| 释义 |
ˈLombard-street
Also 7 Lumber-, Lumbard-.
The name of a street in London, so called because originally occupied by Lombard bankers, and still containing many of the principal London banks. Hence used transf. or fig. for: The ‘money market’; the body of financiers.
Paris has a Rue des Lombards, the name of which had the same origin.
1598Stow Surv. (1603) 202 Then haue ye Lombardstreete, so called of the Longobards and other Marchants, strangers of diuerse nations, assembling there twise euery day. 1645Ord. Lords & Com., Presb. Govt., Elect. Elders 4 Alhallowes Lumberstreet. 1647N. Eng. Hist. & Gen. Register (1885) XXXIX. 179 Mr Dixon Mcht in Lumber Street. 1721Ramsay Rise & Fall of Stocks 190 Trade then shall flourish, and ilk art A lively vigour shall impart To credit languishing and famisht, And Lombard-street shall be replenisht. 1763A. Murphy Citizen ii. i. (1815), There we go scrambling together—reach Epsom in an hour and forty-three minutes, all Lombard-street to an egg-shell, we do. 1815Pancratia (ed. 2) 367, 9th [round]—Lombard-street to a China orange; Molineux was dead beat. 1819Moore Tom Crib (ed. 3) 38 All Lombard-street to nine-pence on it. Note, More usually ‘Lombard-street to a China orange’. 1821P. Egan Real Life London I. vi. 83 Beat him hollow, it was all Lombard-street to a china orange. 1849Lytton Caxtons iv. iii, ‘It is Lombard Street to a China orange’, quoth Uncle Jack. ‘Are the odds in favour of fame against failure so great?’..answered my father. 1892Evening Standard 9 Nov. 1/1 We describe the betting upon a moral certainty as being All Lombard-street to a China orange. 1902Speaker 26 June 369/2 Much of the floating credit of Lombard Street is based..on loans against securities. 1974Times 30 Nov. 10/5 If you didn't already know..then it's most of Lombard Street to a China Orange you'd never find out. |