| 释义 |
▪ I. overˈseas, adv. (n.)
[f. over prep. + seas (app.) n. pl. (cf. ‘the narrow seas’, ‘the four seas’); though the -s may have originated as advb. genitive: cf. half-seas-over.]
a. = oversea adv.
1583Stubbes Anat. Abus. ii. (1882) 22 These [goods] they transport ouer seas, whereby they gaine infinit summes of mony. 1631Weever Anc. Fun. Mon. 253 He fled ouer Seas into Denmarke. 1842Tennyson Walking to Mail 18 He..sick of home went overseas for change. 1886Longman's Mag. Mar. 552 Our brethren of the pen over-seas.
b. quasi-n. Foreign parts; abroad.
1919Empire Rev., Munition workers who have come from overseas. 1926A. Bennett Lord Raingo i. lix. 264 Every traveller from overseas was knocked silly by the spectacle. Ibid., Britons whose secret conceit, compared to the ingenuous self-complacency of overseas, was as Mount Everest to Snowdon. 1966Listener 8 Sept. 335/1 In the years before the war our financial income from over-seas provided finance to pay for more than a third of our imports.
▪ II. overˈseas, a.
[f. the adv.]
= oversea a.; overseas Chinese, a native of China residing in another country.
Overseas is now more frequently used than oversea.
1892Kipling Lett. of Travel (1920) 47 Some day a man will bethink himself and write a book..called ‘The Book of The Overseas Club’. 1905Daily Chron. 29 Mar. 3/2 The political liberties of these islands were..deeply endangered by the overseas dominion..of Spain. 1908Westm. Gaz. 26 June 9/3 The magnitude of the overseas possessions which we had to defend. 1912Chambers's Jrnl. Nov. 754/1 In athletic prowess we are now far inferior to those overseas descendants of our race. 1918P. S. Allen Let. 9 June (1939) 146 At Merton we are hoping to have some ‘overseas’ undergraduates next term. 1920Act 10 & 11 Geo. V c. 29 (title) An Act to authorise the granting of credits and the undertaking of insurances for the purpose of re-establishing overseas trade. 1933A. Thirkell High Rising xi. 195 She'll be able to vamp the overseas students and have a splendid time. 1942‘G. Orwell’ Diary 21 June in Coll. Ess. (1968) II. 433 The BBC simply isn't listened to overseas, a fact known to everyone concerned with overseas broadcasting. 1947Sun (Baltimore) 22 Aug. 6/4 ‘Overseas’ Chinese will participate in the elections not only as voters but as candidates as well. 1961S. Chandrasekhar Communist China Today viii. 155, I learned that Communist China was anxious to attract the savings of the overseas Chinese who would like to return to their homeland. 1966[see home a. 3 b]. 1968D. Torr Treason Line 16 He was tall for an Overseas Chinese. 1970V. Canning Great Affair xii. 205 That..was in the overseas edition of The Times. 1972J. Ball Five Pieces Jade viii. 96, I consider myself a Chinese-American, in other words an American citizen of Chinese descent. So do almost all of us. But to the Chinese in China—Taiwan or the mainland—either way, we are overseas Chinese. 1974Guardian 27 Mar. 1/1 Tax to be charged on 90 per cent of overseas earnings whether remitted to UK or not. 1975Encounter Feb. 43/2 My wife, phoning Chicago from London, asked, ‘Is this the overseas operator?’ A pitying male voice replied, ‘This is one of them, madam.’ 1977‘J. Le Carré’ Hon. Schoolboy iv. 81 It was an overseas Chinese outfit. |