| 释义 |
▪ I. poker, n.1|ˈpəʊkə(r)|
[f. poke v.1 + -er1.]
1. a. An instrument for poking or stirring a fire, consisting of a stiff metal rod, one end of which is fitted with or formed into a handle.
Jew's poker: see quot. 1899.
1534in W. H. Turner Select. Rec. Oxford (1880) 126 He..came downe with a poker in his hande. 1714Addison Spect. No. 608 ⁋13 By her good Will she never would suffer the Poker out of her Hand. 1800E. Hervey Mourtray Fam. I. 70 The men say she is as stiff as a poker; and the women are afraid of her, she is so proud and prudish. 1829Lytton Disowned xviii, The ancient domestic..came, poker in hand, to his assistance. 1844Ld. Brougham A. Lunel III. vi. 176 Of a stiffness so perfect that part of his toilette seemed to be swallowing a poker. 1899R. Whiteing No. 5 John St. xix, A Jew's Poker is a Christian person who attends to Jewish fires on the Sabbath day.
b. fig. (in allusion to its proverbial stiffness): A person with a rigid stiff carriage or manner.
1812Miss Mitford in L'Estrange Life (1870) I. 184, I dare say our new cousin is just such a poker as Lord Selkirk, with an iron head and an iron heart. 1838Lady Granville Lett. 14 July, He..would be very handsome if he would not stoop..Liz is a poker in comparison.
†2. = poking-stick: see poking vbl. n. 2. Obs.
1604Dekker Honest Wh. Wks. 1873 II. 25 Where's my ruffe and poker, you block-head? 1606Heywood 2nd Pt. If you know not me i. Wks. 1874 I. 258 Now, your Puritans poker is not so huge, but somewhat longer; a long slender poking-sticke is the all in all with your Suffolke Puritane.
3. In various transferred uses.
a. (See quot.)
1823Crabb Technol. Dict., Poker..or driver, an iron instrument, of various lengths and sizes, used for driving hoops on masts. It has a flat foot at one end, and a round knob at the other.
b. humorous. The staff or rod of office carried by a verger, bedell, etc.
1844[implied in poker-bearer: see 9]. 1905H. S. Holland Personal Stud. ix. Westcott 130 Under the haughty contempt of the solitary verger [in Peterborough Cathedral], who had been forced to lend the authority of his ‘poker’ to those undignified and newfangled efforts.
c. University slang. One of the university bedells at Oxford and Cambridge, who carry staves or maces (‘pokers’) before the Vice-Chancellor.
1841Rime of New-Made Baccalere (Farmer), Heads of Houses in a row, And Deans and College Dons below, With a Poker or two behind. 1867London Society XII. 347 We attended duly at St. Mary's to see the vice-chancellor, doctors, proctors, ‘pokers’, &c. in their robes of state. 1897Jowett's Life & Lett. II. viii. 226 There was a great procession, the Chancellor in black and gold, Doctors in scarlet gowns, the Vice-Chancellor with pokers.
4. red-hot poker, a popular name of species of Tritoma (or Kniphofia), South African liliaceous plants, bearing elongated spikes of scarlet or yellow flowers; called also flame-flower (flame n. 10).
1884Miller Plant-n., Red-hot-poker-plant. 1899Pall Mall G. 11 Oct. 2/2 The clustered sunflowers and ‘red-hot pokers’, most gorgeous of September's old-fashioned blooms. 1902Cornish Naturalist Thames 179 Scarlet tritomas (red-hot pokers) look splendid among the deep greens of the summer grass.
5. The implement with which poker-work is done; hence, short for poker-work. Also attrib.
1827Seaham Par. Reg., A drawing in poker, by him, of the Salvator Mundi, after Carlo Dolci. 1854[see poker-picture in 9]. c1900W. D. Thompson Poker Work 10 The pokers were anything, from a knitting needle to an iron rod 3/4 in. thick, and were bound with yarn or other material to protect the hands from being burnt, and to enable the worker to obtain a firmer grip of the implement. Ibid. 17 The ‘Pyro’..is another development in Poker machines which..does away with the spirit-lamp. Ibid. 24 Poker artists will find it convenient to be in possession of the principal manufacturer's list of Poker materials. c1900― Instruct. ‘Pyro’ Poker Machine, Before starting any piece of work it is wise to become familiar with the lighting and working of the poker.
