| 释义 |
wet blanket
1. A blanket that has been drenched in water; esp. one used for quenching a conflagration. Chiefly in allusive use.
1662Atwell Faithf. Surveyor 95 Of quenching an house on fire. The Instruments..are..forks, wet-blankets, ladders,..pails, &c. Ibid. 97 Cover the out-side with wet blankets, hair-cloths, &c. that neither the flame get out nor air get in. 1702E. Baynard Cold Bathing ii. (1709) 264 At Whitny in Oxfordshire, those who work at the Blanket-Mills, carry wet Blankets in their Arms next their Breast, Winter and Summer, and never catch Cold. 1772Cumberland Fashionable Lover i. i. 4 His humours damp all mirth and merriment, as a wet blanket does a fire. 1821Byron Juan iii. xxxvi, Lambro's reception at his people's banquet Was such as fire accords to a wet blanket. 1838Pusey in Liddon Life (1893) II. xxi. 54 It seems like a wet blanket cast upon all the fire we have been fanning.
2. fig.
a. Something that acts as a damper to activity, enthusiasm, or cheerfulness.
1810Sir G. Jackson Diaries & Lett. (1873) I. 143 It would have been a cruel stroke of fate..if..a wet blanket [had] been thrown over them [sc. gaieties]. 1829Sporting Mag. XXIII. 426 All was in readiness..when a wet blanket was thrown upon all their hopes. 1848Mrs. Gaskell Mary Barton ii, It was an unlucky toast or sentiment... It was a wet blanket to the evening. 1894Jessopp Rand. Roaming vi. 195 That chilling maxim—the wet-blanket of enthusiasm.
b. A person who has a depressing or dispiriting effect on those around him.
1857A. Mathews Tea-Table T. I. 185 Such people may be termed the wet blankets of society. 1875S. Beauchamp N. Hamilton II. 18 As he is of course the wet blanket of the party, they are none of them sorry when he leaves again. 1883R. Broughton Belinda ii. iv, She would spoil the whole thing; she is such a wet blanket. 1897Mrs. Oliphant W. Blackwood I. iii. 128 Sometimes he called her a wet blanket, when she thus damped his ardour.
Hence wet-ˈblanket v. trans., to throw a damper on, discourage, depress. Also (nonce-wds.) wet-ˈblanketing ppl. a.; wet-ˈblanketiveness; wet-ˈblanketty a.
1866J. D. Coleridge Let. in Life Ld. Coleridge (1904) II. 140, I think any one would have felt *wet-blanketed by the utter commonplaceness of the whole affair. 1868L. M. Alcott Little Women xxi, I know Meg would wet-blanket such a proposal, but I thought you had more spirit. 1893W. A. Shee My Contemp. iii. 47 Such people..should..not be allowed to wet-blanket the world with their stolid stare. 1901Scotsman 12 Mar. 9/5 Power traction..had been effectively wetblanketed for fully two generations.
1843J. F. Murray World of London I. 131 The impossible-mongering, cold-water-throwing, *wet-blanketting-fellows, howled in this way about the Thames tunnel.
1834Fraser's Mag. X. 412 Throwing off the ‘*wet-blanketiveness’ which usually extinguishes your social qualities.
1848Zoologist VI. 2048 Adapting my phraseology to the author's, I would say such parts of the book are very ‘*wet-blanketty’. |