释义 |
village, n.|ˈvɪlɪdʒ| Forms: 4– village, 5 vylage, villach-, 5–6 vyllage, 5–7 vilage, 6 wylage, Sc. willage, -aige, welage; also pl. 6 vyllagies, Sc. willagies. [a. OF. village, vilage (mod.F. village), = Pr. vilatge, Sp. village, Pg. villagem (fem.), It. villaggio:—L. villāticum, neut. sing. of villāticus of or pertaining to a villa, f. villa villa: see -age. Cf. late L. villagium, vilatgium.] 1. a. A collection of dwelling-houses and other buildings, forming a centre of habitation in a country district; an inhabited place larger than a hamlet and smaller than a town, or having a simpler organization and administration than the latter. (Cf. the note to town n. 4.)
c1386Chaucer Pard. T. 225 Henne oure a myle, withinne a greet village. a1400Sqr. lowe Degre 491 He had not ryden but a whyle,..Or he was ware of a vyllage. 1422Yonge tr. Secreta Secret. 184 A Candrede in frensh and in Irysh, is a Porcion of grovnde that may contene an hundrid villachis. 1477Rolls of Parlt. VI. 184/1 In any Toune or other village not corporat. c1515Cocke Lorell's B. 14 They sayled England thorowe and thorowe, Vyllage, towne, cyte, and borowe. 1573Tusser Husb. (1878) 85 Much carting, ill tillage, makes som to flie village. 1600Shakes. A.Y.L. iii. iii. 60 A wall'd Towne is more worthier then a village. 1600J. Pory tr. Leo's Africa vii. 287 A large and ample village containing to the number of sixe thousand or mo families. 1617Moryson Itin. i. 51, I remember not to haue seene a more pleasant village than this [the Hague]. 1667Milton P.L. ix. 448 Forth issuing on a Summers Morn to breathe Among the pleasant Villages and Farmes,..The smell of Grain. 1725Watts Logic ii. iii. §4 Consider also, that..the Customs of different Towns and Villages in the same Nation, are..contrary to each other. 1770Goldsm. Des. Vill. 1. 1806 Gazetteer Scot. (ed. 2), Wallacetown; a thriving and populous village in Ayrshire... The village nearly joins to the Newtown of Ayr, and contains about 960 inhabitants. 1860Mill Repr. Govt. (1865) 115/1 A mere village has no claim to a municipal representation. 1882T. Coan Life in Hawaii 43 When the meeting closed at one village, most of the people ran on to the next. transf.1604E. G[rimstone] D'Acosta's Hist. Indies ii. vi. 94 There are whole villages of these Vros inhabiting in the Lake in their boates of Totora, the which are tied together and fastened to some rocke. phr.1770Gentl. Mag. XL. 559 To express the Condition of an Honest Fellow and no Flincher, under the Effects of good Fellowship, he is said to..Come home by the Villages, this is Provincial, when a man comes home by the fields he meets nobody, consequently is sober, when he comes home by the Villages, he calls first at one house, then at another, and drinks at all. b. Applied jocularly to a large town or city, esp. London.
1825C. M. Westmacott Eng. Spy I. 129, I used to keep a good prad here for a bolt to the village. a1860Du Maurier in Moscheles In Bohemia (1897) 124 Living with Henley, No. 85, Newman Street... This is a very jolly little village, and I wish you were over here. 1860Hughes Tom Brown at Oxf. xxviii, You had much better come up to the little village at once, Brown, and stay there while the coin lasts. 1874Slang Dict. 334 Birmingham is called ‘the hardware village’. c. Cambridge slang. (See quot.)
1865Slang. Dict. 266 A Cambridge term for a disreputable suburb of that town, viz., Barnwell, generally styled ‘the village’. d. U.S. A minor municipality with limited corporate powers (see quots.).
1888Bryce Amer. Commw. II. ii. xlviii. 240 A minimum population of three hundred, occupying not more than two square miles in extent, may by popular vote become incorporated as a ‘village’. Ibid. 247 Of these villages and other minor municipalities there are various forms in different States. Ohio, for instance, divides her municipal corporations into (a) cities,..(b) villages, with two classes, the first of from 3000 to 5000 inhabitants, the second of from 200 to 3000,..and (c) hamlets. e. A small self-contained district or community within a city or town; spec. † (a) see sense 1 c; (b) (with capital initial) = Greenwich Village.
