| 释义 |
waste-paper
1. a. Paper cast aside as spoiled, superfluous, or useless for its original purpose. Also fig.
1585Higins Junius' Nomencl. 6/2 Segestria,..waste paper, or other stuffe, wherein occupiers wrap their seuerall wares. 1589Nashe Anat. Absurd. B ij, [They] pretending forsooth to anatomize abuses,..when as there waste paper beeing wel viewed, seemes fraught with nought els saue dogge daies effects. 1601Weever Mirr. Mart., To Wm. Couell A 2, This Poem..so long keeping the corner of my studie, wherein I vse to put waste paper. 1682Dryden Medal Ep. Whigs A 4 b, That so much skill in Hebrew Derivations, may not lie for Wast-paper in the Shop. 1730Swift Drapier's Hill 17 His famous Letters [are] made waste paper. 1772Hartford Merc. Suppl. 18 Sept. 4/1 A draft..being laid in the office, as waste-paper, the prisoner Rogers..altered the date, and..carried it to Sir Robert's as a new draft. 1840N. Amer. Rev. L. 317 It was then..he [Botta] sold to an apothecary, at the price of waste paper, the last six hundred copies of his ‘History of the American War’. 1853Mrs. Gaskell Ruth xxviii, Will you allow me to send you over my Times? I have generally done with it before twelve o'clock, and after that it is really waste-paper in my house. 1869Bradshaw's Railway Man. XXI. 361 The conventions of 1858 and 1862..would thus have been almost rendered mere waste paper. 1905R. Bagot Passport ii. 8 The securities which Monsignor Lelli held..proved to be little better than waste paper.
b. attrib., as waste-paper price, waste-paper trade; waste-paper basket, † box, a basket (or box) into which waste paper is thrown; also fig.
1859Geo. Eliot A. Bede xlviii, There was the *waste-paper basket full of scraps. 1880R. Broughton Sec. Th. ii. x, The almanack..was..angrily torn to shreds, and consigned to the waste-paper basket. 1923J. S. Huxley Ess. Biologist vi. 217 The waste-paper basket of outworn imaginations. a1930D. H. Lawrence Last Poems (1932) 120 All that we know is nothing, we are merely crammed waste-paper baskets Unless we are in touch with that which laughs at all our knowing. 1979London Rev. Bks. 25 Oct. 23/2 Marriage, the Webbs agreed, was the waste-paper basket of the emotions.
1836F. Mahony Rel. Father Prout, Songs Horace v. Wks. (1881) 449 In its October number, just received, and now lying in our *waste-paper box.
1859D'Israeli's Cur. Lit. I. 11 note, His noble library was scattered at *waste-paper prices. 1865Dickens Mut. Fr. iii. i, Half the lump will be waste-paper... Can you get it at waste-paper price? That's the question.
1869W. C. Sandars tr. Uhland's Poems, Biog. Mem. 12 The larger portion of the two first editions was eventually disposed of to the *waste-paper trade.
†2. Blank or unused paper. Obs.
1691Lond. Gaz. No. 2662/4 Lost.., an Affidavit with the Copy thereof, and several Accompts and Memorandums writ in the Wast-Paper thereof. |