| 释义 |
fine ˈlady
A lady of quality or refinement; a lady of fashion. Often applied sarcastically to a woman who dresses showily, imitates the manners of a class above her own, or is devoted to display and disdains useful work. Also attrib. (hyphened fine-lady).
1707M. Lovett Let. 26 Mar. in M. M. Verney Verney Lett. 18th Cent. (1930) I. xii. 200 There was all the Beaux and fine Ladys in town. 1728Gay Beggar's Opera i. iv. 6 She loves to imitate the fine Ladies. 1801M. Edgeworth Belinda (1832) II. xxi. 82 The poor gardener, who had been cheated by some fine ladies out of his aloe. 1862Mrs. Carlyle Lett. III. 145, I had got a little girl..in place of my fine-lady housemaid. 1893K. Simpson Jeanie o' Biggersdale 115 Romany lasses could not expect to lead fine-lady lives.
Hence fine-ˈladically adv., after the manner of a ‘fine lady’; fine-ˈladyish a., like or proper to a ‘fine lady’, finical; fine-ˈladyism, the disposition and behaviour of a ‘fine lady’, also concr. a fad or crotchet of a ‘fine lady’; fine-lady-like a. = fine-ladyish; fine-ˈladyship, the condition of being a fine lady.
1777F. Burney Early Diary (1889) II. 189 Rather than appear finical and fine-ladyish, I got out. 1784R. Bage Barham Downs II. 40 Assuming a certain degree of fine-lady-like effrontery. 1811Byron Let. to Hodgson 13 Oct. Wks. (1846) 549/1, I am growing..fine-ladically nervous. 1834Tait's Mag. I. 596/1 The upstart affectation of her fine-ladyism was fulsome. 1848Thackeray Van. Fair lxiv. 588 She resumed her fine-ladyship, and tried to look and feel as if she was in May Fair once more. 1866Geo. Eliot F. Holt (1868) 64 ‘One sort of fine-ladyism is as good as another’, said Felix. 1867H. Kingsley Silcote of Silcotes xlviii, A little too fine-ladyish. |