1865[see sense 1 c]. [ 1924: implied in Greenwich Villager s.v. Greenwich Village.] 1929E. Wilson I thought of Daisy i. 16 Sue Borglum's pleasantry had been in the vein of the Village; Daisy's was in the taste of Broadway. 1931, etc. [see Greenwich Village]. 1949M. Allingham More Work for Undertaker xii. 156 London is made up of many villages. 1952N.Y. Times 17 Aug. viii–ix. 1w/5 (caption) Sketch of section of..cooperative multi-family for Holliswood, Queens, to be known as Hilltop Village. 1971A. Thorburn Planning Villages iv. 24 The word ‘village’ has a pleasant and attractive connotation for most of us, sufficiently so for it to be borrowed by many estate agents regardless of the context, and to be applied to self-contained neighbourhoods in towns (e.g. at Banbury and Washington, Co. Durham). 1975Harper's & Queen June 35/1 Hampstead—the loveliest of London's historical ‘villages’. 1977Guardian Weekly 25 Sept. 8/3 They call it a village but Skokie is geographically a middle-income suburb of Chicago with a population of 70,000. 1979M. McMullen But Nellie was so Nice i. iv. 23 She had grown up in the Village, on West Ninth Street between Fifth and Sixth. 2. The inhabitants or residents of a village; the villagers.
a1529Skelton Agst. Garnesche iv. 25 The corte, the contre, wylage, and towne, Sayth..Of all prowde knauys thow beryst the belle. 1770Goldsm. Des. Vill. 207 The village all declar'd how much he knew. 1820Combe Syntax, Consol. i. (Chandos) 138 The Village on their Pastor gaz'd, At once afflicted and amaz'd. 1864Tennyson Aylmer's F. 35 A sleepy land,..Where almost all the village had one name. 3. transf. (from 1). A small group or cluster of the burrows of prairie-dogs. Cf. town n. 7 b.
1808Pike Sources Mississ. ii. (1810) 156 note, The Wishtonwish of the Indians, prairie dogs of some travellers,..reside on the prairies of Louisiana in towns and villages. 1814Brackenridge Jrnl. in Views Louisiana 239, I happened on a village of barking squirrels, or prairie dogs. 1835W. Irving Tour Prairies xxxii. 295, I learned that a burrow, or village, as it is termed, of prairie dogs had been discovered. 4. attrib. and Comb. a. Simple attrib. passing into adj., = of or pertaining to, characteristic of, a village or villages; living in or belonging to a village; rural, rustic. Freq. in poetry from the early 18th c.
1585T. Washington tr. Nicholay's Voy. iii. xiii. 95 The Voinuchz or Græcian village men. 1594Shakes. Rich. III, v. iii. 209 The early Village Cock Hath twice done salutation to the Morne. 1608Topsell Four-f. Beasts 160 Of the Village dog or house-keeper. 1613Shakes. Hen. VIII, ii. iv. 159 Enemies, that know not Why they are so; but like to Village Curres, Barke when their fellowes doe. 1634Milton Comus 346 Might we but hear..Or sound of pastoral reed.., or village cock Count the night watches to his feathery Dames. 1636Massinger Duke of Florence ii. iii. sig. E1, 'Tis a plaine Village Girle Sir, but obedient. 1697Dryden Ded. æneis Ess. (ed. Ker) II. 233 Those village words, as I may call them, give us a mean idea of the thing. 1703Rowe Fair Penit. ii. i, Faithful as the simple Village Swain. 1770Goldsm. Des. Vill. 327 She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest, Has wept at tales of innocence distrest. 1779Mirror No. 42 ⁋4 The village-surgeon being then absent. 1783Crabbe Village ii. 2 No longer truth..disdain, But own the Village Life a life of pain. 1803G. Colman John Bull iv. ii. 46 One of the prettiest little village-churches you ever saw in your life. 1813Scott Rokeby v. xxv, But village notes could ne'er supply That rich and varied melody. 1817― Rob Roy I. v. 111 The domestic chaplain, the village doctor..and my uncle. 1818T. G. Fessenden Ladies Monitor 124 Learning should never pose a woman's head,..Whose wealth and beauty sanction higher aims, Than those of village-school instructing aims. 1824M. R. Mitford Our Village I. 6 The village shop, like other village shops, multifarious as a bazaar; a repository for bread, shoes, tea, cheese..for every thing, in short. 1837H. Martineau Soc. Amer. III. 91 Much might be said of village manners in America. 