| 释义 |
▪ I. Nat, n.2 India.|næt|
Also Nut.
[Skr. naṭa dancer, actor, tumbler.]
A member of an itinerant class of entertainers, fortune-tellers, and the like, found esp. in northern India, but coming from no tribe in particular. Also ˈNati, the argot spoken by these people; also attrib. or as adj.
1801D. Richardson in Asiatick Researches VII. 457 Strictly speaking, these people might be denominated players or actors, from their Persian name of Bazee-gur,..juggler or tricker; but the appellation of Nut extends to several tribes, and properly belongs to many more. 1855H. H. Wilson Gloss. Judicial & Revenue Terms 369/2 Naṭa, Naṭ, or Nuṭ,..a dancer, an actor, a tumbler, a public performer; applied also to a tribe of vagrants who live by feats of dexterity, sleight of hand, fortune-telling and the like. 1896W. Crooke Tribes & Castes N.-W. Provinces & Oudh IV. 66 These Nats say that they came originally from Ratanpur and Bilâspur in the Central Provinces. Ibid. 70 Their domestic ceremonies are of the usual Nat type. 1908Encycl. Relig. & Ethics I. 451/1 The ritual of the Nats, a tribe of wandering acrobats, is more remarkable. 1917Kipling Eyes of Asia (1918) 8 The nature of the enemy in this war is like the Nat (juggler) who is compelled to climb a pole for his belly's sake. 1922G. A. Grierson Ling. Survey India XI. 121 Any tribe may be represented among the people acting as Naṭs. Ibid. 122 The great majority of Natī slang words..have been taken from the common Aryan vocabulary of Northern India.
▪ II. Nat, n.4|næt|
[Abbrev. of national a. and n., nationalist.]
A member of (a) the National Party in South Africa; (b) the Scottish or Welsh Nationalists.
In S. Afr. also = ‘National’.
1934W. Saint-Mandé Halcyon Days Afr. ii. 24 Labour had done right to join forces with the Nats., for the Smuts government would gradually have reduced the white workers to slaves. 1958New Statesman 22 Mar. 367/2 The movement..cannot lose momentum. The Nats must know this, unless the strain of continually having to defend an indefensible position has lost them their sanity. 1967Economist 18 Mar. 1008/2 Both Scotland and Wales could in time do well. But the start of their national lives would be bleak... One cannot take seriously the present Nats who advocate freedom and promise prosperity in one breath. 1968Guardian 20 Sept. 13/2 Jeremy Thorpe's overtures to the Celtic Nationalists... The Liberals would back the Nats on devolution. 1970B. Knox Children of Mist i. 23 Scot Nats? He'd met all kinds. 1971Sunday Times (Johannesburg) 28 Mar. 2/2 The Transvaler, official organ of the Nat Party in the Transvaal. 1972M. Sinclair Norslag ix. 73 ‘Weren't you with the...’ ‘Yes, I was an ardent Nat then.’.. MacCaig was already neatly pigeonholed. 1974Times 22 Apr. 7/1 The white people..will be voting overwhelmingly for Mr. Vorster's National Party... The average voter will..continue to vote ‘Nat’. 1974Sunday Post (Glasgow) 28 Apr. 5/5 And there are other Labour strongholds where it wouldn't need much of a swing to put in the Nats. |