the rhamnaceous Berchemia volubilis, and to a species of Zizyphus; in Australasia, to Ventilago viminalis, Ripogonum parviflorum, Rubus australis, and other plants of similar habit.
1725Sloane Jamaica II. 185 Supple-Jacks. The stalk..is about the thickness of one's thumb... They grow in woods and are used for walking sticks. 1773Cook Voy. S. Pole i. v. (1777) I. 96 In many parts the woods are so over-run with supple-jacks, that it is scarcely possible to force one's way amongst them. 1814F. Pursh Flora Amer. Septentr. I. 188 Zizyphus volubilis..in the Dismal swamp, near Suffolk in Virginia,..is known there by the name of Supple-Jack. 1820T. Green Univ. Herbal II. 260 Paullinia Polyphylla; Parsley-leaved Paullinia, or Supple Jack. 1864Grisebach Flora Brit. W. Ind. Isl. 788/1 Supple-jack: Paullinia curassavica, barbadensis, and Cardiospermum grandiflorum. 1867E. Sauter tr. Hochstetter's New Zealand vi. 135 The so-called ‘supple-jack’ of the colonists (Ripogonum parviflorum). 1884J. H. Kerry-Nicholls King Country xxii. 266 The supple-jacks, which we found growing everywhere [in New Zealand] in a perfect network of snakelike coils.
b. The stems of these plants as a material.
1804A. Duncan Mariner's Chron. II. 251 Bits of blankets..sewed together with split supple-jacks. 1865Reader No. 119. 405/2 Lashed together with strips of supple-jack.
2. A walking-stick or cane made of the stem of one of these plants; a tough pliant stick.
1748Smollett Rod. Rand. xxiv, He bestowed on me several severe stripes, with a supple Jack he had in his hand. 1785Wolcot (P. Pindar) Odes to R.A.'s i. iii. Wks. 1812 I. 73 Take, take my supple-jack, Play Saint Bartholomew with many a back! 1818Scott Rob Roy xxvii, You will never rest till my supple-jack and your shoulders become acquainted. 1891Meredith One of our Conq. xxxi, A good knot to grasp;..there's no break in it, whack as you may. They call it a Demerara supple-jack.
3. U.S. A toy representing the human figure, the limbs of which are manipulated by a string. Also fig. Cf. supple a. 2 c. ? Disused.
1776M. Cutler Jrnl. 17 June in Life & Correspondence (1888) I. 55 They made us several presents of the small affairs in the cabins, such as sweetmeats, cayenne-pepper, supple-jacks, cassada or bread..trinkets etc. 1791W. Maclay Jrnl. 25 Feb. (1927) xiv. 390 Schuyler is the supple-jack of his son-in-law Hamilton. 1835A. B. Longstreet Georgia Scenes 13 Bob Simons danced..like a ‘Suple-Jack’..when the string is pulled with varied force, at intervals of seconds. 1853P. Kennedy Blackwater Chron. x. 147 His body spread out as usual in his favorite position of a supple-jack distorted to the utmost. 1871W. Whitman Democr. Vistas 30 How the millions of sturdy farmers and mechanics are thus the helpless supple-jacks of comparatively few politicians. 1904N.Y. Times 8 July 5 Those political supplejacks who go about with sanctimonious moan, saying: ‘The President is wrong, but we must support the President.’
Hence suppleˈjackically adv. (humorous nonce-wd.), in a manner suggesting the use of a supple-jack.
1844J. T. J. Hewlett Parsons & W. liv, My father looked supple-jackically at me. |