6. a. A person who pokes; esp. one who pokes or pries into things.
1608R. Armin Nest Ninn. (1880) 50 Now our Philosophical Poker pokte on, and poynted to a strange shew. 1741Richardson Pamela (1824) I. xxxix. 359 Such thoughtful futurity pokers as I am!
b. = fucker. slang.
1879–80Pearl (1970) 214 I've been told by jokers That the ladies they do all agree that he's the prince of pokers.
c. Cricket. A batsman who ‘pokes’ (poke v.1 4 b).
1888A. G. Steel in Steel & Lyttelton Cricket iii. 143 But to the poker, the man who refuses to do anything but stick his bat in front of the wicket..the high-dropping full-pitch is an excellent ball.
7. Phrase. by the holy poker. A humorous asseveration, of Irish origin and uncertain meaning.
1804M. Edgeworth Limerick Gloves ii, ‘By the holy poker’, said he to himself, ‘the old fellow now is out there’. 1828Lancet 23 Feb. 773/2 He swears by the ‘holy poker’ and ‘St. Patrick’, that he will never again go to St. Bartholomew's. 1890‘R. Boldrewood’ Col. Reformer (1891) 134 By the holy poker, sir,..you've just hit it there.
8. = poke n.3 2. rare.
1805T. B. Hazard Nailer Tom's Diary (1930) 260/2 Put Poker on one of my oxen.
9. attrib. and Comb., as poker-arm; poker-backed, poker-like, poker-stiff, poker-straight adjs.; poker back, (a) a perfectly straight back; (b) Path. (see quot. 1973); poker-bearer, a mace-bearer, a University bedell; poker-drawing, poker-painting = poker-work; poker-picture, a picture made by poker-work; poker spine Path. = poker back (b) above; poker-style, the style of poker-work. (See also sense 5.)
1890Scots Observer 25 Jan. 267/2 Mannerisms noticed thirty years ago on St. Andrews Links..Alexander Hill's tip-toe eccentricities, and Mill's *poker-arm, imbecile, pushing motion!
1931M. Allingham Look to Lady xxvi. 276 A single slim aristocratic figure, with the unmistakable *poker back of the old regime. 1960H. Edwards Spirit Healing x. 87 The healing of certain troubles, as with poker-back spines. 1973Taylor & Cotton Short Textbk. Surg. (ed. 2) xl. 539 [In ankylosing spondylitis] the normal spine curvatures become replaced by a single kyphosis, occasionally so acutely angled that the patient's back becomes horizontal (poker back).
1885Fortnight in Waggonette 6 To assume his usual *poker-backed style of seat. 1898Pall Mall G. 9 Mar. 2/2 The journal..assumes its most poker-backed ‘we-told-you-so’ attitude.
1844J. T. J. Hewlett Parsons & W. ix, From vice-chancellor down to vice-chancellor's *poker-bearer.
1895Westm. Gaz. 13 Aug. 3/3 ‘Black Rod’,..carrying a three-cornered hat in one hand, and a short gilt-headed *poker-like stick gracefully poised in the other.
1895Clara H. Stevens in Proc. 14th Conv. Amer. Instr. Deaf 365 The art of *poker-painting has had more attention in England than elsewhere.
1854Fairholt Dict. Terms Arts, *Poker-pictures, imitations of pictures or rather of bister-washed drawings executed by singeing the surface of white wood with a heated poker, such as used in Italian irons.
1917Brit. Med. Jrnl. 30 June 860/1 Dr. John Drummond (Liverpool) asks for suggestions as to treatment in a case of *poker spine in a man 30 years of age... The back is now immobile.
1960S. Plath Colossus (1967) 27 Rigged *poker-stiff on her back. 1962‘K. Orvis’ Damned & Destroyed xi. 77 Frankie's back was poker-stiff.
1966J. S. Cox Illustr. Dict. Hairdressing 119/1 *Poker straight, without a vestige of curl. 1979N. Freeling Widow ii. 3 The hair was poker-straight.
