| 释义 |
jail-bird, gaol-bird|ˈdʒeɪlbəd|
Forms: see jail n.
[With allusion to a caged bird.]
A prisoner in jail; esp. one who has been long, or is often, in jail, a habitual criminal; also, as a term of reproach, an incorrigible rogue.
α1618–61B. Holyday Juvenal 24 Servitia and Ergastala, in Florus, signify Slaves and Gaol-Birds. 1692Washington tr. Milton's Def. Pop. vi. M.'s Wks. (1851) 169 Thou Goal-bird of a Knight,..thou everlasting scandal to thy Native Countrey! 1701De Foe True-born Eng., Fine Speech 124 In Print my Panegyricks fill the Street, And hired Goal-Birds their Huzza's Repeat. 1860H. Gouger Imprisonment Burmah xx. 226 We had now become old gaol-birds.
β1603J. Davies Microcosmos, etc. Sonn. to Lady Rich (1878) 99/1 It made thee subiect to a Iaile's controule. But, such a Iaile-bird heauenly Nightingale. 1685Mischief of Cabals 21 The bare oaths of a pack of Jayl-birds. 1751Smollett Per. Pic. IV. ciii, She bestowed on him the epithets of spendthrift, jailbird and unnatural ruffian. 1883Contemp. Rev. Aug. 172 The one thing most dreaded by the old jail-bird is work requiring bodily exertion. |