| 释义 |
▪ I. melon1|ˈmɛlən|
Forms: 4–6 melone, -oun, 6 millian, milon, myl(l)on, milion, mylyon, 6–7 mellon, millon, 7 millen, 6–8, 9 dial. million, 7 mealon, meloune, milleon, 5– melon.
[a. F. melon = Sp. melon, Pg. melão, It. melone, ad. late L. mēlōn-em, mēlo, prob. a colloquial formation on the first element of L. mēlopepo: see melopepon.]
1. a. A name common to several kinds of gourds, esp. the musk melon, Cucumis Melo, and the water melon, Citrullus vulgaris. (Applied both to the fruit and to the plant producing it.)
a1387Sinon. Barthol. (Anecd. Oxon.) 33/2 Pepones, melones. 1388Wyclif Num. xi. 5 Gourdis, and melouns [Vulg. pepones], and lekis,..comen in to mynde to vs. c1400Lanfranc's Cirurg. 190 Do þerto seed of melonis maad clene. c1420Pallad. on Husb. v. 94 Cucumber now is sowe; Melones, peletur, cappare, and leek. 1530Palsgr. 245/1 Myllon a frute, melon. 1542Boorde Dyetary xxi. (1870) 285 Mylons doth ingender euyl humoures. 1563T. Hill Art Garden. (1593) 147 Melons, and all kindes of the Pompions, desire..the same earth and aire which the Citrones and Cucumbers doe. 1657W. Coles Adam in Eden xcix, Citruls or Turkey Millions are of the same temperature as the Gourd. 1691Lond. Gaz. No. 2724/2 A piece of pure Gold in form of a Mellon. 1748Chesterfield Let. 13 Dec. Misc. Wks. 1777 II. 347 Could you send me..some seed of the right canteloupe melons? 1824Loudon Encycl. Gard. iii. i. (ed. 2) 4208 The pumpkin, pumpion, or more correctly, pompion... This is the melon or millon of our early horticulturists, the true melon being formerly distinguished by the name of musk-melon. 1847Tennyson Princess Conclus. 87 A raiser of huge melons and of pine. 1855Delamer Kitch. Gard. (1861) 118 A pretty little old-fashioned variety,—Queen Anne's Pocket Melon..produces green-fleshed well-flavoured fruit, the size of a large orange.
b. prickly melon: the durian.
1640Parkinson Theat. Bot. 1640 Duriones, the prickly fruitfull Melon. 1688R. Holme Armoury ii. 83/1 The prickly Melon.
c. to cut the melon, to decide a question.
1911H. Quick Yellowstone Nights xii. 308 The O.M. as usual cuts the melon with a word.
d. Abundant profits to be shared among a number of people. Esp. in phr. to cut the melon. Hence melon-cutting vbl. n., in Stock Exchange and Betting slang, the dividing up or sharing of profits.
1908Daily Report 24 Aug. 2/4 The theory that any prospective melon-cutting will be postponed until next year. 1909N.Y. Even. Post (Semi-Weekly ed.) 7 Oct. 2 A purse of $25,000 will be distributed among employees. About 8,000 men will participate in the cutting of the melon. 1911Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 11 Apr. 14/2 The Suez Canal..has been earning a gross revenue of upward of $20,000,000 a year, forming one of the juiciest melons every year anywhere in the world. 1927C. A. & M. R. Beard Rise Amer. Civilization II. xx. 203 All went well until The Credit Mobilier in 1868 ‘cut a melon’ in the form of dividends composed of the stocks and bonds of the Union Pacific. 1927Sunday Express 24 July 6/4 As the company distributed some Preference shares only a short while ago we should think it unlikely there will be any further melon-cutting yet. 1928Weekly Dispatch 24 June 6/4 The Union Pacific's portfolio [of outside investments] is one of the biggest potential ‘melons’ on the American horizon. 1939New Statesman 7 Jan. 7/1 The enemy could practically destroy our commerce and industry... Every nation of the world would have an incentive to have a free cut at the melon. 1941Dice & Eiteman Stock Market (ed. 2) 462 Cutting a melon, the declaration of a large extra dividend. 1942Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §734/6 Melon cutting, the division of heavy winnings by a group of bettors. Ibid. §745/7 Melon cutting, the division of heavy winnings by a group of gamblers. 1948Aurora (Illinois) Beacon News 7 Nov. (Suppl.) 39/2 This year, a record number of your friends and neighbors will split a record ‘melon’ in our 1948 savings clubs. 1964P. Wyckoff Dict. Stock Market Terms 163 Melon, slang expression referring to the sum total of extraordinary profits waiting to be divided.
e. = melon pink below.
