| 释义 |
Waterloo|ˌwɔːtəˈluː|
The name given to the battle fought outside the village of Waterloo, near Brussels, on June 18, 1815, in which Napoleon was decisively and finally defeated. Hence a. (with a, his): Something which is a ‘settler’; a decisive and final contest; chiefly in the phrase to meet one's Waterloo.
1816Byron To Moore 5 Dec., It [Armenian] is..a Waterloo of an Alphabet. 1842J. Aiton Domest. Econ. (1857) 68 If there must be a Waterloo, let it be a conflict for all the minister's rights, so that he may never require to go to law in his lifetime again. 1859W. Phillips Lesson of Hour 11 Every man meets his Waterloo at last. 1887Times (weekly ed.) 24 June 9/3 He will have fought and lost his Waterloo. 1905A. Conan Doyle Return of Sherlock Holmes 356 We have not yet met our Waterloo, Watson, but this is our Marengo. 1961C. McCullers Clock without Hands iii. 67, I felt right then and there I had met my Waterloo. 1982Times 20 Oct. 19/6 The main fount of the economic nightmare now engulfing the world has met with its Waterloo.
b. The name of a bright blue tint (see quots.).
1823Moore Country Dance & Quadrille 84 Eyes of blue (Eyes of that bright, victorious tint, Which English maids call ‘Waterloo’). 1871Mrs. H. Wood Dene Hollow xxxviii, The frock..was of that dark bright blue colour called Waterloo, after the somewhat recent battle of Waterloo.
c. attrib.: Waterloo ball, a frivolous entertainment preceding a serious occurrence (with reference to a ball given in Brussels by the Duchess of Richmond on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo); † Waterloo bang-up = Waterloo cracker; Waterloo blue (cf. b. above); Waterloo church (see quots. 1938, 1961); Waterloo cracker, a kind of firework (cf. cracker 6); Waterloo Cup, in Coursing, a race held annually at Altcar, near Liverpool; † Waterloo fly, an artificial fly with blue wings; † Waterloo helmet (see quot.).
1954P. Toynbee Friends Apart xi. 132, I now see these dances as a succession of *Waterloo Balls, a rapturously gay company, rapturously doomed. 1968Listener 11 July 44/3 Is it a Waterloo Ball we are invited to watch, a permanent party on the eve of great events?
1826Hone Every-day Bk. II. 1310 His companion cracks a *Waterloo bang-up in their faces.
1858Miss Sewell Ursula vii, There she was..dressed out in a bright blue silk dress,—what is called a *Waterloo blue.
1938B. F. L. Clarke Church Builders of 19th C. ii. 24 In 1828 the Church Building Society was incorporated by Parliament. The same Act abolished Church Briefs... The churches built as the result of the Act were officially known as the Commissioners' Churches; the general public called them *Waterloo Churches. 1961M. H. Port Six Hundred New Churches ii. 28 The popular misnomer, ‘Waterloo Churches’, became applied to those built with the aid of the first parliamentary grant. [Note] The term is sometimes applied only to the four churches built in the old parish of Lambeth (St John, Waterloo Bridge Road; St Luke, Norwood; St Mark, Kennington; St Matthew, Brixton). This may originate from St John's having been commonly termed..‘Waterloo Church’, which refers, of course, to its site. 1972N. Pevsner Some Archit. Writers 19th c. v. 29 This was the heyday of the Greek Revival and the so-called Waterloo churches.
1833Carlyle Sart. Res. in Fraser's Mag. Nov. 583/2 What vehicle of that sort have we, except Fraser's Magazine? A vehicle all strewed (figuratively speaking) with the maddest *Waterloo-Crackers. 1851Mayhew Lond. Labour I. 430/1, I took 15s...for waterloo crackers and ball crackers (the common trade names), ‘waterloo’ being the ‘pulling crackers’. 1878Stevenson Inland Voy. 72 The child was letting off Waterloo crackers all over the floor.
1836Bell's Life 20 Mar. 3/5 *Waterloo Cup, eight dogs... Deciding course.—Melanie beat Unicus, and won the Cup. 1898[see stake n.2 3]. 1939R. Godden Black Narcissus xx. 182 Call in your mad dog, Clo. Is it the Waterloo Cup you've entered it for? 1983Times 3 Mar. 3/2 More than 300 demonstrators yesterday disrupted the second day of the Waterloo Cup hare coursing meeting in Lydiate Field, Lancashire.
1837J. Kirkbride Northern Angler 61 The *Waterloo Fly.
1887Pall Mall Budget 27 Jan. 16/1 The uniform of the old Life Guards includes a *Waterloo helmet, with crest and plume at the side. |