| 释义 |
Aladdin|əˈlædɪn|
[The name of the hero of Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp, a story from the Arabian Nights, subsequently popular as a pantomime, ad. Arab. ‘Alā 'al Dīn, lit. ‘nobility of faith’: cf. Aladdinize v.]
1. a. Aladdin's lamp, a magic lamp whose genie could grant any wish of the holder; usu. in fig. contexts. Cf. genie 1 b and Slave of the Lamp s.v. slave n.1 1 d.
1804M. Edgeworth Pop. Tales II. 118 Good will is almost as expeditious and effectual as Aladin's lamp. 1823Byron Juan xii. xii. 11 Yes! ready money is Aladdin's lamp. 1853J. R. Lowell in Putnam's Monthly June 688 When I was a beggarly boy, And lived in a cellar damp, I had not a friend nor a toy, But I had Aladdin's lamp. 1963N. Streatfeild Vicarage Family xvii. 193 You have never begun to work..yet you expect, as if you had Aladdin's lamp, just to give it a rub—and hey presto, there you are at the top of the form.
b. Aladdin lamp, a proprietary name for a type of oil- or paraffin-lamp; also absol.
1920Trade Marks Jrnl. 19 May 956, 24 hours Daylight Aladdin... Kerosene Lamps and Parts thereof... Jack Imber, 134–135, Bank Chambers, Holborn, London... 24th October 1919. 1926–7Army & Navy Stores Catal. 200 The Aladdin paraffin mantle lamp. 1938L. MacNeice Earth Compels 25 The Aladdin lamp mutters in the boarded room. 1943R. Godden Rungli-Rungliot 29 The lamps are Victorian... To me they are far preferable to Aladdins. 1957J. Braine Room at Top xxvi. 211 Roy began to snore, his snortings and rumblings competing with the steady hiss of the Aladdin lamp. 1962Times 1 Jan. 13/4 We use paraffin in Aladdin lamps.
2. Aladdin's cave, a place where great wealth is stored; a treasure-house of jewels or other valuables. Usu. transf. and fig.
1884R. Kipling in Civil & Mil. Gaz. 22 Mar. 3/3 With the vivid sunlight streaming in upon thousands of rainbow-coloured glass drops,..it seemed as unreal as Alladin's Cave. 1922A. M. Hyamson Dict. Eng. Phr. 9/1 Aladdin's cave of wealth, an, vast stores of wealth. 1957J. Braine Room at Top xvi. 150, I was taking Susan not as Susan, but as a Grade A. lovely, as the daughter of a factory-owner, as the means of obtaining the key to the Aladdin's cave of my ambitions. 1963A. Lubbock Austral. Roundabout 170 That rough little room was an Aladdin's Cave! Glass cases lined the walls in which glittered great nuggets of gold and shimmering silver, [etc.]. 1968J. M. White Nightclimber xxii. 171 What Aladdin's cave was on the other side of the door? Spoils from Venice, Cyprus, Byzantium, the Crusades? 1986Good Housekeeping May 51/1 Down in London's Soho is..an Aladdin's cave of cotton jerseys, silks, velvets and unusual cloths. |