1887Morris in Mackail Life (1899) II. 183 Some decoration that she was doing in the *poker-style, burning the pattern in.
▪ II. ˈpoker, n.2 Now U.S. colloq.
Also 7 pocar.
[perh. from Norse; corr. to Da. pokker, Swed. pocker the devil. Cf. also puck, pook.]
A hobgoblin, bugbear, demon. Old Poker, the devil.
[1598: see hodge-poker.] 1601Dent Pathw. Heaven 109 Euen as a mother, when her childe is wayward,..scareth it with some pocar, or bull-begger, to make it cling more vnto her and be quiet. 1784H. Walpole Let. to Hon. H. S. Conway 5 May, The very leaves on the horse-chesnuts..cling to the bough as if old poker was coming to take them away. 1828Webster, Poker, any frightful object, especially in the dark; a bugbear; a word in common popular use in America.
▪ III. † ˈpoker, n.3 dial. Obs.
[f. poke n.1 sack + -er1.]
(See quot.)
a1700B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Poker, one that conveys Coals (at Newcastle) in Sacks, on Horseback.
▪ IV. ˈpoker, n.4 Chiefly U.S.
[Origin uncertain. Cf. Ger. poch, also poche, pochen, pochspiel, a similar bluffing card-game of considerable age, f. pochen to boast, brag, lit. to knock, rap.]
a. A card game, popular in America, a variety of brag, played by two or more persons, each of whom, if not bluffed into declaring his hand, bets on the value of it, the player who holds the highest combination of cards as recognized in the game winning the pool. Also fig.
1836J. Hildreth Campaigns Rocky Mts. I. xv. 128 The M— lost some cool hundreds last night at poker. 1842Knickerbocker XX. 305 Squeezing a great deal of boisterous amusement out of a game of ‘poker’. [1855Geo. Eliot in Cross Life (1885) I. 356 One night we attempted ‘Brag’ or ‘Pocher’.] 1856Mrs. S. T. L. Robinson Kansas 156 Jones and others came in at night and ‘played poker at twenty-five cents ante’. 1856G. D. Brewerton War in Kansas 354 He could cheat his companion at a ‘friendly game of poker’, and shoot him afterwards..with as little remorse. 1869O. W. Holmes Old Vol. of Life, Cinders from Ashes (1891) 255 Do the theological professors take a hand at all-fours or poker on week⁓days? 1894S. Fiske Holiday Stories (1900) 169 Poker, they call it ashore; but, as gambling is not allowed on government vessels, it becomes whist at sea. 1978Time 3 July 42/3 The Justice Department was in no mood to be bluffed, even by troubled steelmakers, and talks dragged on and on in a months-long game of high-stakes political poker.
b. attrib. and Comb., as poker-deck, poker-game, poker hand, poker-player, poker table; poker chip, a chip [chip n.1 2 d] used as a stake in poker; poker dice, (a) dice with the representation of a playing card on at least two of their faces; (b) a dice game, played with either poker or regular dice, in which the thrower aims for combinations which would constitute a winning hand in poker; poker face, an inscrutable face appropriate to a poker-player; a face in which a person's thoughts or feelings are not revealed; also, a person with such a face; hence as v. trans. (rare—1) to regard with a poker-face; poker-faced a. (cf. po-faced a.); poker machine Austral., a type of ‘one-armed bandit’ bearing card symbols; poker patience, a form of competitive patience the object of which is to form winning poker combinations in each row and column; poker school, a group of people meeting to play poker.
1879News & Press (Cimarron, New Mexico) 20 Nov. 4/3 The toughest thing we have heard about any candidate in this section is that he got his *poker chips cashed after he ‘experienced religion’. 1929Wodehouse Mr. Mulliner Speaking iv. 122 At the end of five minutes, Osbert was mildly surprised to find himself in possession of a smoking-cap, three boxes of poker-chips, some polo sticks, [etc.]. 1973E. Pace Any War (1974) iii. 189 He heard..no laughter, no rattle of poker chips.
1844J. Cowell Thirty Years among Players 94 He was, apparently, quietly shuffling and cutting the *poker-deck for his own amusement.
