| 释义 |
ˌhouse-ˈtop
a. The top or roof of a house.
1526Tindale Matt. xxiv. 17 Lett hym whych is on the housse toppe not come doune to take enythinge out of his housse. 1530Palsgr. 233/1 Housetoppe or treetoppe, coypeau de la maison. 1582N. T. (Rhem.) Luke xii. 3 That which you haue spoken into the eare in the chambers shal be preached in the house-toppes. 1828Carlyle Misc. (1857) I. 238 Mounting to the house-top to reach the stars. 1855Macaulay Hist. Eng. xi. III. 1 The streets, the balconies, and the very housetops were crowded with gazers.
b. fig. A public place; esp. (with allusion to Luke xii. 3) in phrase to proclaim, declare; or cry on or from the house-top(s), to make public, to proclaim so that everyone knows. Also attrib.
1870Brewer's Dict. Phr. & Fable 712/1 Proclaim on the housetop, to proclaim or make known to every one; to blab in public. 1895Ibid. (rev. ed.) 632/1 To cry from the house-top. To proclaim (it) from the house-top. 1899Westm. Gaz. 15 Nov. 3/2 The policy of house-top virtue. 1906J. Jackson tr. Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius 35 A man who has done a good deed should be like a horse that has run its race..: in other words, he ought not to proclaim it from the house-tops. 1911C. G. Robertson Eng. under Hanoverians ii. iv. 345 To cry on the house-tops that it was merry in England before the new industry came up. 1931L. Birch Pyramid xviii. 233 Someone should come forward and cry from the housetops that all friendships that are romantic are not, for that reason, immoral. 1934‘G. Orwell’ Burmese Days iii. 52 My friend, you do not think that. If truly you disapprove of the British Empire, you would not be talking of it privately here. You would be proclaiming from the housetops. 1955L. P. Hartley Perfect Woman xxiii. 200 Don't worry; I didn't expect you to proclaim it on the house-tops, and I shan't either. |