1841Dickens Barn. Rudge xxv. in Master Humphrey's Clock III. 74 They hurried through the village street. 1842Tennyson Poems II. 201 He is but a landscape-painter, And a village maiden she. 1843Cumberland Pacquet 1 Aug. 3/1 His [sc. a raven's] masterpiece was his correct repetition of the Lord's prayer; which..would have done no discredit to many a village schoolmaster. 1847C. Brontë J. Eyre III. v. 121 To be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest. 1852Dickens Bleak Ho. (1853) vii. 61 A dark-eyed, dark-haired, shy, village beauty comes in. 1852Thackeray Esmond I. ii. 58 The village people began to be reconciled presently to their lady. 1853C. M. Yonge Heir of Redclyffe I. vi. 94 A village boy, whom he caught misusing a poor dog. 1854― Heartsease I. i. 2 A party of village children..gathering cowslips. 1855Mrs. Gaskell North & S. I. ii. 27 Mr. Hale..was anxious for the village postman, whose summons to the household was a rap on the back-kitchen window-shutter. Ibid. II. xxi. 281 The house fronted the village green. 1859Geo. Eliot A. Bede I. ii. 28 Mr Rann's leathern apron and subdued griminess can leave no one in any doubt that he is the village shoemaker. Ibid. II. xvii. 5 That village wedding..where an awkward bridegroom opens the dance with a high-shouldered, broad-faced bride. Ibid. xviii. 36 An experienced eye would have fixed on him at once as the village blacksmith. 1860in F. Galton Vac. Tour. (1861) 114 The literati of the southern Slaves are not to be found among a higher class than the village clergy, and masters of village-schools. 1860C. M. Yonge Hopes & Fears I. viii. 316 The apartment was not much behind that at the village inn at Hiltonbury. Ibid. II. xviii. 347 It was..interesting to observe his impression of the English village-life at Hiltonbury. 1861― Young Step-Mother v. 58 The pleasures to which he had been introducing Gilbert, were not merely..the rabbit-shooting and rat-hunting of the farm, nor even the village cricket-match. 1871Maine (title), Village-Communities in the East and West. c1873C. Rhodes Let. in J. Flint Cecil Rhodes (1974) ii. 24 Whether I become the village parson..remains to be proved. 1873W. D. Howells Chance Acquaintance 38 Under the porch of the village store some desolate idlers..had clubbed their miserable leisure. 1883Smiles in Longm. Mag. June 159 He was followed to the grave by a large number of the village labourers. 1890W. Booth In Darkest England ii. iii. 138 Every effort will be made to establish village industries, and I..hope..we may be able to restore some of the domestic occupations which steam has compelled us to confine to the great factories. 1891J. L. Kipling Beast & Man in India viii. 194 The village Elders stand before him with joined hands to learn his Lordship's commands. Ibid. xii. 316 The Eastern cat..is used in a frequently-quoted saying about doubtful matters. ‘If the Punchayat (village council) says it's a cat, why, cat it is.’ 1892C. M. Yonge Old Woman's Outlook 167 The village shopkeeper, the maker of the ‘vinosity’ bread. 1894Kipling 2nd Jungle Bk. (1895) 34 As soon as the villagers saw the smoke in the deserted shrine, the village priest climbed up..to welcome the stranger. 1895C. M. Yonge Long Vacation i. 5 An expedition to play the zither and sing at a village fête. 1907G. B. Shaw Major Barbara 148, I myself have had a village idiot exhibited to me as something irresistibly funny. 1912R. Marsh Judith Lee i. 10 Dickson was at my bedside..and Pierce, the village policeman. 1913Chesterton Victorian Age in Lit. ii. 143 Hardy became a sort of village atheist brooding and blaspheming over the village idiot. 1915J. Buchan Salute to Adventurers i. 9 She was presently driven out of the place by..the baillie, and the village dogs. 1920‘O. Douglas’ Penny Plain xxv. 296 The village women, with little girls in clean pinafores clinging to their skirts. 1923M. Kennedy Ladies of Lyndon ii. 70 I'm afraid..that Modern Art wouldn't be quite suitable... It's only simple village folk, Mr. Ervine. Ibid. 96 The Village Room is quite two miles off. 1924H. de Sélincourt Cricket Match i. 10 Down by the Village Room, where pictures are shown on Friday evenings..and into the village square again. Ibid. ii. 27 Best cricket going, village cricket. 