| 释义 |
▪ I. tabby, n. and a.|ˈtæbɪ|
Also 7 taby.
[In sense 1, a. F. tabis, earlier atabis (both 14th or early 15th c. in Godef.), Sp., Pg., It. tabi, med.L. attābi (M. Devic in Littré), app. a. Arab. ﻋattābiy, name of a quarter of Bagdad in which this stuff was manufactured, named after 'Attāb, great-grandson of Omeyya. Of this quarter Yule cites from an Arab writer of the 12th c. ‘Here are made the stuffs, called 'Attābīya, which are silks and cottons of divers colours’.
The connexion of the other senses is not very clear. Tabby cat, instanced in 1695, is generally held to have been so named from the striped or streaked colour of its coat. The simple tabby, in the same sense, is much later (1774). Tabby, old maid, is usually associated with tabby a cat; but it appears earlier, and may have originated as the familiar contraction of Tabitha (cf. Abby for Abigail), as an old-fashioned female name, and have become humorously associated with tabby cat. It is possible that tabby in the sense of she-cat originated in Tabby for Tabitha; otherwise it is difficult to see any sense-connexion between she-cat and brindled cat, since a tom-cat may also be brindled or striped. Sense 4 of the n. prob. arose from resemblance to the markings of the tabby cat; the origin of sense 5 is very uncertain, and sense 6 may be a different word, though it may also have originated in a fancied resemblance of colour to that of the tabby cat.]
A. n.
1. a. A general term for a silk taffeta, app. originally striped, but afterwards applied also to silks of uniform colour waved or watered.
1638[see B. 1]. 1647Herrick Noble Numb., New-Yeeres Gift, Let others looke for pearle and gold, Tissues or tabbies manifold. 1648― Hesper., Life is the Bodies Light 3 Those counter-changed Tabbies in the ayre, (The Sun once set) all of one colour are. 1654Whitelocke Jrnl. Swed. Emb. (1772) II. 153 The bride and bridegroome were both clothed in white tabby. 1662J. Davies tr. Olearius' Voy. Ambass. 23 One piece of silver'd Taby, with flowers of Gold. 1696Lond. Gaz. No. 3228/4 Lost.., a Child's Mantle, of a Sky-colour Tabby. 1720Swift Song Wks. 1755 IV. i. 29 Brocados and damasks, and tabbies and gawses. 1727Bailey vol. II, Tabby, a Sort of Silk, waved or watered. 1736Ibid. (folio), Tabby, a kind of coarse Silk taffety watered. 1745Pococke Descr. East II. i. viii. 125 The manufactures they [of Damascus] export, are chiefly burdets of silk and cotton, either striped or plain, and also a plain silks like tabbies. 1760H. Walpole Let. to Earl of Strafford 7 June, The Duke of York, who was dressed in a pale blue watered tabby. 1868Hawthorne Amer. Note-Bks. (1879) II. 61 His lady in crimson tabby. 1888W. Morris Arts & Crafts Catal. 19 A different tone is obtained by the figure and the ground being woven with a longer or shorter twill: the tabby being tied by the warp very often, the satin much more rarely.
b. Short for tabby gown or dress.
a1727Mrs. Delany in Life & Corr. (1861) I. 124 To alter my white tabby and my new clothes. 1786F. Burney Diary 29 Sept., I wore my memorable present-gown this day... It is a lilac tabby. 1881Besant & Rice Chapl. of Fleet II. 58 A watered tabby would become you.
2. a. Short for tabby cat (see B. 2): A cat having a striped or brindled coat.
1774Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1862) I. iv. iii. 423 The civet varies in its colour, being sometimes streaked, as in our kind of cats called tabbies. 1874G. Stables Cats i. 8 Brown Tabby. Colour to be rich brown, striped and marked with black... They are the true English cats. Ibid. 9 Blue or Silver Tabby. Colour to be blue, or silver grey, striped and marked with black. Ibid. 12 Red and White Tabby. Colour to be reddish or sandy, marked with white. 1903Daily Chron. 28 Oct. 3/1 Among silver tabbies,..Sweet William and..Dame Fortune were particularly noteworthy.
b. Also, A she-cat: correlative to tom-cat.
