| 释义 |
ˈpipe-clay, n.
A fine white kind of clay, which forms a ductile paste with water; used for making tobacco-pipes, and also (esp. by soldiers) for cleaning white trousers, etc. Hence allusively, excessive attention to the minutiæ of dress and appearance in the management of regiments. See also tobacco-pipe clay s.v. tobacco-pipe 3.
[1758Reid tr. Macquer's Chym. I. 198 This lute is composed of a very fine cretaceous earth, called tobacco-pipe clay, moistened with..oil of lint-seed, and a varnish made of amber and gum copal.] 1777J. Wedgwood Let. 19 July (1965) 207 He brought some of the stones home with him, mixed them with Pipe Clay, and made the first White Flint Stone Ware. 1806Gazetteer Scotl. (ed. 2) 290 Limestone is abundant, and there is a great quantity of what is called pipe-clay. 1851Mayne Reid Scalp Hunt. xxiii, He [the soldier] had got tired of pork and pipe-clay. 1858W. Johnson Ionica 49 Yet bright gleams the pipe-clay below the red breast, And in slate-coloured trowsers the line look their best. 1862Sat. Rev. 15 Mar. 299 Hampered by conditions largely partaking of red tape and pipeclay. 1898E. J. Hardy in United Service Mag. Mar. 650 He spends all his time cleaning his things, and would be like a fish out of water if pipeclay were abolished. 1966‘J. Hackston’ Father clears Out 80 He could have also ‘lost all his grass’, not that our pipeclay had any grass on it.
attrib.1779Forrest Voy. N. Guinea 165 A remarkable rock..of a pipe clay colour, with a few bushes atop. 1835Gen. P. Thompson Exerc. (1842) III. 259 Not altogether perhaps what may be called ‘in pipe-clay order’. 1849E. E. Napier Excurs. S. Africa II. 5 There was not often time for the pipe-clay observances of the ‘regulations’.
Hence ˈpipe-clay v. trans., to whiten with pipe-clay; fig. to put into spick and span order; whence ˈpipe-clayed ppl. a., ˈpipe-claying vbl. n. and ppl. a. Also ˈpipe-clayey, ˈpipe-clayish adjs., covered with pipe-clay; addicted to the use of pipe-clay.
1833Marryat P. Simple ii, They [midshipmen] *pipe-clays their weekly accounts, and walks up and down with their hands in their pockets. 1864Knight Passages Work. Life I. 59 Our Volunteer..had to pipe-clay his white breeches and gaiters.
1830Marryat King's Own xxx, Their well *pipeclayed belts.
1890Golden South 167 His mate, very gruff and *pipe-clayey.
1836Fraser's Mag. XIII. 645 In these piping, and *pipe-claying, times of peace.
1859All Year Round No. 34. 183 They are too soldier-like, too *pipe-clayish. |