| 释义 |
▪ I. twittering, vbl. n.|ˈtwɪtərɪŋ|
[f. twitter v.1 + -ing1.]
The action of twitter v.1
1. Light tremulous chirping of a bird or birds; a sound resembling or likened to this.
1781Cowper Conversation 448 Will the sweet warbler of the livelong night..Forget his harmony, with rapture heard, To learn the twittering of a meaner bird? 1824Lamb Elia Ser. ii. Captain Jackson (1833) 87 Chords responsive to the twitterings of that slender image of a voice. 1877Baring-Gould Myst. Suffering 87 The twanging of fiddles and twittering of flutes. 1877Black Green Past. ii, The twittering of the young starlings in their nests.
2. Trembling; tremulous excitement; † eager desire or longing, hankering (obs.).
1668Sedley Mulberry Gard. v. i, Though you had a twittering to Althea, you will make ne'er the worse husband to Victoria. 1692L'Estrange Fables I. cccxxxii. 289 A Widow that had a Twittering toward a second Husband.
▪ II. ˈtwittering, ppl. a.
[f. as prec. + -ing2.]
That twitters.
1. Chirping lightly and tremulously, as a bird.
1827Hood Mids. Fairies xxxi, We gather in loud choirs the twittering race. 1857J. Hamilton Less. fr. Gt. Biog. (1859) 172 New leaves are on the trees and twittering broods are in the nest.
2. Trembling, quivering; trembling with excitement or the like, in a flutter. Now dial.
1681W. Robertson Phraseol. Gen. (1693) 1257, I am in a twittering case, inter sacrum saxumque sto. 1821Clare Vill. Minstr. II. 75 The sun now sinks behind the woodland green, And twittering spangles glow the leaves between. 1884Stevenson Let. to Henley Nov. (1899) I. 335 Hardly able to come downstairs for twittering knees. 1936T. S. Eliot Coll. Poems 1909–35 189 Not here Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.
Hence ˈtwitteringly adv.
1860Russell Diary India I. xvi. 255 A large zigzag fire of musketry goes twitteringly along the lines of the trenches. |