1926L. Elmhirst in M. Yonge Elmhirsts of Dartington (1982) vi. 138 Like the village community of earlier times,..the school community..must engage in many practical enterprises. 1929C. Day Lewis Transitional Poem ii. 24 It is high time to renounce This village idiocy. 1930K. Boyle Plagued by Nightingale (1931) xi. 87 Tomorrow was the village fête. 1930A. P. Herbert Water Gipsies xxiii. 350 She went many times..to the Chiswick Church in the little old village street beside the river. 1932L. Golding Magnolia Street i. vi. 107 He would put up at the village pub until the moment to pounce was due. 1933A. Thirkell High Rising i. 25 She had formed a habit of ordering groceries..on a gigantic scale, from the village store. 1939L. Bemelmans Life Class iii. v. 246 From the railroad station came crates and boxes with materials from New York and Vienna; the village children's hair was full of excelsior as they helped unpack them. 1939F. Thompson Lark Rise x. 186 ‘Everybody who was anything’..kept a maid..stud grooms' wives, village schoolmasters' wives. Ibid. xii. 225 The position of a village schoolmistress was a trying one socially. 1942M. Cable Gobi Desert 122 To buy the printed likeness of the kitchen god at a village fair. 1943A. Christie Moving Finger vii. 82 Emily Barton..has a mental picture of men as..smoking cigars, and in the intervals dropping out to do a few seductions of village maidens. 1948F. Thompson Still glides Stream ii. 18 At that time village houses had no numbers or names. 1949D. Smith I capture Castle i. 5 He does nothing but read detective novels from the village library. 1950New Yorker 23 Sept. 66/3 A lively, exalted young novice..was formerly a village schoolteacher. 1951R. Firth Elements of Social Organization iv. 134 Such behaviour is a function of the social structure, with its emphasis on the village community and the kinship group. 1952M. Laski Village i. 12 The village boys and girls still danced sedately. Ibid. iii. 52 The village people..normally had their radios on all day. 1953G. E. & K. R. Fussell Eng. Countrywoman iv. 123 Farmhouse and cottage furniture was made by the village carpenter. 1953S. Bedford Sudden View i. x. 94 In France, village curés..exact fees from their parishioners. 1954A. Seton Katherine vii. 119 Celibacy might be asked of monk or friar but hardly from..a village parson. 1957J. Cary in R. S. Surtees Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour (1958) p. xi, The few hundred who..had been able to..travel farther than the county town or the village fair. 1957‘M. M. Kaye’ Shadow of Moon xxi. 309 He called upon the Kotwal—the village headman. 1960J. R. Ackerley We think the World of You 40 The small blank eyes mooned stolidly at me..it was like being gaped at by the village idiot. 1967A. Cordell Bright Cantonese ii. 28 The village elders were waiting for me on the little airstrip at Hoon. 1969R. Blythe Akenfield ii. 60 Texts in glass cases hang outside.. and can be read by passengers in the village bus, which just stops there. Ibid. iv. 89 When the village shopkeeper sends things to out-of-the-way cottages..he's going to charge..something for the service. 1969Listener 12 June 814/1 The village chief himself asked us to a dinner of dried deer and shrimp crackers. 1971O. Norton Corpse-Bird Cries i. 3 Most of the fishing would probably be done in the company of a village bobby. Ibid. v. 96 Such a simple life, isn't it, being a village copper? 1973Stornoway Gaz. 13 Jan. 7/2 The annual general meeting of Portree Village Council was held in the Portree Hotel, at which there was a fairly large attendance. a1974R. Crossman Diaries (1976) II. 157 Then we rushed him down to the village hall, which has been built by the energy of Len Edwards, our remarkable local inventor of laundry machinery. 1975Country Life 9 Oct. (Suppl.) 26/1 (Advt.), Family house on village green. 1976‘H. Carmichael’ False Evidence ii. 25 The cottage was set in restful countryside, a quarter of a mile from the village inn. 1976P. R. White Planning for Public Transport vii. 142 Local village shops may also substitute for day-to-day needs. 