| 释义 |
knee-high, a.
[f. knee + high a.]
Reaching as high as the knees. Freq. in jocular phrase (orig. U.S.) knee-high to a grasshopper (and varr.), i.e. very short.
1743W. Ellis Mod. Husbandman Aug. xvi. 64 By Michaelmas following they were Knee high. 1799C. B. Brown Arthur Mervyn I. xv. 141, I never cried in my life, since I was knee-high. 1814Portsmouth (New Hampsh.) Oracle 2 Apr. 3/2 One..who, as farmer Joe would say, is ‘about knee high to a toad’. 1824Microscope (Albany, N.Y.) 12 June 55/1 (Th.), He has lived with me ever since he was ‘knee high to a musquitoe’. 1833Louisville Herald 20 Mar., It is really the best version of an old story we have heard ‘ever since we were knee-high to a frog’. 1833J. Neal Down-Easters I. 78 A bit of a rogue he was too, when he wa'n't more'n knee high to a bumbly-bee. 1841W. G. Simms Kinsmen II. 63 (Th.), Ever since I was knee high to a splinter. 1843Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc. IV. ii. 309 Heath growing knee-high. 1851Democratic Rev. XXVIII. 301 You pretend to be my daddies; some of you who are not knee-high to a grasshopper! 1887Harper's Mag. Oct. 754/2 Their myriads of gray trunks stood knee-high in water. 1892Dialect Notes I. 230 Knee high to a duck. 1925R. Graves Welchman's Hose 25 He gibed at modern poets, ‘Show me one Knee-high in stature to a Tennyson.’ 1937Discovery June 170/2 The grass grows in thick tufts and is knee high. 1942R.A.F. Jrnl. 18 Apr. 2 Air gunners..envisage him [sc. a gremlin] as something fairly big—say, knee-high to an air-gunner. 1957I. Cross God Boy (1958) xxii. 187 Sister Theresa, who is not much more than knee-high to a grasshopper. 1973H. Carvic Miss Seeton Sings (1974) 35 A little Italian cock sparrow about knee-high to a grasshopper. |