| 释义 |
make-weight, makeweight|ˈmeɪkweɪt|
[See make v.1 23.]
1. A comparatively small quantity added to make up a certain weight; spec. a small candle. (See early quots.)
1695Kennett Par. Antiq. Gloss. s.v. Putta, In the North a Puttock-candle is the least in the pound, put in to make weight, call'd..in Kent a make-weight. 1764Oxf. Sausage 56 Dire Want of..chearful Candle (save the Make-Weight's Gleam Haply remaining). 1787Grose Prov. Gloss., Make-weight, a small candle thrown in to complete the pound. N. 1866Jevons Coal Quest. (ed. 2) 261 A large part of our shipping would thus have to leave our ports half empty, or in ballast, unless there were some makeweight or natural supply of bulky cargo as back carriage.
transf.1785Grose Dict. Vulg. Tongue, Make weight, a small candle, a term applied to a little slender man.
2. fig. A person or thing of insignificant value thrown in to make up a deficiency or fill a gap.
1776Paine Com. Sense (1791) 33 By her dependence on Britain she [America] is made the make-weight in the scale of British politics. 1796Burke Regic. Peace iii. Wks. VIII. 418 The mines..are now thrown in as a make-weight in the scale. 1809Malkin Gil Blas vii. vii. ⁋21 She praised me up to the skies, and held all the actresses in Madrid as mere makeweights in the scale. 1825Coleridge Aids Refl. (1848) I. 188 Those semi-pagan Christians who regarded revelation as a mere make-weight to their boasted religion of nature. 1838Dickens Nich. Nick. xix, The colonel was in conversation with somebody, who appeared to be a make-weight, and was not introduced at all. 1838–9Hallam Hist. Lit. IV. iv. vi. §43. 284 An incestuous passion brought forward as the make-weight of a plot, to eke out a fifth act. 1864Pusey Lect. Daniel vi. 393, I cannot..use Divine authority as a makeweight to human proof.
3. A counterbalancing weight, counterpoise.
1787Jefferson Writ. (1853) II. 108 His devotion to the principles of pure despotism, renders him unaffectionate to our governments. His fear of England makes him value us as a make weight. 1855Kingsley Westw. Ho! xxviii, ‘But the prize?’ ‘Ah! that was no small make-weight to our disasters, after all’. 1886Symonds Renaiss. It., Cath. React. II. xi. 307 Perhaps it may be argued that the fulsome promises on which those miserable vassals found their hopes, are make-weights for such miseries.
4. attrib. or as adj. Serving as a make-weight.
1701J. Philips Splendid Shilling 98 The glimmering light Of make-weight candle. 1793A. Seward Lett. (1811) III. 248 It is no custom of Shakespeare's to give us merely makeweight epithets. 1852R. S. Surtees Sponge's Sp. Tour xl. 219 Men..admit of no makeweight, or merely ornamental dishes. |