| 释义 |
ˈpitch-and-ˈtoss
[From name of the two actions.]
a. A game of combined skill and chance. Also (Sc.), a manœuvre in the game of knifey, knifie (sense a).
Each player pitches a coin at a mark; the one whose coin lies nearest to the mark then tosses all the coins and keeps those that turn up ‘head’; the one whose coin lay next in order does the same with the remaining ones, and so on till all the coins are disposed of.
1810Sir A. Boswell Edinburgh Poems (1871) 54 The germ of Gambling sprouts in pitch and toss. 1844Dickens Christmas Carol iii, They are good for anything from pitch-and-toss to man-slaughter. 1890Times 16 Sept. 10/4 The charges before the magistrate..playing pitch and toss with pence in the streets. 1949[see barrack n.2]. 1969I. & P. Opie Children's Games vii. 222 Described..by a 10-year-old boy in the Isle of Lewis: ‘‘Knifie’ is a game for two people... Then try ‘Pitch and toss’. Stick it in the ground, then try to hit it with the palm of your hand and try to toss it into the air, so that it will land blade first in the earth.’
b. transf. and fig. (In first quot. a pun.)
a1845Hood Sea-spell iv, The bounding pinnace played a game Of dreary pitch and toss, A game that, on the good dry land, Is apt to bring a loss. 1866Geo. Eliot F. Holt xix, Brummagem half-pennies, scamps who want to play pitch-and-toss with the property of the country. 1893Westm. Gaz. 1 Mar. 2/3 This is one of the pitch-and-toss points from his speech as reported in to-day's Times. 1910Kipling Rewards & Fairies 175 If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, and lose, And start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss. 1960J. Franklyn Dict. Rhyming Slang 108/1 Pitch and toss, the boss. 20 C. Current in the theatrical world (Lupino Lane). 1973Times 29 Dec. 12/7 Writing more than a dozen varied plays of substance, some of which had less fortune than they deserved in the pitch-and-toss of the West End.
Hence pitch and toss v. intr., to play at pitch-and-toss; trans. to pitch or throw about as if at this game; pitcher and tosser n. phr., one who pitches and tosses.
1849S. Bamford Early Days (1859) 169 There's a deal o' sin committed thereabeawts; pitchin' an' tossin', an' drinkin', an' beawlin', i' Summer time. 1882M. E. Braddon Mt. Royal I. ii. 67 No scattered sheets of music—no fancy-work pitch-and-tossed about the room. 1883G. H. Boughton in Harper's Mag. Apr. 692/1 The pitchers and tossers allow for you and a rational amount of headway. |