| 释义 |
how-do-you-do, how-d'ye-do, phr. and n.
Also 7 howdee do, 9 how-d'y-do, how-de-do, how d'you do.
1. A phrase inquiring after the health or welfare of the person addressed: see do v. 19.
1697Vanbrugh æsop ii. i, There, how d'ye do now? 1738Swift Pol. Conversat. 1 How do you do, Tom? 1882J. Hawthorne Fort. Fool i. xxx, I looked in to say how-d'ye-do, but it isn't a serious call.
2. n. Used as a name for the inquiry (which is often used as a mere greeting or salutation); = prec. 2. (In quot. 1632 applied to the inquirer.)
1632Brome North. Lasse i. vi. Wks. 1873 III. 15 This Howdee do I mean with a cast Gown to put in apparel, and make my Gentleman Usher. 1797Burke Regic. Peace iii. Wks. VIII. 301 The pacifick bearer of your ‘how do you does’. 1824Miss Mitford Village Ser. i. (1863) 121 Welcomes and how-d'ye-dos were pouring both at once on either side. 1832J. R. Underwood Jrnl. in Filson Club Hist. Q. (1941) XV. 43 Joel Yancey..was always ready with a how d'ye do. 1928D. H. Larwence Let. 27 Mar. (1962) II. 1049 Goethe began millions of intimacies, and never got beyond the how-do-you-do stage. 1938J. Cary Castle Corner iv. 213 When he came..to make love as carelessly as how d'you do, he felt betrayed and lost.
3. A ‘business’; an embarrassing or awkward state of things. [Cf. do n., to do n. (do v. 33 b).]
1835Haliburton Clockm. Ser. i. xxvi. (1837) 280 Thinks I, here's a pretty how do you do; I'm in for it now, that's a fact. 1885Gilbert Mikado ii. in Orig. Comic Operas (1886) 31 Here's a pretty state of things! Here's a pretty how-de-do! 1890Harper's Weekly 24 May 406/2 Here was a pretty how-d'ye-do! Going off with a silver spoon in his pocket.
Hence how-d'ye do v., to say ‘How d'ye do?’ to.
1797–1802G. Colman Br. Grins, Knt. & Friar i. xxxv, She met them every day, ‘Good morninging’ and ‘how d'ye doing’. 1811W. R. Spencer Poems 143 One half in How-d'y-doing goes. 1831Lady Granville Lett. (1894) II. 89 [She] Bon jours and how-d'ye-does all the visitors much more audibly and busily than I do myself. |