| 释义 |
ninety, a. and n.|ˈnaɪntɪ|
Forms: 1 niᵹon-, 2 niᵹentiᵹ; 3 niȝen-, niȝne-, 4 nene-, nineti, nynte, 3 nin-, 4 nen-, nyne-, 6 nynty, nyn(e)tie, 7 ninetie, 7– ninety.
[OE. niᵹontiᵹ = OFris. nion-, niogen-, nogentich, MDu. and MLG. negentich (Du. negentig), OHG. niunzug, -zog (MHG. niunzec, -zic, G. neunzig), ON. níutigir (Icel. níutíu, Norw. nitti, Sw. nittio): see nine and -ty.]
1. a. The cardinal number equal to nine tens, represented by 90 or xc. Also with omission of n., and in comb. with numbers below ten (ordinal and cardinal), as ninety-one, ninety-first, etc.
c1000Ags. Gosp. Luke xv. 7 Ma þonne ofer niᵹon & niᵹontiᵹum [Hatton niᵹentiᵹ] rihtwisra. c1250Gen. & Ex. 1027 Ȝhe was niȝenti winter hold. 1297R. Glouc. Chron. (Rolls) 9931 In þe ȝer of grace..Endleue hundred & ninty. a1300Cursor M. 2699 His fader nineti and nine þat day. 1382Wyclif Gen. v. 9 Enos forsothe lyuede nynti ȝeer. c1440Promp. Parv. 357/1 Nynety, nonaginta. c1470Henry Wallace vi. 107 Tuelff hundreth ȝer, tharto nynte and sewyn. 1596Dalrymple tr. Leslie's Hist. Scot. i. 78 Sax-hundereth nyntie and fyue. 1611Florio, Nonagenario, of ninety yeeres of age. 1769Burke Late St. Nat. Wks. II. 118 His subscription would be at ninety-nine per cent. discount the very first day of its opening. 1810Southey Kehama viii. i, Nine and ninety days are fled, Nine and ninety steeds have bled. 1894Sir E. Sullivan Woman 13 In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred she is better.
Comb.1852R. S. Surtees Sponge's Sp. Tour (1893) 365 This was ninety-shilling sherry. 1855J. R. Leifchild Cornwall 188 The great ninety-inch steam-engine on the Consolidated Mines. 1863Prior Pop. Names Brit. Plants 162 Ninety-knot, see Knotgrass and Centinode.
b. ninety-day wonder U.S. Services' slang, a graduate of a ninety-day officers' training course; an inexperienced, newly-commissioned officer; also attrib. or as adj.
1917R. Lord in Captain Boyd's Battery, A.E.F. (1919) ii. 23 Two tents of Shavetails (i.e...Ninety-Day Wonders..) have been attached to us for instruction purposes. 1919K. M. Cortelyou et al. From Arizona to Huns 106 ‘A ninty [sic] day wonder’ fresh from O.T.S. 1921F. L. Field Battery Book 15 The inexperience of officers was a circumstance of tremendous significance. The fact that we used to call them ‘ninety-day wonders’ indicates our attitude..at the time. 1926L. H. Nason Chevrons 136 You ninety-day wonder!.. Haven't you got brains enough to know this brook runs east and west? 1928A. C. Havlin Hist. Company A, 102nd Machine Gun Battalion 1 As usual, they were dubbed ‘ninety-day wonders’. 1956E. N. Rogers Queenie's Brood 307 The draft law and the ninety-day-wonder officers came in for much discussion also. 1970W. C. Woods Killing Zone 5 A pale punk kid to run my company, another ninety day wonder.
2. the nineties.
a. The degrees of a thermometer between ninety and a hundred.
b. The years between ninety and a hundred in a particular century or in a person's life; (spec.) the years between 1890 and 1899. Also attrib.
1883Stevenson Silverado Sq. 21 The thermometer..had already climbed among the nineties. 1894Athenæum 10 Feb. 176/1 Reinout is what Arthur Pendennis might have been in the nineties. 1897Warung Tales Old Regime 207 He was an early arrival at the island away back in the 'Nineties. 1911W. G. Blaikie Murdoch Renaissance of Nineties 34 Subtlety and delicacy are not more prominent in the painting of the nineties than in the period's literature. Ibid. 45 If Life was the watchword of the men of the nineties, Freedom was the motto on their banner. 1913H. Jackson Eighteen Nineties i. 27 Max Beerbohm, in a delightful essay which could only have been written in the Nineties. Ibid. ii. 40 The Yellow Book and The Savoy..were the favourite lamps around which the most bizarre moths of the Nineties clustered. There were few essential writers of the Nineties who did not contribute to one or the other. 1920B. Muddiman (title) The men of the nineties. 1938L. MacNeice Modern Poetry i. 7 The nineties poets did to some extent criticize life. 1954A. S. C. Ross in Neuphilologische Mitteilungen LV. 32 It was apparently U and was certainly thriving in the nineties. 1971P. Muir Victorian Illustrated Books viii. 194 (heading) Other Nineties people. 1972Country Life 23 Nov. 1414/3 The Nineties in Paris were not all decadence, can-can and absinthe. 1975Times 5 Dec. 13/4 A mock-innocent return to the 'nineties. |