1978P. Van Greenaway Man called Scavener ii. 21 Unhonoured assignations with village beauties. 1978J. Porter Dead Easy for Dover ii. 25 We had the funeral on the Saturday... The village church was absolutely packed. 1978‘J. Melville’ Axwater ii. 57 The village girls used to go there at the new moon and wish. Like a wishing well. 1979‘S. Kemp’ Goodbye Pussy x. 125 The village doctor..saw her once in a while for measles and mumps. 1980G. Sims in Winter's Crimes 12 149 The village Postmistress, who delighted in gossip. 1981M. Warner Joan of Arc i. 20 Women who..were ducked in village ponds to find out whether or not they were witches. 1981E. Clark Send in Lions xiii. 121 The village postman..had seen Kemp that morning. 1981A. Edwards Sonya xi. 175 On Christmas Eve the village priests came to hold a vespers service. 1981C. Miller Childhood in Scotland 63 We wore heavy black boots made by the village shoemaker. 1983Times (Saturday Suppl.) 29 Jan.–4 Feb. 4/4 (caption) Rekindling village life in Chelsea. †b. Attrib., = village-like; of the size or constitution of a village. Obs.—1
1642Jer. Taylor Episc. (1647) 89 In populous Cityes, not in village Townes, for no Bishops were ever suffered to be in village Townes. c. In objective and obj. genitive, instrumental, locative, or other combs., as village-founder, village-haunter; village-based, village-born, village-dwelling, village-lit, village-made adjs.
1649G. Daniel Trinarch., Hen. V, ccxcix, These..wrought more With village-haunters. 1852Badger Nestorians I. 343 The Jès were all Igrâwy, that is village-dwelling Arabs, who cultivate the soil. 1872Howells Wedd. Journ. (1892) 270 The landscape of village-lit plain and forest-darkened height. 1880Cornh. Mag. Jan. 35 The local hero or eponymous village-founder was the man who cut down the jungle. 1883R. Jefferies Nature near London 221 Each village-made crook had an individuality, that of the blacksmith. 1891Daily News 11 Sept. 3/4 The many village-born men in towns. 1976P. R. White Planning for Public Transport vii. 140 In this situation the village-based independent may score over the larger operator. d. Special combs.: village burrow = sense 3; village butler Cant (see quot.); village college (see quot. 1981); village constable, (a) Hist., in Papua, a local man through whom the orders of the Australian administration were transmitted; (b) a police constable stationed in a village; village gossip, (a) the idle talk of a village (see gossip n. 4); (b) a woman who gossips (see gossip n. 3); village Hampden, a person like John Hampden (1594–1643), one without means or influence who opposes a powerful local person or organization (in imitation of quot. 1751); village-house, the chief house of a Malay village; village pump, a village's communal water pump; freq. used allusively (cf. parish pump s.v. parish n. 7 b).
1893W. H. Hudson Idle Days in Patagonia i. 11 Like..the vizcacha's village burrows, and the beaver's dam, it is made to last for ever.
1795Potter Dict. Cant (ed. 2), Village butlers, old thieves, that would rather steal a dishclout than discontinue the practice of thieving.
1924H. Morris (title) The village college. 1981D. Rowntree Dict. Educ. 342 Village colleges, a UK scheme in community education initiated in rural Cambridgeshire in the 1930s, with a number of colleges each serving a village not only as a secondary school but also as a cultural and recreational centre for old and young alike out of school hours. The scheme was later adopted by several other largely-rural counties.
1924‘R. Daly’ Outpost xxvii. 259 ‘They say they will have no chief but the village-constable,’ he said, ‘and no sorcery except that of the white man.’ 1943F. Thompson Candleford Green vii. 115 The village constable was still regarded by many as a potential enemy. 1965Austral. Encycl. VI. 468/1 In the period before World War II, for the carrying out of policy, Administrations to some extent relied on selected headmen (called luluais) in New Guinea and on village constables in Papua. 1981B. Knox Killing in Antiques viii. 166 The village constable got there in ten minutes flat then ran for his car radio.
