| 释义 |
▪ I. vapouring, vbl. n.|ˈveɪpərɪŋ|
[f. vapour v.]
1. Emission of vapour; evaporation. rare.
1548Elyot, Respiratio, a breathynge, or vapourynge. 1651French Distill. iii. 64 That Liquor..may be rectified by the vapouring away of the flegme.
2. The action of talking or acting in a high-flown or pretentious manner.
c1630Sanderson Serm. (1681) II. 306 The tongue may boast great things, and talk high... We call it vapouring; and well may we so call it. 1656Earl of Monmouth tr. Boccalini's Pol. Touchstone (1674) 269 Spanish Officers,..with their vapouring, distaste the good servants of so great a Queen. 1706Vanbrugh Mistake iv. 293 Take thy satin pincushion..thou madest such a vapouring about yesterday. 1773Johnson Lett. 25 March (1788) I. 80 Harry will be happier now he goes to school and reads Milton. Miss will want him for all her vapouring. 1816Earl of Dudley Lett. 22 June (1840) 146 It is really amazing, that after all their vapouring..they should not have ventured to assail him. 1840Carlyle Heroes v. (1904) 176 Consider them, with their tumid sentimental vapouring about virtue. 1879McCarthy Own Times II. 197 The errors of which Lord Derby had been guilty and the preposterous vapourings of some of his less responsible followers.
3. fig. in pl. Vain imaginations.
1866‘Mark Twain’ Lett. from Hawaii (1967) 118 All the good sound sense or point there was in his vaporings could have been boiled down into half a page of foolscap. Ibid. 242 The creature has got no sense, but his vaporings sound strangely plausible sometimes. 1873Dixon Two Queens i. vi. I. 44 These stings of conscience..were not the vapourings of an idle fancy.
▪ II. vapouring, ppl. a.|ˈveɪpərɪŋ|
[f. as prec.]
1. Acting or talking in a pretentious or high-flown manner.
1647R. Josselin Diary (1908) 45, 25 Troops came to quarter with us, somewhat bold and vapouring. c1670O. Heywood Diaries (1881) II. 311 To make big of it, as if it did constitute us righteous before god, as the vapouring pharisee. 1691The Bragadocio 22 'Tis that Fierce, Vapouring, Coward, Bravado, I fancy. 1794Manners France 29 Prussia's fame and Glory's fled, And you're a vapouring fool. 1834Gentl. Mag. CIV. i. 26 The bustling, vapouring, chattering Duke of Newcastle. 1842Thackeray Contrib. to Punch Wks. 1900 VI. 47 It is always a comfort to read of those absurd vapouring vainglorious Frenchmen obtaining a beating. 1864C. Knight Passages Work. Life I. i. 57 The burly Englishman regarded the vapouring little man with something like..contempt.
2. Having a fantastical, pretentious, or foolishly boastful character.
1649tr. Boehme's Epistles To Rdr. (1886) 2 The frame and structure of our knowledge, which by our artificial reason we should build unto ourselves upon that foundation, would be but a vapouring motion. 1721Strype Eccl. Mem. xvii. II. 380 They told Barnaby, in a vapouring sort, (which that Nation was then much addicted to) how little Harm England in their Wars was like to do them. 1795Burke in Ellis Orig. Lett. Ser. ii. IV. 542 We shall not..employ a person capable of writing such miserable, vapouring and empty stuff. 1806T. S. Surr Winter in Lond. III. 240 The vapouring vanity of one struggling against opinion, and fearing to sink in human estimation. 1859Green Oxf. Stud. (O.H.S.) 165 In this burst of vapouring Toryism open persecution had at last reached its close. 1877Owen Wellesley's Desp. p. xxxiii, Buonaparte's vapouring letter to Tippoo and gasconading demeanour in Egypt.
3. Full of vapour; emitting or giving off a vapour.
1648Hexham ii, Een domp-gat, a smoakie or a vapouring hole. 1800Coleridge Piccolom. ii. i, Now the vapouring wine Opens the heart and shuts the eyes.
4. Of the nature of vapour; vaporous.
1821Clare Vill. Minstr. II. 192 As vap'ring clouds by summer's suns are driven. 1854S. Dobell Balder xxv. 181 Like some great vapouring cloud Topping a cumulous heaven of mysteries.
Hence ˈvapouringly adv.
1653Lilburn Tryed & Cast 154 It would make a man smile, to read what hee vapouringly talks. 1767Sterne Tr. Shandy ix. iii, The Corporal..gave a slight flourish with his stick—but not vapouringly. 1892Sat. Rev. 20 Aug. 209/2 [He] spoke rather vapouringly..about the House of Lords. |