| 释义 |
▪ I. mammy1|ˈmæmɪ|
Also 7–9 -ie.
[dim. of mam1: see -y.]
1. a. A child's word for mother.
1523Skelton Garl. Laurel 974 Your mammy and your dady Brought forth a godely babi! 1560Nice Wanton 452 (Manly), All this our Mammy would take in good worth. 1562T. Phaer æneid viii. Z iij b, Their mammies teats they lap with hungry lipps. 1611Florio, Mamma,..a breast. Also Mam, Mother-mine, or Mammie. 1719D'Urfey Pills V. 18 She'll be a Mammy before it is long. 1773F. Burney Let. to Crisp in Early Diary, I..proceed to be sorry and glad that you and your Mammy have been ill and are better. 1793Burns Bonny Jean 5 And ay she wrought her mammie's wark, And ay she sang sae merrilie. 1842S. Lover Handy Andy i, Andy grew up in mischief and the admiration of his mammy.
b. Comb., as mammy-sick a. (contemptuous), distressed at being separated from (one's) mother.
1826Disraeli Viv. Grey I. i. iii. 14 ‘Mammy-sick!’ growled Barlow primus. 1836–48B. D. Walsh Aristoph., Clouds iii. iii, The town Will pronounce you a mammy-sick coddle. 1885J. C. Jeaffreson Real Shelley I. 51 A shy..mammy-sick lad.
2. In the southern United States, esp. before the abolition of slavery: A coloured woman having the care of white children.
1837Southern Lit. Messenger III. 744/1 [Aged Negro domestics] were greeted always by the kind appellatives of ‘daddy and mammy’. 1859Bartlett Dict. Amer., Mammy, the term of endearment used by white children to their negro nurses and to old family servants. 1887T. N. Page Ole Virginia (1893) 164 The old mammies and uncles who were our companions and comrades. 1901R. D. Evans Sailor's Log i. 3 Like most Southern children, I was brought up and cared for by a ‘black mammy’.
▪ II. mammy2 W. Afr.
[Of obscure origin.]
Used attrib., as mammy boat, mammy chair, a (wicker) basket or chair used on ships for conveying persons to and from surf-boats on the West African coast; mammy-cloth (see quot. 19711); mammy lorry, wagon, a small open-sided vehicle in West Africa; mammy trader, a market woman in West Africa.
1904Chambers's Jrnl. 3 Dec. 15/1 You may elect to travel over the side in the ‘mammy-chair’, a huge barrel with part of its side cut away slung in the air by the steam⁓winch. 1909Moore & Guggisberg We Two in W. Afr. 16 So I found myself sitting in the ‘Mammy chair’, an ordinary basket-chair with ropes slung to the arms and back,..and in a moment I was whisked off the deck, swung over the side at the end of a long derrick, [etc.]. 1920Blackw. Mag. June 848/1 A mammy chair was lowered, and we made the usual undignified ascent to the main deck. 1928Daily Express 27 Jan. 6/3 A ‘mammy’ boat, which is simply a wicker basket with seats, is slung over the ship's side by crane. 1935L. G. Green Great Afr. Mysteries xv. 192 The ‘mammy-chair’ is like a swingboat at a fair; just a wooden box with two seats facing each other. 1957Times 17 Dec. 9/6 As we drove on to the ferry a ‘mammy-waggon’ full of them [sc. Ghanaian students] was pushed on behind us. 1959Times 9 Nov. (Ghana Suppl.) p. iv/7 Coordination of the activities of the vigorous ‘mammy’ traders. 1959Listener 31 Dec. 1156/2 The car-park [in Ghana] with its taxis and mammy-lorries. 1961G. Greene Burnt-Out Case 1. i. 7 When there were no European visitors there were always the old women,..their bodies wrapped in mammy-cloths. 1961Listener 2 Nov. 697/1 The mammy-wagons are the friendly little open-sided buses which ply, always crowded, between towns and villages, and which have their names painted in bright colours. 1962Ibid. 22 Feb. 335/1 A mammy-lorry had stopped just outside, and was disgorging its contents. 1965W. Soyinka Road 19 Goes into the mammy-waggon stall through hidden entrance up-stage. 1970P. Oliver Savannah Syncopators 59 (caption) Hausa women... One wears a ‘mammy-cloth’ printed with portraits of Queen Elizabeth the Second and Prince Philip. 1971A. Bailey In Village (1972) vii. 56 One man I knew used to dress in the evenings in a mammy cloth, the colorful cotton robe the Africans swaddled themselves in. 1971Reader's Digest (U.S. ed.) Oct. 30/1 [In Jiddah] West African ‘mammy traders’ hawk cocoa beans, salves for arthritis and gaily colored cloth. |