| 释义 |
▪ I. nelly1|ˈnɛlɪ|
[Of uncertain origin; perh. as next.]
A large sea-bird (Ossifraga gigantea) belonging to the petrel group.
1823J. Weddell Voy. 59 The bird next in size found here is called by sailors a Nelly. It is of the peterel kind. 1845Darwin Voy. Nat. xiii. (1873) 289 The largest kind of petrel, Procellaria gigantea, or nelly. 1895Pall Mall G. 16 Dec. 2/2 Arctic raven and fox..are ten thousand times worse than nelly or albatross.
▪ II. nelly2|ˈnɛlɪ|
Also Nelly, Nellie.
[A fem. Christian name, familiar form of Helen or Eleanor.]
1. Slang phr. not on your Nelly [f. rhyming slang Nelly Duff = puff = breath of life], ‘not on your life’ (see life n. 3 d), not likely.
1941New Statesman 30 Aug. 218/3 Not on your Nelly Duff,..not likely. 1961John o' London's 14 Dec. 663/1 You might have thought Mr. Samuel Bronston would have rested... Not, as they say, on your nelly. 1961Partridge Adventuring among Words xi. 55 The trouble begins when part, usually the latter part, of the rhyming phrase is omitted, as so often it is, as in..‘not on your Nellie’ for ‘{ddd}Nellie Duff!’ = ‘not on your puff’ = ‘not on your life’ or ‘most certainly not’ or, less politely, ‘like hell, I will!’. 1966Times 15 May 9 That would mean me investing in another man's career. Not on your Nelly! 1968Manch. Guardian Weekly 11 Apr. 15/1 So the Liberals dropped Acton and Dudley and concentrated on Warwick and Leamington? Not on your Nellie! 1972Times 24 June 11/4 Ooh, no, not on your nelly, ah, fearless Francis! 1974Globe & Mail (Toronto) 21 Sept. 35/2, I appear to be giving away most of the plot? Not on your nelly. That's only the beginning.
2. A cheap wine. Austral. slang.
1945Baker Austral. Lang. ix. 166 Here is a group of indigenous terms used to describe cheap wines: Africa speaks,..nelly, nelly's death [etc.]. 1952A. G. Mitchell in Chambers's Shorter Eng. Dict. Suppl., Nelly,..(slang) cheap wine.—phr. on the nelly, given to drinking cheap wine.
3. A weak-spirited or silly person; a homosexual. Also as quasi-adj., of feminine appearance, effeminate. Cf. nice-nellyism.
1961Sunday Times 17 Sept. 41/4 [Henry] Livings's latest work, ‘Sacred Nit’... This same play, now called ‘Big Soft Nellie’, opens at the Oxford Playhouse. 1962Sunday Times 29 Apr. 12/4 See, what you've got to do is get on the same wavelength as the nellies who write in. 1967‘T. Wells’ Dead by Light of Moon (1968) iv. 45 You don't suppose it could have anything to do with that Strangler business, do you? Not that I'm a nervous Nelly type. 1970K. Platt Pushbutton Butterfly (1971) xvi. 182 He..puffed daintily on a long cigarette as he watched the nellies cruising to the ‘tearoom’. 1971Psychiatry XXXIV. 187/2 Some guy came up to me and tried to take me for some money, and I knew it, and he said, ‘You know, you're very nellie.’ 1972B. Rodgers Queens' Vernacular 141 Nelly..outrageously effeminate; coy, silly. 1973C. Wittman in P. Brown Radical Psychol. xix. 459 There is a tendency among ‘homophile’ groups to deplore gays who play visible roles—the queens and the nellies.
4. Slang phr. sitting next to (or by, with) Nelly, learning an occupation on the job by observing how others do it.
1963J. U. Fraser Psychol. (ed. 2) xiv. 173 Observation of a skilled operator (often characterized as ‘sitting next to Nellie’). 1966Guardian 30 July 6/5 The generous ‘General Trainees Scheme’ which allows them to spend up to two years in different departments [of the BBC]—‘sitting with Nellie’, is the union phrase. 1972Listener 10 Aug. 180/2 Journalists are the casual labourers of the intellectual world... Most training still consists of sitting next to Nellie. 1975New Society 17 July 130/1 It was then made compulsory for doctors from overseas to ‘sit by Nellie’ for a month. Immigrant doctors had to complete satisfactorily a month's supervision under a consultant supervisor. |