1930Maerz & Paul Dict. Color 199/1 Melon... Melon Yellow. 1975Harper's & Queen June 172/3 Striped swimsuit... Cassis, citron, melon,..chocolate.
2. Conch. The shell of a mollusc of the genus Melo. Also melon-shell, melon-volute (see 4 d).
1840Swainson Malacology 67.
3. A hemispherical mass of blubber taken from the top of the head of certain cetaceans.
1887G. B. Goode, etc. Fisheries U.S. Sect. v. II. 299 About 30 gallons of oil..being obtained from each fish, besides about 6 quarts of extra oil from the melon. The melons are taken from the top of the head [etc.].
4. attrib. and Comb.
a. simple attributive, as melon-bank, melon-bed, melon-flower, melon-frame, melon-garden, melon-ground, melon-harvest, melon-infusion, melon-leaf, melon-merchant, melon-monger, melon-patch, melon-pit, melon-plant, melon-plot, melon-seed, melon-vine.
b. parasynthetic, as melon-formed, melon-shaped adjs.c. similative, as melon-yellow adj.d. Special Comb.: melon-beetle, a beetle of the genus Diabrotica, esp. D. vittata and D. duodecimpunctata, injurious to melons (Webster 1897 and Suppl. 1902); melon-blubber = melon1 3 (Cent. Dict.); melon-cactus = melocactus; melon-caterpillar, the larva of an American moth, Phacellura (Eudioptis) hyalinata, destructive to melons; † melon-feast, a rustic gathering at which prizes were offered for the finest melons; melon-fruit, the papaw, Carica Papaya, called also Tree-Melon (Bartlett Dict. Amer. 1859); melon-hood, a kind of fungus, Hygrophorus pratensis; melon-oil, the oil of the melon of a cetacean; melon pink, a yellowish-pink colour; † melon-pompion (obs.), melon-pumpkin, Cucurbita maxima or C. Melopepo; melon-seed bodies Path. (see quot. 1890); melon-shell = sense 2; melon-thick (W. Indian), melon-thistle = melocactus; melon-tree, the papaw (Cassell's Encycl. Dict. 1885); melon-volute, a melon-shell; melon-ware (see quot.); melon-wood, a yellow Mexican wood, which resembles sanders-wood, used for furniture (Treas. Bot. 1866); melon-worm = melon-caterpillar (Cent. Dict. 1890).
1707Mortimer Husb. (1721) II. 174 They thrive best..in such places as they have not grown in before, especially on the sides of *Melon Banks.
1622Mabbe tr. Aleman's Guzman d'Alf. i. (1630) 25, I call my selfe his sonne,..since that from that *Mellon-bed I was made legitimate by the holy right of Matrimony. 1794McPhail Cult. Cucumber 83 The seeds are sown some time about the middle of April in a cucumber or melon bed.
1857A. Gray First Less. Bot. (1866) 47 In *Melon-Cactuses..with their globular or bulb-like shapes.
1885Riverside Nat. Hist. (1888) II. 444 The *melon-caterpillar, Eudioptis hyalinata, which occurs throughout the greater portions of North America and South America.
1826Miss Mitford Village Ser. ii. 4 Lending his willing aid in waiting and entertaining..at pink-feasts and *melon-feasts.
1845Browning Home Thoughts, The buttercups, the little children's dower—Far brighter than this gaudy *melon-flower!
1819Hermit in London III. 170 Her *melon-formed head and double chin.
1793Trans. Soc. Arts XI. 120 Over the whole, [I] placed a large *melon-frame.
a1642Killigrew Parson's Wedd. v. i. (1663) 138 One of the Watermen is gone to the *Mellon Garden.
1733Miller Gard. Dict. (ed. 2), Melonry or *Melon-ground. 1774Heroic Epist. to Sir W. Chambers (ed. 13) 9 From his melon-ground the peasant slave Has rudely rush'd.
1849M. Arnold Strayed Reveller 24 Worms I' the unkind spring have gnaw'd Their *melon-harvest to the heart.
1887Hay Brit. Fungi 99 Hygrophorus pratensis, the *Melon-hood.
1881Tyndall Ess. Floating Matter Air 173 The tubes in one of the chambers containing *melon-infusion had become rapidly turbid.
