| 释义 |
▪ I. mousing, vbl. n.|ˈmaʊzɪŋ|
[f. mouse v. + -ing1.]
1. The action of catching or hunting for mice.
1856F. E. Paget Owlet of Owlst. 10 Ever since her accident, my mother finds mousing much more difficult. Ibid. 41 For the present I must cease, and go a mousing. 1863Geo. Eliot Romola i, A handsome..‘Tom’, with the highest character for mousing.
b. Searching, rummaging. U.S.
1870H. Stevens Bibl. Histor. 223 It has been the good fortune of the writer, in his bibliographical mousings up and down the world, to light upon the original paintings. 1875Stedman Victorian Poets 179 This may be..a result of his mousing among Pre-Chaucerian ballads.
2. Naut.
a. The action of fastening spun yarn or rope, etc., round the point and shank of a hook; concr. the rope or yarn so fastened, or a ‘latch connecting the bill with the shank of a hook’ (Knight Dict. Mech. 1875);
b. The action of making a ‘mouse’ on a rope; concr. the ‘mouse’ so made.
1832Marryat N. Forster xlv, The mousing of a stay or the strapping of a block. 1844Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl. VII. 35/1 The two parts of the hook thus formed, when affixed to the rigging, are secured by a cord or ‘mousing’.
3. In a loom: A movement similar to that of a ratchet-wheel.
1875Knight Dict. Mech.
4. attrib. (sense 1) as mousing-place; (sense 2) as mousing-arm, mousing-block, mousing-hook, mousing-link (see Knight Dict. Mech. 1875 and Suppl. 1884).
1856F. E. Paget Owlet of Owlst. 11 Fold-yards, and other good mousing-places. 1883Fisheries Exhib. Catal. 45 Samples of Patent Mousing Hook, for all kinds of hooks.
▪ II. mousing, ppl. a.|ˈmaʊzɪŋ|
[f. mouse v. + -ing2.]
That hunts or catches mice; given to hunting or catching mice.
1605Shakes. Macb. ii. iv. 13 A Faulcon towring in her pride of place, Was by a Mowsing Owle hawkt at, and kill'd. 1904W. H. Hudson in Speaker 9 Jan. 359/2 The gentle mousing wind-hover has a nobler spirit than any crow of them all.
b. transf. Prying, prowling, rapacious, inquisitive; hunting as a cat does.
1692R. L'Estrange Fables cccxviii. 279 The Mouse that took this Cat for a Saint, has very Good Company... For we have seen a whole Assembly of these Mousing Saints, that under the Masque of Zeal, Conscience, and Good Nature, have made a Shift to lay I know not how many Kingdoms in Bloud and Ashes. 1866Felton Anc. & Mod. Greece II. xii. 521 The dialects..will have become..obsolete curiosities for the researches of the mousing antiquarian. 1883H. C. Lodge D. Webster iii. (1885) 107 One Parker Noyes, a mousing, learned New Hampshire lawyer. |