| 释义 |
whitewashed, ppl. a.|ˈhwaɪtwɒʃt|
[f. prec. + -ed1.]
1. Covered, coated, or marked with whitewash.
1770Goldsm. Des. Vill. 227 The white-washed wall, the nicely sanded floor. 1850Thackeray Pendennis l[i], A flaring new whitewashed mansion. 1882Howells in Longman's Mag. I. 56 To..chase the flying tennis-ball on the whitewashed lawn.
2. fig. Freed from blame or taint; glossed over with a fair appearance: see prec. 2.
1797D. Simpson Plea Relig. (1808) 155 The white washed officer will..declare..that he trusts he is moved by the Holy Ghost. 1818Scott Rob Roy vii, A white-washed Jacobite; that is, one who having been long a nonjuror,..had lately qualified himself to act as a justice, by taking the oaths to government. 1859Helps Friends in C. Ser. ii. II. x. 239 The whitewashed triumphs of despotism.
3. whitewashed American, whitewashed Yank, or whitewashed Yankee, a person who affects American manners, or who has spent a short time in America; also transf.
1855in Occas. Papers Univ. Sydney Austral. Lang. Res. Centre (1966) No. 10. 26 ‘I have heard people say they would like to see us clear altogether of British rule.’..‘Have you heard that said here?’—‘Yes, by a few of those disaffected persons; very few; they are generally what are termed ‘white-washed Yankees’.’ 1898A. J. Boyd Shellback 73 He was not one of the low, bullying, half-Irish, half-American sort of men who are called ‘whitewashed Yankees’. 1926W. S. Dill Long Day 147 This particular story concerns a ‘white-washed American’, i.e. a native of Canada who had been naturalized in the United States and then secured repatriation in his own country. 1938F. A. Worsley First Voy. in Square-Rigged Ship 82 Whitewashed Yanks (Europeans who had served a voyage in American ships or spent a short period in the States) were numerous. 1970J. F. Leavitt Wake of Coasters 62/2 Some of the schooners in later years were ‘white-washed yankees’: American built vessels kept under U.S. registry but with the controlling interest actually owned across the border in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia. |