| 释义 |
horn-book|ˈhɔːnbʊk|
A leaf of paper containing the alphabet (often with the addition of the ten digits, some elements of spelling, and the Lord's Prayer) protected by a thin plate of translucent horn, and mounted on a tablet of wood with a projecting piece for a handle. A simpler and later form of this, consisting of the tablet without the horn covering, or a piece of stiff cardboard varnished, was also called a battledore (q.v. 3). For an exhaustive account see A. W. Tuer, History of the Horn-Book (1896).
1588Shakes. L.L.L. v. i. 49 Yes, yes, he teaches boyes the Horne-booke: What is Ab speld backward with the horn on his head? 1589Pappe w. Hatchet C iij, Such vnmannerlie knaues..must bee set againe to their A.B.C. and learne to spell Our Father in a Horne booke. 1639Bury Wills (Camden) 176 For the buyeing and provideing of horne bookes and primers to be giuen to poore children. 1682N. O. Boileau's Lutrin i. Argt., St. George oth' back⁓side of the Horn-book, The Dragon kills, to Humour Scorn-book. 1717Prior Alma ii. 463 To Master John the English maid A horn-book gives of gingerbread, And that the child may learn the better, As he can name, he eats the letter. 1763Brit. Mag. IV. 131 Being ambitious to commence author, I was composing a new horn-book. a1842Hone in A. W. Tuer Hist. Horn-Bk. I. i. 7 A large wholesale dealer in..school requisites recollects that the last order he received for Horn-books came from the country, about the year 1799. From that time the demand wholly ceased..In the course of sixty years, he and his predecessors in business had executed orders for several millions of Horn-books. 1851D. Jerrold St. Giles xiii. 135 A child at the horn-book might spell it. 1864Chambers' Book of Days II. 233/1 The ‘Horn-book’ gradually gave way to the ‘Battledore’ and the ‘Primer’.
b. transf. A treatise on the rudiments of a subject; a primer.
1609Dekker (title) The Gulls Horne-booke. 1757Connoisseur No. 83 (Tuer) Under the title of the Rhymer's Play-thing, or Poetaster's Horn-Book. 1790Wolcott (P. Pindar) Adv. Fut. Laureat iii. Wks. 1812 II. 339 Go find of Politics the lost Horn-book. 1847H. Piddington (title) The Horn Book of Storms for Indian and China Seas. 1848Lytton Harold vi. vii, I come not here to learn the horn-book of war. 1874Motley Barneveld II. xi. 30 Ignorant of the very hornbook of diplomacy.
c. attrib., as horn-book lore, horn-book school.
1681W. Robertson Phraseol. Gen. (1693) 215 A Battle⁓dore boy or Horn-book-boy. 1766Entick London IV. 403 The third school is the horn-book school, where 30 children are taught by the mistress. 1832J. Bree St. Herbert's Isle etc. 154 The horn-book lore I early knew. |