| 释义 |
tiring-irons, n. pl.|ˈtaɪərɪŋˌaɪənz|
Also 7–8 tyring-, tarrying-, 8 tarring-.
[In its current form, f. tiring, pr. pple. of tire v.1 + iron; but tarrying-iron (also tarriour) appears to occur as early, and to have been the more prevalent in the 17th and 18th c. This belongs to tarry v., in its transitive sense ‘to delay, retard, protract, prolong, hold in check’ (if not to tarry, tary v.).
The evidence does not decide whether tiring or tarrying was the original epithet, and as both are descriptive, they may have been independent.]
A popular name of the puzzling rings or ring-puzzle (esp. when made of iron, and of large size), in which a number of rings, usually seven or ten, are placed on an oblong closed wire loop or bow, each being also fastened to a wire within the bow, which passes through the next ring, and is loosely attached by its other end to a thin flat piece of metal or bone of nearly the same length as the loop. The puzzle is to take all the rings thus fettered off the loop or bow.
‘This perplexing invention is of great antiquity, and was treated on by Cardan, the mathematician [1501–1576]’ (Boy's Own Book (1828) 420, in which there is a figure and detailed explanation of the moves).
1601Deacon & Walker Answ. to Darel To Rdr. 4 The very frame itselfe of their whole proceeding resembleth fitlie a paire of tarriours, or tyring yrons. 1627Drayton Elegies, To W. Jeffreys 100 A Tarrying-iron for fooles to labour at. 1661Baxter Mor. Prognost. i. xvi. 4 Like a Boy with a pair of Tarrying-Irons. a1675Lightfoot Serm. 2 Sam. xix. 29 Wks. 1684 II. 1246 They are not unriddleable riddles, and tyring-irons never to be untied. 1690C. Nesse O. & N. Test. I. 277 He would lay his tarrying-irons upon him, and not permit him to go away. a1763Shenstone Upon Riddles i. in Dodsl. Coll. Poems (1782) V. 63 Have you not known a small machine Which brazen rings environ, In many a country chimney seen, Y-clep'd a tarring-iron? 1828Boy's own Bk. 420 It may be purchased at most of the toy-shops, very lightly and elegantly made. It also exists in various parts of the country, forged in iron,..and aptly named ‘The Tiring Irons’. 1879L. Potter Lanc. Mem. 115 One was called ‘tiring-irons’, a set of iron rings and two iron bars fastened together. |