| 释义 |
ˈhoney-dew
1. A sweet sticky substance found on the leaves and stems of trees and plants, held to be excreted by aphides: formerly imagined to be in origin akin to dew.
1577B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. iv. (1586) 180 b, The leaves..bedewed with Hony..In the morning, our common people call it Manna, or Hony dewe, cleaving to the leaves before the rising of the sunne. 1588Shakes. Tit. A. iii. i. 112 Fresh teares Stood on her cheekes, as doth the honydew Vpon a gathred Lillie almost withered. 1657S. Purchas Pol. Flying-Ins. 133 Pliny affirmed the Hony-dew to bee either the sweat of the heaven, or the slaver or spittle of the stars, or the moisture of the aire purging it self. 1789G. White Selborne lxiv. (1875) 309 In the sultry season of 1783 honeydews were so frequent as to deface and destroy the beauties of my garden. 1883J. G. Wood in Gd. Words Dec. 763/1 The sweet juice which is exuded by the aphis..is popularly known as ‘honey-dew’.
2. An ideally sweet or luscious substance; often, like dew, represented as falling: sometimes applied to the nectar of flowers or to honey itself.
1608Topsell Serpents 65 Their stomach..wherein they [bees]..keepe their Honny dew which they haue gathered. 1646G. Daniel Poems Wks. 1878 I. 52 Sweet, as the Hony⁓deaw, which Hybla hath. 1695Blackmore Pr. Arth. ii. 347 Hony-Dews fall in delicious Showers. 1797Coleridge Kubla Khan 53. 1798 ― Anc. Mar. v. xxvi, The other was a softer voice, As soft as honey-dew. 1871B. Taylor Faust (1875) I. xxii. 197 Little step and lofty leap Through honey-dew and fragrance.
fig.a1835Mrs. Hemans Poems, Fount. Obliv., The cool honey-dews of dreamless rest. 1878Symonds Sonn. M. Angelo 2 On bitter honey-dews of tears.
3. A kind of tobacco sweetened with molasses.
1843J. Lumsden Let. 15 May in Amer. Memoranda (1844) 14 The manufacturing of the nigger-head,..pigtail, honey-dew, and other varieties of the stimulating and soothing herb. 1857Kingsley Two Y. Ago viii, I say, how do you sell honeydew? 1894Daily News 12 Mar. 6/2, I took up a paper containing 2 oz. of sunflaked honeydew.
4. A colour resembling that of a honeydew melon.
1921Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 19 Oct. 5/6 (Advt.), Combination dark tones and lighter hues, such as algonquin, honeydew, jade. 1949Brit. Colour Council Dict. Colours Int. Decoration III. 13 Honeydew, a colour name..adopted here as a more attractive name for B.C.C. standard Carrot.
5. honeydew melon, a cultivar of the musk melon, Cucumis melo, which has a smooth ivory or pale yellow skin and sweet greenish flesh.
1916Country Gentleman 2 Sept. 1615/1 (heading) The honey dew melon. Ibid., A new melon has recently been introduced... It has been christened Honey Dew... The Honey Dew is the result of crossing the Rocky Ford cantaloupe with a South African melon somewhat resembling a Casaba. It was propagated by John E. Gauger, of Colorado. 1923A. Ward Encycl. Food 314 The Honey Dew has a smooth, somewhat warted, creamy-white to greyish skin. 1959P. Roth Goodbye, Columbus (1969) iii. 46 And there were melons—cantaloupes and honey dews. 1962Whitaker & Davis Cucurbits ix. 189 All ‘Honey Dew’ melons should have an adequate ethylene treatment. Ibid. x. 207 The cultivars ‘Hales's Best’ and ‘Honey Dew’ were..low in soluble solids.
So ˈhoney-dewed a., (a) bedewed with honey; (b) covered with honey-dew.
1596R. L[inche] Diella (1877) 34 Thy hony-dewed tongue exceedes hir far in sweete discourse. 1798Southey Poems, Oak of Fathers, The bees o'er its honey-dew'd foliage play'd. 1868Darwin Anim. & Pl. II. xxv. 337 Horses..injured by eating mildewed and honeydewed vetches. |