| 释义 |
gun-boat, gunboat|ˈgʌnbəʊt|
1. a. A boat or small vessel of light draft carrying one or more guns of large calibre; any small vessel fitted for carrying guns.
1793Craufurd in Ld. Auckland's Corr. (1862) III. 117 The enemy were masters of the shore, and entirely commanded it by their gunboats. 1797Nelson in Nicolas Disp. (1845) II. 404 The Spaniards having sent out a great number of Mortar Gun-boats and armed Launches. 1836Marryat Midsh. Easy xiii, A small convoy..under the protection of two gun-boats. 1880McCarthy Own Times III. xlii. 264 Four of the gunboats were almost immediately disabled.
attrib.1804Larwood No Gun Boats 25 A forest of Gun⁓boat-masts. Ibid. 40 This is the reception destined for the Gun Boat Armada. 1874Bancroft Footpr. Time xxvi. 664 A second unsuccessful gunboat attack.
b. gunboat diplomacy, diplomacy supported by the use, or threatened use, of military force.
1927U.S. Naval Inst. Proc. Feb. 234 It has been said that the days of ‘gunboat diplomacy’ in China are over. 1960Daily Tel. 2 Sept. 12/2 ‘Gun-boat’ diplomacy has long and properly disappeared. 1961Ibid. 6 July 1 The Iraqi delegate called the British action in Kuwait ‘gunboat diplomacy at its worst’. 1969Times 3 Mar. 23/4 (Advt.), There's nothing to regret about the passing of gunboat diplomacy.
2. local U.S. Coal-mining. ‘A self-dumping box on wheels, used for raising coal on slopes, and holding three or four tons of coal’ (Cent. Dict.).
3. Usu. in pl. Large shoes or feet. U.S. slang.
1870D. MacRae Americans at Home I. 68 Most of the people wear rubbers over their boots—gunboats as they sometimes call them from their size. 1919Dialect Notes V. 69 Gunboats, the feet. ‘Keep your gunboats out of my way.’ 1932J. Farrell Studs Lonigan (1936) i. ii. 22 Reardon nodded as he shifted his weight from the right to the left gunboat. 1939Amer. Speech XIV. 90 Gun boats, big shoes. 1951in Wentworth & Flexner Dict. Amer. Slang (1960) 235 He brought some of the [size 14 EE] gunboats with him from the states, but they wore out. |