1847C. M. Yonge Scenes & Characters xvi. 201 Jane sought for amusement in village gossip. 1952M. Laski Village ix. 146 He'd tell her the village gossip. 1972P. D. James Unsuitable Job iv. 143 The confiding relish of a village gossip about to relate the latest scandal.
1751Gray Elegy 8 Some Village-Hampden that with dauntless Breast The little Tyrant of his Fields withstood. 1857C. M. Yonge Dynevor Terrace I. i. 3 He stalked along like a village Hampden, muttering, ‘The old tyrant shall see whether I'm to be trampled on!’ 1957D. Piper English Face iv. 111 Many of Johnson's portraits have now lost their names..yet some of them no doubt were ‘village Hampdens’. 1978A. Sanders Victorian Historical Novel i. 23 Reade is not mourning the silence of village Hampdens, for..he is aspiring to a history which is ‘familiar rather than heroic’.
1862S. St. John Life Forests Far East I. 7 A passage raised on posts three feet above the ground, led to the great village-house.
1925V. Woolf Common Reader 112 The talk of old women round the village pump. 1953G. E. & K. R. Fussell Eng. Countrywoman vi. Plate 48 (caption) The village pump at Fressingfield, Suffolk: still used. 1955G. Gorer Exploring Eng. Character iv. 61 What a 20-year-old Hereford student calls ‘the proverbial ‘village pump’ attitude and conflicts’ seems to bedevil the life of many. 1978Listener 6 July 27/2 Officially, the village of Montaillou was subject to the bailiff of the local count of Foix... But Professor Ladurie is able to tell us about the exercise..of authority at the level of the village pump. e. (With capital initial.) Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Greenwich Village. U.S.
1950T. Sterling House without Door iv. 41 She's not a Village artist... She was very wealthy once. 1979M. McMullen But Nellie was so Nice i. i. 7 He wore a sort of Village uniform—corduroys and a turtle-necked dark jersey. Hence ˈvillage v. intr., (a) to settle down to a villeggiatura; (b) to visit a village in a pastoral capacity. ˈvillagedom, the condition or status of a village; also, the system of village communities. ˈvillageful, as many as a village contains; the whole of the people of a village. ˈvillagehood = villagedom. ˈvillageless a., having no village. viˈllageous a., of or concerned with villages or village-life. † ˈvillageship, ? a village community. ˈvillageward(s advs., in the direction of the village. ˈvillagism, a mode of expression usual in villages; a rustic phrase.
1819Byron Let. to Hoppner 6 June, I shall go back to Venice before I *village on the Brenta. 1871F. Kilvert Diary 24 Feb. (1977) 130 Villaging about to Mrs Jones at the Infant School, Jo Phillips and Margaret Griffith. 1981‘M. Innes’ Lord Mullion's Secret 27 The Vicar of Mullion, an old man given to antique usages, sometimes described himself as having been ‘villaging’—by which he meant going round the cottagers and chatting them up.
1867McDowall Hist. Dumfries xiii. 144 William I. raised it [Dumfries] from humble *villagedom to be one of the King's own burghs. 1881F. T. Palgrave Visions Eng. 4 O'er the land is wrought The happy villagedom by English tribes From Elbe and Baltic brought.
c1890Stevenson In South Seas iv. (1900) 312 A *villageful of gay companions. 1897M. Kingsley W. Africa 401 They come down in villagefuls among the older tribes.
1890Murray's Mag. May 662 Caudebec is only redeemed from pure *villagehood by its possession of a Mayor.
1889J. J. Hissey Tour in Phaeton 169 An old and lonely country church, standing by itself, *villageless, on rising ground.
1858Thoreau Lett. (1865) 171 Let it be a local and *villageous book.
1762tr. Busching's Syst. Geog. IV. 72 The town contains some corporations of villages or *villageships.
1883Harper's Mag. Sept. 493/2 We strolled *villageward. 1884May Crommelin Brown-Eyes xix, Then the two groups..went back villagewards.
1772Nugent Hist. Fr. Gerund VI. 169 To say, ‘Command me, in every thing,’ they would think a vulgarity and *villagism. |