| 释义 |
▪ I. grandmother, n.|ˈgrændmʌðə(r), ˈgrænmʌðə(r)|
Also 5 graunt(e)moder, 6 graundemoder, -mother, 7 gran-mother.
[See grand a. 12 b.]
1. a. The mother of one's father or mother.
1424[Implied in grandmotherless]. 1483Caxton Gold. Leg. 429/1 The graunte moder of Saynt aldebaulte. 1496Plumpton Corr. (Camden) p. c, Sir Robert Babthorp, kt. or Dame Elizabeth his wife, grauntfeder & grauntmoder to the said Elizabeth. 1535Coverdale 2 Tim. i. 5 The vnfayned faith..which dwelt first in thy graundemother Lois, and in thy mother Eunica. c1645Howell Lett. I. ii. vi. ii. 182, I made another Latin Speech to the Duke, touching his Gran-Mothers death. 1671Lady M. Bertie in 12th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm. App. v. 23 Her grandmother sent a chaire for her. 1788H. Walpole Remin. ii. 18 It was the portrait of her grandmother. 1860–1F. Nightingale Nursing 26 A great-grandmother, who was a tower of physical strength, descending into a grandmother, perhaps a little less strong.
b. Phrases. this beats my grandmother: said of something that excites astonishment. teach your grandmother to suck eggs (see egg n. 4 b). your grandmother!: said of something with which one disagrees. (Cf. granny 1 c.)
1870‘Mark Twain’ Screamers (1871) 50 ‘Shake the tree—’ ‘Shake your grandmother! Turnips don't grow on trees!’ 1874Trollope Phineas Redux II. xiii. 111 ‘Did you see her?’ said Ned... ‘See your grandmother.’ 1883Harper's Mag. 889/2 Well, this does beat my grandmother, I must say! 1909Galsworthy Joy 1, Mrs. Hope. You'll just attend to what I say and look into that mine! Colonel. Look into your grandmother! 1911G. B. Shaw Getting Married 268 Lesbia. I hate..sentimental people. Mrs. George. Oh, sentimental your grandmother! 1934E. Waugh Handful of Dust ii. 22 ‘I think she [sc. a horse] put in a short step.’ ‘Short step my grandmother.’
c. fig.
1626Will of Carew (Somerset Ho.), My body to my grand⁓mother the Earth. 1650B. Discolliminium 15 Ignorance is the Grand-mother of mistaken Necessity. 1774J. Adams in Fam. Lett. (1876) 46, I strolled away to mother church, or rather to grandmother church. I mean the Romish chapel. 1870E. A. Freeman in W. R. W. Stephens Life & Lett. (1895) II. 9 Atholl..built himself the grandmother of pews. 1879B. Taylor Stud. Germ. Lit. 5 If the Gothic language be the legitimate mother of the Old German, it must also be, through the Saxon, the grandmother of English. 1959Woman 24 Oct. 12/1 My mother and Laura Simmonds, who had lived in each other's pockets since the age of five, had the very grandmother of a row.
d. Grandmother's (Foot)steps, name of a children's game in which one player stands with his back turned to the rest and the others try to approach him in a stealthy manner and touch his back without his seeing them move. The person in front is allowed to turn round often and without warning and any player caught moving is sent back to the starting-line.
1937‘N. Blake’ There's Trouble Brewing i. 30 The children's game called ‘Grandmother's Steps’. 1945E. Waugh Brideshead Revisited 122 She took hold of her subject in a feminine, flirtatious way... She played ‘grandmother's steps’ with it, getting nearer the real point imperceptibly while one's back was turned, standing rooted when she was observed. 1956L. McIntosh Oxford Folly 204 We were playing grandmother's footsteps. 1966J. Betjeman High & Low 37 A game of Grandmother's Steps on the vicarage grass.
2. A female ancestor.
1526Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 76 The fourth thynge that is dispraysed in our graundmother Eue, was that she was curyous. 1588Shakes. L.L.L. i. i. 266 With a childe of our Grandmother Eue, a female. 1606Hieron Truth's Purchase Wks. (1613) I. 61 Our grand-mother Heuah. 1642Fuller Holy & Prof. St. v. iii. 366 Satan tempted our grandmother Eve.
3. attrib. (quasi-adj.)
a1649Drummond of Hawthornden Cypress Grove Wks. (1711) 119 What excellency is there in it, for which he should..repine to be at rest, and return to his old grandmother dust? 1649E. Sparke in J. Shute Sarah & Hagar Pref. A 3 a, Our grave Author..was..master of those three Grandmother-Languages inscribed on the Cross of Christ, besides some others of their progeny. 1814Prophetess iii. iii, I held him here with these grandmother hands.
4. grandmother clock, a clock resembling a grandfather clock, but with a smaller case. Also ellipt.
1922H. S. Barrett A.B.C. Hist. Antique Eng. Furnit. 86 By Grandmother clocks I refer to clocks not exceeding about 5 ft. to 6 ft. in height. 1927Daily Tel. 6 Dec. 3/7 A grandmother clock with brass dial. 1930Aberdeen Press & Jrnl. 31 May 8/3 The gift to ex-Constable Jamie was a beautiful grandmother clock. 1931H. Sutcliffe Persons Unknown i. 11 The quieter pendulum-swing of the slim clocks known as ‘grandmothers’. 1965E. Tunis Colonial Craftsmen vi. 145 In addition to the taller clocks, there were also ‘grandmother’ clocks about five feet high, controlled by shorter, half-second pendulums. 1967B. Palmer Treasury Amer. Clocks 23 Grandmother clocks are diminutive editions of grandfather clocks, standing four feet or less in height.
Hence ˈgrandmotherhood, the condition or fact of being a grandmother; ˈgrandmotherism, the relation of being a grandmother; ˈgrandmotherless a., without a grandmother.
1424E.E. Wills (1882) 57 Þan shall he be left..graunt⁓moderles. 1806A. Seward Lett. (1811) VI. 324 The apparent grandmotherism seems now reversed between us. 1846De Quincey Sophocles' Antigone Wks. 1860 XIV. 201 Surely..she will command that reverence from you, by means of her grandmotherhood, which by means of her ethics she might not.
▪ II. ˈgrandmother, v.
[f. the n.]
trans. and intr. To take care of as a grandmother; to behave in a grandmotherly way (towards); to be the grandmother of. Hence ˈgrandmothering vbl. n. (Cf. grandmotherly a.)
1901Kipling Kim xv. 396 When one cannot dance in the festival one must e'en look out of the window, and grandmothering takes all a woman's time. 1903H. James Better Sort 42 Do you mean by his idea his proposal that I should grandmother his wife? 1923Chambers's Jrnl. Feb. 102/1 A frail little lady who had grandmothered a hefty brood of men. 1929Daily Express 8 Jan. 8/7 Political power has naturally passed into the hands of people with a passion for grandmothering. Ibid. 12 Jan. 8/7, I refuse to believe that Britons are so excessively unmanly as to be driven to this state of grandmothering. 1966E. H. Jones Margery Fry xv. 203 Agnes was grandmothering two schoolboy evacuees. |