| 释义 |
jitney N. Amer.|ˈdʒɪtnɪ|
[Origin unknown.]
1. A five-cent piece, a nickel. slang.
1903Cincinnati Enquirer 2 May 11/5 [In St. Louis] a ‘crown guy’ is a policeman, a ‘gitney’ is a nickel, and ‘mug's landing’ is the Union Station. 1915Nation (N.Y.) 4 Feb. 142/1 The word ‘jitney’..is the Jewish slang term for a nickel. 1916Chambers's Jrnl. June 400/1 Five cents..is the charge for any distance, and as the colloquial name for this coin is a ‘jitney’, this form of traffic has become known as ‘jitney competition’. 1931‘D. Stiff’ Milk & Honey Route 177 Beer or wine at a jitney a throw. 1947W. Saroyan Jim Dandy i. i. 11 Call that money? A jitney? A nickel?
2. In full jitney bus, jitney omnibus. An omnibus or other motor vehicle which carries passengers for a fare, orig. five cents. So, on account of the low fare or the poor quality of these buses, used attrib. to denote anything cheap, improvised, or ramshackle.
1914Let. 28 Nov. in Nation (N.Y.) (1915) 14 Jan. 50/3 This autumn automobiles, mostly of the Ford variety, have begun in competition with the street cars in this city [sc. Los Angeles]. The newspapers call them ‘Jitney 'buses’. 1915N.Y. Even. Post 16 Apr., The jitney wears out the streets and should contribute to their repair. 1916Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 6 July 4/5 The daily jitney service between Nanaimo and South Wellington has been discontinued. Hereafter cars will run on Saturdays only and the fare has been raised from 25 cents to 50 cents. 1916H. L. Wilson Somewhere in Red Gap ii. 59 He..sells these jitney pianos and phonographs and truck like that. 1917E. Frost Lett. (1972) 13, I hired McGrath, the jitney driver, to bring us home. 1919M. A. von Arnim Christopher & Columbus xxxi. 400 He had come in the jitney omnibus to the nearest point. 1920[see Daiquiri]. 1921Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 25 Mar. 2/4 The decision of the Provincial Legislature to prohibit the sale of near beer will affect 58 jitney bars in this city, according to City Licence Inspector Charles Jones. 1923F. Parsons Everybody's Business 215 All the jitney operators on the line. 1925Amer. Speech I. 152/1 That bastard word ‘jitney’ is still used in outlying places, where a ‘jitney dance’ means a nickel dance. 1933N.Y. Herald Tribune 5 Dec. 17/3 We refer to the jitney economists, the boys who play the money tunes only by ear. 1946E. O'Neill Iceman Cometh (1947) i. 36 He never worries in hard times because there's always old friends from the days when he was a jitney Tammany politician. 1947E. A. McCourt Music at Close 108 He would go to the jitney dance held in the big open space behind the town hall unless an outdoor floor had been set up. 1967–8Bahamas Handbk. & Businessmen's Ann. (ed. 7) 197 There are jitneys on New Providence..which travel over unscheduled and not necessarily prescribed routes picking up and dropping off passengers. 1973Philadelphia Inquirer (Today Suppl.) 7 Oct. 8/2 From the museum a jitney carries visitors to the Mills. |