| 释义 |
zoo colloq.|zuː|
[The first three letters of zoological taken as one syllable.]
1. The Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park, London; also extended to similar collections of animals elsewhere.
c1847Macaulay in Life & Lett. (1878) II. 216 We treated the Clifton Zoo much too contemptuously. 1886C. E. Pascoe Lond. To-day iv. (ed. 3) 65 The ‘Zoo’ in time past was as favourite a fashionable resort as Rotten Row.
2. transf. A (diverse) collection, esp. of people; the place where they are assembled. (Freq. mildly contemptuous.)
1924Galsworthy White Monkey i. ii. 11 You won't keep me in your Zoo, my dear. I shan't hang around and feed on crumbs. 1935E. Blunden Edward Gibbon & his Age 14 He [sc. Gibbon] passed through Oxford, gathering little but materials for his future monody on a moribund zoo of dons. 1964in Current Slang (Univ. S. Dakota) (1967) Spring 5 Zoo, place where students congregate. 1975J. I. M. Stewart Young Pattullo i. 9 The Glencorrys were..the principal figures of fun in Ninian's and my own family zoo.
3. Comb. zoo-crazy adj.; zoo-keeper, an animal attendant employed in a zoological garden; also, a zoo owner or director; zooman U.S. colloq. = zoo-keeper; similarly zoowoman (rare).
1938L. MacNeice Zoo iv. 71 A curate who was Anglo-Catholic..and..zoo-crazy.
1936L. R. Brightwell Zoo you Knew? viii. 163 Zoo keepers gave up whistling ‘Ta-ra-ra-boom-dehay’. 1960D. H. S. Risdon Zoo Keeper vi. 53 Minor ailments should be curable by the Zoo keeper if he knows his job properly. 1977Monitor (McAllen, Texas) 17 July 2f/4 Zookeepers caring for a two-week-old orphaned hippopotamus have taken to..wading into a pool..to nurse the hippo from a bottle.
1930Time 13 Oct. 32/3 U.S. zoomen, animal catchers and park directors attended the annual meeting of the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums... One zooman had too many elephants. Ibid. 33/2 Conspicuous among the zoomen was the only zoowoman in the world. 1942Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §458/17 Zooman, a zoo director or caretaker. Ibid. §624/16 Animal man, zooman. 1973Times Lit. Suppl. 9 Mar. 262/4 The increasing value of the Yearbook to zoomen and biologists. |