| 释义 |
▪ I. jitter, n. colloq.|ˈdʒɪtə(r)|
[Origin unknown.]
1. pl. (usu. the jitters). Extreme nervousness, nervous incapacity; a state of emotional and (often) physical tension; agitation.
1929P. Sturges Strictly Dishonorable ii. 123 Isabelle. Willie's got the jitters—. Judge. Jitters? Isabelle. You know, he makes faces all the time. 1930N.Y. Press 2 Apr. 6/4 The game is played only after the mugs and wenches have taken on too much gin and they arrive at the state of jitters, a disease known among the common herd as heebie jeebies. 1931Charlottesville (Virginia) Progress 23 Mar. 12/8 Swift moving elevators and roller coasters also give her the jitters. 1931Harper's Mag. Mar. 420/2 How much of a price did we pay next day for a not very good party? How many kinds of hangovers are there? How much do you have to drink to get ‘jitters’? I know my hostess called me up to say she had the jitters and her husband an awful hangover. 1932E. Wilson (title) The American jitters. 1933Passing Show 15 July 14/1 Oh Heck, tell some photographer I can't be photographed. The very sight of a camera nowadays gives me the jitters. 1934Redbook Mag. June 38/2 You begin to have the ‘jitters’. Your placid disposition has given way to irritability, sarcasm and dissatisfaction. 1936‘P. Quentin’ Puzzle for Fools vi. 44 My old jitters had returned and I had started to shake. 1937Daily Herald 12 Jan. 15/5 All this chatter about rough play has been to give players..the jitters. 1939F. M. Ford Let. 23 May (1965) 324 All the publishers here have the jitters so badly that they won't look at anything new at all. 1945Univ. of Colorado Stud. Ser. B. II. iv. 42 The cures of General Semantics are not limited, fortunately, to those suffering from platform jitters. 1957Economist 7 Sept. 759/1 The recession jitters now afflicting significant numbers of economists..seem to be better founded on economic evidence than did the others. 1971B. W. Aldiss Soldier Erect 229 The signal came, the machine-gun fire stopped... Geordie was next to me, not showing a sign of his earlier jitters.
b. jitter party Mil. slang (see quot. 1948).
1948Partridge Dict. Forces' Slang 1939–45 102 Jitter party, a party of Japanese sneaking around the perimeter of a camp and trying to cause panic with strange noises and grenades. 1956W. Slim Defeat into Victory xviii. 430 Only a few jitter parties prowled about the perimeter. 1962Times 16 Oct. 14/6 Still less was anyone to return the unaimed small-arms fire so often indulged in after nightfall by Japanese ‘jitter-parties’.
2. Chiefly Electronics. Random or irregular variation in the shape or timing of a regularly repeated pulse; the resulting unsteadiness of an image in a cathode-ray tube. Also in Cinemat., jerkiness of the picture.
1943Electronic Engin. XVI. 55/2 Absence of ‘jitter’ or hum derived from fluctuations of the H.T. supply potential. 1954Ibid. XXVI. 37/2 V6..failed to fire properly..and caused considerable ‘jitter’ in the output pulse length. 1959Halas & Manwell Technique Film Animation xix. 231 The main danger of rostrum tracks and pans is strobing, or jitter. Ibid. 339 Jitter, uncontrolled movement on the screen caused by faulty animation, tracing or camera work. 1960J. D. Haigh Radiolocation Techniques v. 76 If the displayed picture is to be..free from ‘jitter’ echoes must appear in exactly the same position at each recurrence of the time-base. 1966Jrnl. Acoustical Soc. Amer. XXXIX. 920 The principal experimental parameters are the mean interval between pulses and root-mean-square deviation or jitter about this interval. 1966R. J. Ross Television Film Engin. i. 5 Very slight errors in registration cause vertical or horizontal unsteadiness in screen presentations, commonly known as jitter or weave.
So ˈjitteriness; ˈjittery a., nervy, jumpy, upset, ‘on edge’; also transf.
1931H. Crane Let. 1 May (1965) 369 I'm too jittery to write a straight sentence. 1936‘P. Quentin’ Puzzle for Fools iv. 26 A slight return of jitteriness. 1937Daily Mirror 27 Feb. 10/4 Stop being so jittery. What if we have missed the bus? There will be another later. 1941Penguin New Writing X. 23 Jittery light sprang on the screen. 1946Mind LV. 137 There is the effect of their [sc. the Wittgensteinians'] therapy upon ordinary philosophers. Under its attack, the latter tend, in general, to become ‘jittery’ and to retreat into worried silence. 1950H. E. Bates Scarlet Sword ii. 17 An atmosphere of tense and growing jitteriness. 1957Listener 12 Dec. 968/2 An impression of weakness and jitteriness. 1963A. Ross Australia 63 viii. 153 Barrington made 33, in his more jittery manner, before flicking at an outswinger and being caught at slip. 1970B. W. Aldiss Moment of Eclipse 47 Nobody gets jittery down there? 1972Jrnl. Social Psychol. LXXXVIII. 279 Clutched-up, jittery, stirred-up, fearful.
▪ II. jitter, v. colloq.|ˈdʒɪtə(r)|
[Origin unknown.]
1. intr. To move in an agitated manner; to exhibit alarm, to act in a nervous way, to get the ‘jitters’.
1931A. M. Mackenzie Cypress in Moonlight iv. iv. 226 Her lace cap jittered tremulously till her earrings rattled. 1932Brevities (N.Y.) 5 Dec. 16 (heading) Jittering junkies sniff sexy joy flakes. 1936M. Allingham Flowers for Judge xxi. 301 You've been jittering around the Continent like an agitated tourist. 1938N. & Q. 5 Mar. 172/1 My daily paper this morning points out that the total of the workless is higher, and adds, ‘But don't jitter!’ 1959‘P. Quentin’ Shadow of Guilt vii. 67 My thoughts jittered around Chuck. 1960‘S. Harvester’ Chinese Hammer vi. 64 There was a funny atmosphere about him. He jittered. 1966Electronics 17 Oct. 109 If the error signal during the measurement period is too low, the antenna may jitter. 1970New Yorker 28 Feb. 73/1 He sat there quietly, taking part in the dinner, but I knew that under the table his leg was jittering wildly.
2. trans. To propel by nervous energy; to fluster.
1932E. Hemingway Death in Afternoon ii. 18 His effort to be statuesque while his feet jittered him away out of danger was very funny to the crowd. 1951C. Simak Time & Again (1956) xvi. 78 He knew that I would catch and he thinks he can jitter me.
3. trans. To subject (a series of pulses, or some characteristic of it) to rapid variation. So ˈjittered ppl. a.
1960J. D. Haigh Radiolocation Techniques xvii. 251 In order that an aircraft might be able to identify the responses to its own transmissions its pulse recurrence frequency was ‘jittered’ automatically. 1966Jrnl. Acoustical Soc. Amer. XXXIX. 920/2 Jittering the interval between pulses might also eliminate perceptual differences. Ibid. 922/1 Assumptions of ideal distributions were used to obtain power-density spectra of jittered pulse-train signals. |