| 释义 |
plug-ugly slang (orig. and chiefly U.S.).|plʌgˈʌglɪ|
[Origin obscure: see quots.]
A city ruffian or rowdy. More widely, a man of violence, one who adopts intimidatory methods. Also attrib. and as adj.
1856Butte Rec. (Oroville, Calif.) 29 Nov. 3/7 The..Plug Uglies..went to Philadelphia on election day..to fight off and whip the democracy from the polls. 1857Lawrence (Kansas) Republican 30 July 2 Only a pitiful minority of the actual voters of Kansas, cast their votes for delegates to the plug ugly convention. 1860Bartlett Dict. Amer. (ed. 3), Plug Ugly, a term assumed by a gang of rowdies in Baltimore. It originally belonged to certain fire companies. 1861[see blood-tub (blood n. 21)]. 1865Reader 19 Aug. 203 In order the better to deal with the rowdies and plug⁓uglies of the more turbulent wards. 1876in Times 4 Nov. 9/6 ‘Plug-Uglies’... Several years ago I was in Baltimore, where the class of rowdies who originated this euphonious name abounded, and was told it was derived from a short spike fastened in the toe of their boots, with which they kicked their opponents in a dense crowd, or, as they elegantly expressed it, ‘plugged them ugly’. 1884Pall Mall G. 17 July 4/1 His friends were alternately the ‘plug⁓uglies’ of Sixth Avenue and the dudes of Delmonico's. 1909Dialect Notes III. 358 Plug-ugly, an ugly person or thing, especially an ugly horse. 1915Ibid. IV. 187 Plug ugly, adj. phr. Said of a very ugly man, not genteel. (Applied more commonly to an ‘ugly customer’.—Ed.) 1923Wodehouse Adventures of Sally xiv. 176 After he'd paid these two pluguglies their guarantees..he was just about cleaned out. 1935Punch 13 Nov. 550/2 Readers who have led sheltered lives will think of plug-uglies, and I hope the cleaner kinds of plug-ugly will think of baths. 1953[see lunatic fringe s.v. lunatic n. 1 c]. 1956D. Karp All Honorable Men 18 The plug-uglies on the Right and the Left are the only people who don't give a damn about the opposing argument, and I don't count myself among them. 1972K. Bonfiglioli Don't point that Thing at Me ii. 12 ‘Yes, Sir.’ said Plug Ugly II. 1975New Yorker 1 Dec. 136/2 When a director like Sam Peckinpah puts a group like his Wild Bunch on the screen, the men are so alive that the last thing that would ever come into your head is that some of them are plug-uglies. 1978N. Marsh Grave Mistake ii. 62 Verity thought, I've..drunk their champagne so now I turn plug-ugly and refuse. |