| 释义 |
reach-me-down, a. and n.
[reach v.1 5 b.]
A. adj.
a. Of clothes: Exposed for sale in a finished state, ready for wearing, ready-made; also, cast-off, second-hand.
1862Thackeray Philip xxiv, The most splendid reach-me-down dressing gowns. 1887Pall Mall G. 22 Jan. 4/1 The reach-me-down finery of the East-end exquisite.
b. transf. and fig. Ready-made, stock; derivative, inferior.
1907G. B. Shaw Let. 11 July (1972) II. 700 You are not..one of these reach-me-down people. 1914― in New Statesman 14 Nov. 19/2 Europe has a stock of ready-made constitutions... It is therefore quite possible that a reach-me-down constitution proposed..by an international congress..might prove acceptable. 1932V. Woolf Common Reader 2nd Ser. 230 There are a dozen occasions on which a reach-me-down character will satisfy him well enough. 1951C. Day Lewis Lyrical Poetry of Thomas Hardy in Proc. Brit. Acad. XXXVII. 158 Often..Hardy seems to lose all touch with his medium, and will dress up his subjects in the shoddiest, reach-me-down verse. 1962Times 14 Jan. 12/5 The clergyman full of reach-me-down psychology. 1975Listener 4 Dec. 760/1 The role he has chosen is that of a reach-me-down James Bond. 1976Glasgow Herald 26 Nov. 5/5 Daniel Wayenberg's programme of works by Brahms, Bartok, Ravel and Mussorgsky proved an admirable one with not a reach-me-down sonata in sight.
B. n.
1. a. A ready-made or second-hand garment. Chiefly pl.
1862F. Sinnett Acct. Colony S. Australia 53 Waxen dummies, in their model reach-me-downs. 1884World 3 Dec. 13/1 The wide-awakes, billycocks, ulsters, and reach-me-downs. 1922Mrs. A. Sidgwick Victorian i. 11 She has evidently bought a reach-me-down at one of the cheap shops, and as for her hat it's the limit. 1926A. Bennett Lord Raingo i. xxxv. 165 He had said stiffly that he would enter the House of Lords in no hired reach-me-down. 1928D. Byrne Destiny Bay i. 117 A small rat-faced man in a suit of reach-me-downs. 1931R. Church High Summer iv. vi. 322 ‘Buy a..ready-made suit’... ‘Not even the prospect of saving Filosilk from irretrievable ruin could induce me to wear a reach-me-down.’ 1981Times 12 Mar. 10/8 The costumes..look..like tattered reach-me-downs from the Royal Shakespeare Company.
attrib.1869Routledge's Ev. Boy's Ann. 674 We preferred going to a reach-me-down store, as Prawle styled it.
b. transf. and fig.
1916G. B. Shaw Pygmalion 191 The rest of the story..would hardly need telling if our imaginations were not so enfeebled by their lazy dependence on the ready-mades and reach-me-downs of the ragshop in which Romance keeps its stock of ‘happy endings’ to misfit all stories. 1958Spectator 31 Jan. 136/3 This second-hand reach-me-down of a musical comedy. 1963Times 28 Jan. 6/3 Ministers realize..that there would be acute political difficulties in dressing the shop window with the cast-off reach-me-downs of policy from years ago. 1977Gramophone Dec. 1015/1 My particular ration of reviews usually spares me the necessity of sitting in judgement on the familiar reach-me-downs of the classical repertoire, and the past year has been no exception.
2. pl. Trousers.
1877Besant & Rice Harp & Cr. xv. 148 Two new pairs of second-hand machine-made reach-me-downs. 1905Westm. Gaz. 20 Apr. 2/1 There is a gentleman in pegtop reach-me-downs (I believe this is the correct method in America of describing that portion of gentleman's attire which a lady is never supposed to notice). 1979G. Mitchell Mudflats of Dead ix. 96 Tatty old reach-me-downs..and a gosh-awful dirty sweater. |