| 释义 |
grass root
[grass n.1]
Usu. in pl.
1. lit. The root of a plant of grass.
1766T. Amory J. Buncle (1825) III. 108 Petrified twigs of trees, shrubs, and grass-roots.
2. fig.
a. The fundamental level; the source or origin.
Some of the later examples are influenced by sense b.
1901Kipling Kim xiv. 371 Not till I came to Shamlegh could I meditate upon the Course of Things, or trace the running grass-roots of Evil. 1907Putnam's Monthly July 483/1 Carter had taken out wonderful grass-root values from the first. 1947H. Read (title) The grass roots of art. 1952Times 22 Mar. 7/4 Pushkin and Bakunin were only two of many famous men who were..given an opportunity to study at leisure what would now be called the ‘grass-roots’ of Russian civilization. 1960Times 13 Jan. 21/7 Thus the jobs themselves generate a range of industrial development at the grass⁓roots of the economy. 1963Listener 21 Feb. 323/2 The modernization of agriculture requires the most skilled combination of central direction and grass-roots co⁓operation for success. 1966Oxf. Univ. Gaz. 23 Dec. 438/2 If one goes back, to use a dull cliché, to the grass roots of academic life,..then it seems to me the Franks proposals follow logically. 1969Oz May 32/3 Some of the attitudes and values to be found inherent in the music at its grass roots level.
b. Politics. Used spec. to describe the rank-and-file of the electorate or of a political party. Also attrib. orig. U.S.
1912McClure's Mag. July 324/1 From the Roosevelt standpoint, especially, it was a campaign from the ‘grass roots up’. The voter was the thing. 1935Nation 19 June 697/2 ‘No crisis so grave has confronted our people’ since the Civil War, Mr. Lowden told the grassroots convention at Springfield. 1948Times Lit. Suppl. 13 Mar. 143/4 The self-governing congregation is a unique element in English ‘grass-root’ democracy. 1955Times 12 Aug. 9/6 These are the complaints at grass-root level; in more sophisticated circles the N.L.M. politicians talk of disregard of minority rights and incipient dictatorship. 1959Listener 30 April 746/2 The rather narrow oligarchic regime of President Ngo Dinh Diem [in South Viet-Nam]..seems to be losing contact with the ‘grass roots’. 1966New Statesman 25 Mar. 410/1 The grassroot Tory still prefers to touch his forelock and reverence his ‘betters’.
Hence ˈgrass-rooted ppl. a., ˈgrass rooter.
1935Harper's Mag. Sept. 484/1 ‘We believe,’ the embattled Republican Grass Rooters resolved, [etc.]. Ibid. 489/2 Do we hear the Grass Rooters, the financial interests, and the industrialists raising their voices in protest against this usurpation? 1947Chicago Times 28 June 13/4 Other straw polls in other states indicate that Republican ‘Grass rooters’ quite generally feel the same way. 1957D. Davie Winter Talent 21 Grass-rooted goodness and a joy unmixed Parch unbaptized inside a droughty head. |