1868Browning Ring & Bk. i. 98 A broad *melon-leaf.
1727S. Switzer Pract. Gard. ii. vii. 55 Good glasses, without which the *melon-merchant can't effect his purpose.
1622Mabbe tr. Aleman's Guzman d'Alf ii. 59, I am like a *Melon-mongers Knife cutting here a slice and there a slice.
1887G. B. Goode, etc. Fisheries U.S. Sect. v. II. 309 The *melon oil of the black⁓fish.
1838Gosse in E. Gosse Life (1890) 136 At length we reached the *melon-patch.
1949Dict. Colours for Interior Decoration (Brit. Colour Council) III. 17/2 *Melon pink,..a descriptive colour name, from the fruit, used in the textile trade. 1975Country Life 6 Mar. 561/2 Daylilies..provide a show of yellows, melon pinks and apricots.
1824Loudon Encycl. Gard. iii. 1. (ed. 2) §2684 Knight's *melon-pit,..which may also be applied to the culture of cucumbers.
1739Miller Gard. Dict. II. s.v. Melo, The Papers..may be used for covering your *Melon-plants.
1577B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. (1586) 63 When they grow rounde, they are *Melon-pompeons.
1840Paxton Bot. Dict., *Melon-pumpkin see Cucurbita Melopepo.
c1420Pallad. on Husb. iv. 176 Now *melon seed too foote atwene is sette. 1879St. George's Hosp. Rep. IX. 261 An incision was made into the..tumour,..and a quantity of clear fluid containing numbers of ‘melon-seed’ bodies pressed out. 1890Syd. Soc. Lex., Melon seed bodies, small, white, or brownish-looking bodies resembling melon seeds in shape. They are found in the sheaths of tendons which have been inflamed and in adventitious..bursæ.
1832Lindley Introd. Bot. 374 *Melon-shaped, irregularly spherical, with projecting ribs; as the stem of Cactus melocactus: a bad term.
1840Swainson Malacology 100 The pre-eminently typical volutes, or *melon-shells.
1864Grisebach Flora W. Ind. 785 *Melon-thick, Melocactus communis.
1731–3Miller Gard. Dict. (ed. 2), Melocactus..*Melon-Thistle. The whole Plant hath a singular Appearance.
1763Mills Syst. Pract. Husb. IV. 182 The *melon vines will waste themselves by running out in length.
1840Swainson Malacology 99 The truncated and wide-mouthed helmet-shells, among the Muricidæ, find their prototypes in the *melon volutes.
1883Solon Art O. Eng. Potter 101 The pieces upon which this fruit was introduced all went by the name of *melon-ware, and so were styled also the generality of pieces mottled green and yellow.
1773Phil. Trans. LXIII. 391 An Anemone, whose limbs are of the *melon-yellow colour.
Sense 4 in Dict. becomes 5. Add: 4. pl. colloq. Large breasts.
1972Pussycat XXXIII. lix. 10/2 She released the catch on her bra and slipped it off... Her full and shapely melons swung and swayed and drooped as she moved. 1991G. Keillor WLT, Radio Romance xiii. 107 The ones with the melons, they get a little old on the hoof, and you have to throw a flag over them feedsacks so they don't bang you on the head, so you want a woman with nice little titties.
▪ II. ‖ melon2 Path.|ˈmiːlɒn|
[= F. melon, a. Gr. µῆλον apple, protuberance of the eye (Paulus ægineta).]
A kind of exophthalmus or staphyloma.
1676J. Cooke Marrow Chirurg. 713 If the protuberance be..great, 'tis called Staphyloma... If it thrust out more, that it over-reaches the Eye-lid, 'tis called Melon, like an Apple hanging by the Stalk. 1802W. Turton Med. Gloss., Melon..a protuberance of the ball of the eye from its socket. 1890in Syd. Soc. Lex.
▪ III. melon3 Australian.|ˈmɛlən|
Short for paddymelon. Also attrib., in melon-hole.
1847Leichhardt Jrnl. iii. 77 The shallow depressions of the surface of the ground, which are significantly termed by the squatters ‘melon-holes’. 1898Morris Austral Eng., Melon. Besides its botanical use, the word is applied in Australia to a small kangaroo, the Paddy-melon. Melon-hole, a kind of honey-combing of the surface in the interior plains, dangerous to horsemen, ascribed to the work of the Paddy-melon... The name is often given to any similar series of holes, such as are sometimes produced by the growing of certain plants.
▪ IV. melon
variant of mellone Chem. |