1826–8Townley's High Life below Stairs (acting ed.), Your cat has kittened—two Toms and two Tabbies. 1903Speaker 14 Feb. 486/2 Where is the centurion who has ever commanded a tom-cat, the astronomer who predicted the movements of a tabby?
3. a. An old or elderly maiden lady: a dyslogistic appellation; often with a half-humorous attribution of certain qualities of the cat; sometimes applied to any spiteful or ill-natured female gossip or tattler: cf. also cat n.1 2.
[1748: see B. 3] .1761G. Colman Jealous Wife ii. iii, I am not sorry for the coming in of these old tabbies. 1782E. N. Blower Geo. Bateman I. 222 A delightful ground-work, on which the tabbies of Clairfield embroidered a thousand different anecdotes. 1785Grose Dict. Vulg. Tongue, Tabby, an old maid; either from Tabitha, a formal antiquated name; or else from a tabby cat, old maids being often compared to cats. 1824Scott St. Ronan's xxxiii, Why should not I pay my respects to Lady Penelope, or any other tabby of quality? 1843Lever J. Hinton xiii, I was playing whist with the tabbies when it occurred. 1894[see tableau 2 c].
b. An (attractive) young woman or girl; = tab n.2 b. slang.
1916C. J. Dennis Moods of Ginger Mick 20 Then the tabbies took to screamin'. 1925Fraser & Gibbons Soldier & Sailor Words 275 Tabby, a, a girl. 1935A. J. Pollock Underworld Speaks 118/1 Tabby, an attractive girl. 1958J. Wain Contenders iv. 88 ‘I said, is it true what Joe says that you've got yourself fitted out with a tabby?’ ‘My humble roof,’ said Robert..‘is shared by a distinguished actress.’
4. A collector's name for two Pyralid moths, the Tabby, Aglossa pinguinalis, and the Small Tabby, A. cuprealis, both with fore wings greyish brown, clouded with a darker colour.
1819G. Samouelle Entomol. Compend. 427 Pyralis capreolalis... The small Tabby. pinguinalis... The Tabby. Ibid. 435 The tea Tabby. 1859H. T. Stainton Man. Butterfl. & Moths II. 135 Aglossa pinguinalis (Tabby)... Abundant everywhere. A. cuprealis (Small Tabby).
†5. Padding or quilting to improve the figure. tabbies, padded or quilted stays. Obs.
1748Foote Knights ii. i, Ward, at the Cat and Gridiron, Petticoat-lane, makes tabby all over for people inclined to be crooked; and, if he was to have the universal world for making a pair of stays, he could not put better stuff in them. 1752― Taste i. i, Lady Pentweazel. Bless me, Mr. Carmine, don't mind my shape this bout; for I am only in jumps. Shall I send for my tabbies?
6. A concrete formed of a mixture of lime with shells, gravel, or stones in equal proportions, which when dry becomes very hard. Orig. tabby work.
1802A. Ellicott Jrnl. (1803) 267 A small battery of tabby work (as it is called in that country [Georgia]), which is a composition of broken oyster shells and lime. 1836Smart, Tabby..a mixture of stone or shell and mortar. a1887Weale in Cassell's Encycl. Dict.
B. adj. (attrib. use of n.)
1. Made or consisting of tabby (see A. 1).
1638T. Verney in V. Papers (1853) 197 First, for one good cloth sute, and one taby or good stuff sute. 1661Pepys Diary 13 Oct., This day..put on..my false taby waste⁓coate with gold lace. a1712W. King Art of Love 1043 If she in tabby waves encircled be,..If by her the purpureal velvet's worn. 1748H. Walpole Lett. (1846) II. 224 A new sky-blue watered tabby coat. 1863Le Fanu Ho. by Churchyard III. 127 Mrs. Sturk..sat in a dingy old tabby saque.
