| 释义 |
ˈwoubit, ˈoobit dial.
Forms: α. 5 wolbode (welbode), wolle bode; 5 welbede, 6 wolbede, 7 wolbet, volbet; 7 wool-beard, woollbed, 8 wool bed. β. Sc. 6 wowbat, woubet (voubet), wobat, 9 vowbet, woubit. γ. north. and Sc. 7 oubut, 9 oubit, oobit, ubit, yeubit, hoobit, hubert; obeed.
[ME. wolbode and wolbede, app. f. wol wool n. with obscure second element; the form -bode may be connected with boud or budde.]
A hairy caterpillar, esp. the larva of the tiger-moth; a ‘woolly bear’. Also transf. (and attrib.) applied contemptuously to a person.
α14..Nom. in Wr.-Wü lcker 706/15 Hic multipes, a welbode. 1483Cath. Angl. 423/1 A wolle bode (A. Wolbode), multipes. 1496Treat. Fishing w. Angle (1883) 24 Bynde it on your hoke with fletchers sylke and make it rough lyke a welbede. 15..Ortus Vocab. (Shrewbury MS.) Wolbede. 1601Holland Pliny xxix. v. II. 369 The Wooll-beads or Caterpillers,..which are a kind of earth⁓wormes.., all hairie, having many feet, and courbing arch⁓wise as they creepe. 1662R. Venables Exper. Angler iii. 27 Those rough insects (which some call Wooll-beds, because of their wool-like outside, and rings of divers colours). 1681J. Chetham Angler's Vade-m. iv. §8 (1700) 35 Palmer-worm, Palmer-fly, Wooll-bed, and Cankers, Are all one Worm. 1787Best Angling (ed. 2) 18.
β1508Dunbar Tua Mariit Wemen 89 Ane wallidrag, ane worme, ane auld wobat carle. c1560A. Scott Poems (S.T.S.) xxxiv. 94 Swa ladeis will nocht sounȝe With waistit wowbattis rottin. a1585Montgomerie Flyting 268 Wan⁓shapen woubet [v.r wowbat, wolbet], of the weirds invyit. Ibid. 614 An warloch, an warwolfe, an voubet but haire. 1802Sibbald Chron. S.P. Gloss., Woubit, Oubit, one of those worms which appear as if covered with wool. 1809Edin. Rev. XIV. 143 The hairy vowbet, or yeubit,..is the name given by boys [in Berwickshire] to the caterpillar of the tiger-moth.
γ1608Topsell Serpents 103 The English-Northren-men call the hairie Catterpillers, Oubuts. c1800Ayrs. Gl. Surv. 693 (Jam.) Ubit, dwarfish. 1825Jamieson, Oobit, a hairy worm, with alternate rings of black and dark yellow. 1851Kingsley Poems, The Oubit, It was an hairy oubit, sae proud he crept alang. 1861J. Brown Horæ Subs. Ser. ii. 117 Very like a huge caterpillar or hairy oobit. 1865–in dialect glossaries, etc. (see Eng. Dial. Dict.). |