| 释义 |
ˈpickle-ˌherring Now rare.
[Found first as pickled herring, f. pickled ppl. a.; somewhat later pickle-herring, after MD. or early mod.Du. peeckel-harinck (1567 Junius Nomenclator), MLG. pekel-herink (Lübben-Walther), both in sense 1, mod.Du. pekel-haring, mod.G. pickelhäring.]
†1. lit. A pickled herring. Obs.
αc1570Pride & Lowl. (1841) 75 For feare of meeting with a pickled hearing And mountaynes made of matters frivolous. 1598Meres Pallad. Tamia II. 286 b, Robert Greene died of a surfet taken at Pickeld Herrings, & Rhenish wine. 1796H. Hunter tr. St.-Pierre's Stud. Nat. (1799) I. 260 Those which are caught far to the North, known, in Holland, by the name of pickled herrings.
β1573–80Baret Alv. H 405 A pickle Herring, halec conditanea. 1600Rowlands Lett. Humours Blood vi. 77 Taken with a Pickle-herring or two, As Flemmings at Saint Katherines vse to do. 1607Dekker Knts. Conjur. (1842) 76 Hee had..shortened his dayes by keeping company with pickle herrings.
2. A clown, a buffoon, a merry-andrew.
This application of the term originated in German. It appears in 1620 in Engelische Comedien vnd Tragedien..sampt dem Pickelhering, where it is the name of a humorous character in one of the plays, and of the chief actor in a series of ‘Pickelhärings-spiele’ and ‘Singspiele’ (= jig n.1 4). One of the latter is a version of R. Cox's Singing Simpkin, and a Dutch version of this, from the German, as Singende klucht van Pekelharingh in de Kist, 1648, is the first known evidence of the use in Dutch, to which Addison attributed it in 1711—the first mention in English. (Grimm's Dictionary is in error in ascribing to it an English origin.)
α1711Addison Spect. No. 47 ⁋6 A Set of merry Drolls..whom every Nation calls by the Name of that Dish of Meat which it loves best. In Holland they are termed Pickled Herrings; in France, Jean Pottages; in Italy, Maccaronies; and in Great Britain, Jack Puddings. 1726Arbuthnot Diss. Dumpling (ed. 5) 8 Content your selves with being Zanies, Pickled-Herrings, Punchionellos.
β1716–20Lett. fr. Mist's Jrnl. (1722) I. 81 Pickle-Herring was then in the Heighth of his Archness, Activity, and Grimaces. 1790Bystander 134 Making a Merry-Andrew of himself, in imitation of the other Pickle-herring. 1849tr. Meinhold's Sidonia the Sorceress II. 232 People think it must be pickelherring, or some such strolling mummers come to exhibit to the folk during the evening.
attrib.1789Wolcott (P. Pindar) Ode to eight Cats ix, She mounteth with a pickle-herring spring, Without th' assistance of a rope. 1831Carlyle Sart. Res. i. ix, Their high State Tragedy..becomes a Pickleherring-Farce to weep at, which is the worst kind of Farce. |