2. a. Of a brownish, tawny, or grey colour, marked with darker parallel stripes or streaks; brindled: primarily and especially in tabby cat or tabby-cat, a cat of this coloration, or (by extension) of other colour similarly marked: see A. 2. In quot. 1789 ellipt. = tabby coloration.
[1665: cf. tabby-coloured in C.] c1689Prior Ld. Buckhurst playing w. Cat 21 On her tabby rival's face She deep will mark her new disgrace. 1695Congreve Love for L. ii. iii, I can bring witness that..you suckle a young devil in the shape of a tabby-cat. 1698Fryer Acc. E. India & P. 176 It was a Tigre..of a light Yellow, streaked with Black, like a Tabby Cat. 1702Pope Wife of Bath 142 The Cat, if you but singe her tabby skin, The chimney keeps. 1747Gray Let. to Walpole in Mason Life (1775) 188 Then as to your handsome Cat,..it must be the tabby one that had met with this sad accident. 1747― Cat 4 Demurest of the tabby kind. 1789Mrs. Piozzi Journ. France I. 347 Cats..in the woods are all of the uniformly-streaked Tabby. 1796Stedman Surinam (1813) II. xviii. 62 The spotted cat [fish] is called so from its tabby color and long whiskers. 1903Longm. Mag. Sept. 450 It had been brought up from infancy with a tabby kitten.
fig. (Cf. A. 3).
1874Mrs. H. Wood Mast. Greylands xv, A meddling, tattling, tabby-cat set of women!
b. tabby-cat striation, ‘the appearance presented in extreme fatty degeneration of muscle’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.).
1897Allbutt's Syst. Med. II. 871 The heart..often shows some fatty degeneration of the myocardium (tabby-cat striation). 1898Ibid. V. 530 The musculi papillares..are nearly always variegated by wavy whitish streaks—the ‘tabby-cat striation’ of Quain.
3. Of or pertaining to a tabby, in sense A. 3.
1748Richardson Clarissa (1811) VI. lv. 227 The two antiques only bowed their tabby heads.
C. attrib. and Comb., as tabby-coloured adj.; tabby-cat (see B. 2); tabby-waterer, one who waters or tabbies silk by a process of calendering; tabby weave Textiles = plain weave s.v. plain a.1 and adv. C. c; also tabby weaving (cf. quot. 1888 at A. 1 above); tabby work: see A. 6.
1665Sir T. Herbert Trav. (1677) 304 Cats..very large they are and tabby-coloured, streakt like those of Cyprus. 1867Smiles Huguenots Eng. (1880) 373 [He] carried on the business of a calenderer and Tabby Waterer. 1879A. Barlow Weaving 89 A piece of plain woven cloth is represented..as it would be drawn by the designer, and it is generally called ‘tabby’ or plain weaving. 1906H. Nisbet Gram. Textile Design ii. 6 The ‘plain’..or ‘tabby’ weave..is the most simple and elementary combination of two series of threads employed in the construction of textile fabrics. 1957Simpson & Weir Weaver's Craft vii. 77 We may weave a binder thread (a row of plain or tabby weave) of very fine material in between the rows of pattern.
▪ II. tabby, v.|ˈtæbɪ|
[f. prec.]
1. trans. To give a wavy appearance to (silk, etc.) by calendering. Hence ˈtabbying vbl. n.
1728Chambers Cycl. s.v. Roll, Tis also between two Rollers that the Waves are given to Silks, Mohairs, and other Stuffs proper to be tabied. 1839Ure Dict. Arts 1225 Tabbying, or Watering, is the process of giving stuffs a wavy appearance with the calender.
2. To stripe or streak in parallel lines with darker markings. Usually in pa. pple. ˈtabbied.
1860All Year Round No. 37. 260 They [mackerel] were tabbied with indigo tattooings. 1870Thornbury Tour Eng. II. xix. 49 The beautiful fish, shining like solid lumps of rainbow, tabbied with dark veins. |