| 释义 |
killing field, n.
Brit. |ˈkɪlɪŋ fiːld|, U.S. |ˈkɪlɪŋ ˌfild|
[‹ killing n. + field n.]
1. Usu. in pl. = killing ground n. 1.
In later use with conscious reference to sense 2.
1915Science 41 903 Commercial killing had been cut off and the killing fields were bare. 1922Science 55 506 A few bullets and buckshot are found in the carcases of males almost every year on the killing fields, although no seal can be shot legally. 1988Green Line Oct. 9/1 The hunting season is upon us once again, and the sabs take to the ‘killing fields’ with their usual courage and expertise. 1995Afr. Amer. Rev. 29 454/2 I've reconsidered my strategy in the anti-ivory struggle... I don't want to harm anybody, but what about the killing fields of Africa?
2. In sing. and (usu.) in pl. A place of warfare or unrest associated with heavy loss of (civilian) life, esp. as the result of massacre or genocide; (also, in extended use) any place in which a murder or other killing occurs.
Popularized as the name of the film The Killing Fields (released 1984, but see quot. 1981), concerning events in Cambodia (or Kampuchea, as it was then named) under the Khmer Rouge regime.
1980S. Schanberg in N.Y. Times Mag. 20 Jan. 16/1 The diplomat, who had served in Phnom Penh, knew the odds of anyone emerging safely from a country that was being transformed into a society of terror and purges and ‘killing fields’. 1981B. Robinson Killing Fields (title of screenplay: first draft) The killing fields. 1983N.Y. Times (Nexis) 29 Apr. a2/3 Foreign tourists could be flown in to see both the monument and a sample of Mr. Pol Pot's killing fields. 1991Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 14 Nov. 3/1 A suburban kitchen became the killing field for Verdich whose naked, headless body was found in an Ashgrove quarry. 1997A. Barnett This Time vi. 53 A war [i.e. the American civil war] that pioneered the application of mechanical reproduction to military affairs and pre-figured the killing fields of the twentieth century. |