| 释义 |
ˈwater-spout, ˈwaterspout, n.
1. A spout, pipe, or nozzle, through which water is discharged; also † a squirt, syringe.
1390Gower Conf. III. 125 This signe [sc. Aquarius] is verraily resembled Lich to a man which halt assembled In eyther hand a water spoute, Wherof the stremes rennen oute. 1585Higins Junius' Nomencl. 393/2 Sipho, a waterspowt, or a water squirt. 1638Cal. Anc. Rec. Dublin (1892) III. 342 An instrument called a water spoute, which is verie necessarie for quenchinge of any greate fire sodainlie. 1730A. Gordon Maffei's Amphith. 230 Next follows the Cornish,..with a Water-spout. 1751Ld. Bankton Inst. Law Scot. I. 682 One cannot, by his fact or deed, throw the water from his own upon his neighbour's grounds, by water-spouts or otherwise. 1821Praed Gog Poems 1865 I. 97 The red blood started out Like water from a water-spout. 1841Dickens Barn. Rudge lxv, Lighted brands came whirling down,..One rolled beneath a wooden bench..another caught a water⁓spout. 1848― Dombey xlii, Mr. Carker..looked down at Mr. Dombey..like a leering face on an old water-spout.
attrib.1611Speed Hist. Gt. Brit. ix. xiii. §2 The Maior to attend in his owne person as chiefe Cup-waiter..to serue the King in a Cup of gold with spices, and for his Fees to haue the said Cup, and a Water-spout-pot of gold thereunto belonging. 1881Instr. Census Clerks (1885) 92/2 Spouting Maker. Water Spout Maker.
†b. A jet of water from a fountain or from a geyser. Obs.
1634Brereton Trav. (Chetham Soc.) 56 We were then brought down to the water-work, where was a ball tossed and danced two yards high by the strength and force of the water-spout. 1712J. James tr. Le Blond's Gardening 4 Fountains with Water-spouts. 1804Naval Chron. XI. 43 There are several water-spouts of inferior note near the spring of Geyser.
¶2. In Ps. xlii. 7 (Bible version) the word is now commonly apprehended as an example of sense 3 below. It was, however, probably intended as a metaphorical use of sense 1; and it seems likely that the meteorological sense 3 arose from recollection of the passage of the psalm.
The Heb. word çinnōr, here rendered by ‘waterspout’, occurs elsewhere only in 2 Sam. v. 8, where it has been interpreted ‘spout or gutter on a roof’: so Vulg. domatum fistulas (Wyclif 1382 ‘the goters of the hows eues,’ Douay ‘the gutters of the house toppes’); the Bible of 1611 has ‘the gutter’, and the Revised Version 1881 ‘the watercourse’. In the psalm, the word is rendered in the LXX. by καταρράκτης and in the Vulg. by cataracta (Wycl. ‘gooteris’, Douay ‘floud-gates’); the mod. translators from the Heb. essayed to find a literal rendering in accordance with the apparent sense of the word in 2 Sam. v. 8; hence Pagninus has fistularum (whence Coverdale by misapprehension renders ‘whistles’); the Great Bible (1539) has ‘water-pipes’.
1611Bible Ps. xlii. 7 Deepe calleth vnto deepe at the noyse of thy water-spouts.
3. Meteorol. A gyrating column of mist, spray, and water, produced by the action of a whirlwind on a portion of the sea and the clouds immediately above it.
1738T. Shaw Trav. 362 Water Spouts are more frequent near the Capes of Latikea, Greego, and Carmel than in any other Part of the Mediterranean Sea. 1747Scheme Equip. Men of War 23 Like Monsoons or Water-Spouts, the higher they rise, the more they are contracted. 1787tr. Volney's Trav. Syria & Egypt (1788) I. 340 And hence will result those columns of water known by the name of Typhons and water-spouts. 1815J. Smith Panorama Sci. & Art II. 51 When a whirlwind happens at sea, or over the surface of water, it forms the phenomenon called a water-spout. 1818Keats Endym. iii. 346 When a dread waterspout had rear'd aloft Its hungry hugeness. 1829J. Rennie in Loudon's Mag. Nat. Hist. I. 458 Water-spouts make their appearance from the bosom of a heavy cloud,..gradually descending in a point like an inverted cone, sometimes perpendicularly, and sometimes bending, or waved. 1900G. Tyrrell Oil & Wine (1907) 99 After many vain reachings towards one another, sea and sky at last unite in the waterspout.
b. A sudden and violent fall of rain; a cloudburst.
1779Thicknesse Journ. France (1789) I. 351 The water⁓spouts which fell into the middle of those narrow streets almost deluged us. 1815Scott Guy M. xxiii, Heaps of gravel and stones, which had been swept together when some torrent or water-spout from the neighbouring hills overflowed the marshy ground below. 1827― Highl. Widow v, This mountain rivulet, suddenly swelled by a water-spout, or thunderstorm, has often been the cause of those accidents, which, [etc.]. 1842Borrow Bible in Spain xxvi, The demons of the clouds..assailed them with water-spouts as they toiled up the steep winding paths of Fuencebadon. 1862J. Skelton Nugæ Crit. vii. 301 It had begun to rain..a down-pour, a pelt, a water-spout. 1889Gretton Memory's Harkback 15 A waterspout burst on the hill overhanging the village of Mordiford.
c. fig.
1852J. Bright in G. M. Trevelyan Life (1913) 201 ‘After Lord Derby, the deluge,’ says Lord Maidstone... The ‘deluge’ means Manchester, it is said—a sort of political waterspout which is to sweep away all that Peer and Parson hold dear.
Hence ˈwaterspout v. intr. (impers.), nonce-wd.
1892Stevenson Vailima Lett. (1895) 190 It was water⁓spouting; we were drenched before we got out of the town. |