1874*Poker dice [see die n.1 1 a]. 1901Game of Poker Dice 1 The only Implements required are Sets of The Poker Dice and Cups, according to the number of players. 1926E. Hemingway Sun also Rises i. vi. 43 Harvey had won two hundred francs from me shaking poker dice. 1975D. Bloodworth Clients of Omega x. 87 Poker dice, of course, man..Strip poker.
1885Encycl. Brit. XIX. 283/2 A good *poker face is essential; the countenance should not betray the nature of the hand. 1919G. A. Miller Prowling about Panama xiii. 198 (caption) San Blas Indians have ‘poker faces’. 1926H. C. Witwer Roughly Speaking 243 His teeth clicked and he gave me a long, thoughtful look, but I poker-faced him and went on plugging my [switch-]board. 1934E. O'Neill Days without End i. 20 His features automatically assume the meaninglessly affable expression which is the American business man's welcoming poker face. 1950G. B. Shaw Buoyant Billions iii. 28 Sunday clothes and poker faces. No peace, no joy. 1974‘J. Melville’ Nun's Castle i. 21, I..kept a poker-face. Inside, however, I was deeply distressed. 1976P. Dickinson King & Joker vii. 104, I hardly need say it to you, because you're such an old poker-face anyway, but..you have to..behave as though you are the only person who knows.
1923Nation (N.Y.) 18 July 61 The picture of that *poker-faced gentleman placidly smoking a Pittsburg stogie. 1949Time 12 Sept. 20/1 The poker-faced fellow was putting up a terrific fight. 1973D. Westheimer Going Public ix. 134 ‘We'd send them a letter, see,’ said Margo poker-faced. ‘Telling them how to commit suicide.’
1932T. S. Eliot Sweeney Agonistes 18 What about that *poker game? eh what Sam? What about that poker game in Bordeaux? 1957Times Lit. Suppl. 13 Dec. 753/2 Ward politics, big poker-games, prostitution and murder. 1977H. Fast Immigrants ii. 97 He remembered such faces from poker games.
1935Encycl. Sports 467/1 The object of the game [sc. poker patience] is so to place the cards as they are played that finally each row and each column will form a *poker hand. 1963G. F. Hervey Handbk. Card Games 231 There are nine possible poker hands at which to aim. 1974Encycl. Brit. Macropædia XIV. 623/1 A Poker hand consists of five cards.
1964A. Wykes Gambling 330 Gamblers also managed to spend about $1,500,000 on ‘*poker machines’ (a kind of slot machine that bears card symbols). 1973Sunday Mail (Brisbane) 29 July 5/3 Canberra soon may be the first city in Australia to have poker machines in its hotels. 1976Daily Mirror (Sydney) 14 Oct., Young poker-machine players should be given a warning about how much they could lose.
1912‘Saki’ Stampeding of Lady Bastable in Chronicles of Clovis 55 He particularly wanted to teach the MacGregor boys..*poker-patience. 1932R. Fraser Marriage in Heaven iii. ii. 292 The whole party joined in a game of poker-patience. 1972A. Christie Elephants can Remember v. 78 They played picquet, and poker patience with each other.
1844J. Cowell Thirty Years passed among Players in England & Amer. 94 The cabin was entirely cleared..with the exception of one of the *poker players. 1912M. Nicholson Hoosier Chron. 137 He had the reputation of being a poor poker player, but ‘a good loser’. 1963G. F. Hervey Handbk. Card Games 237 Experienced poker players often say that what counts is not so much what they win as what the other players lose.
1882N. York Times 11 Mar., *Poker-playing was carried to England in the old packet-ships.
1872C. King Mountain. Sierra Nev. xiv. 285 They shoved the jury into a commodious *poker-room, where were seats grouped about neat, green tables.
1949J. R. Cole It was so Late 91 Men from the camp..make up a *poker school. 1968E. McGirr Lead-Lined Coffin iii. 129 Pope joined one of the large poker schools. 1977A. C. H. Smith Jericho Gun xi. 139 ‘Sorry to bust up the poker school.’.. ‘I don't mind... I was two pounds ahead.’
a1861T. Winthrop John Brent (1862) 295 He sot his white head down to the *poker-table, and stuck thar. 1930J. Dos Passos 42nd Parallel vii. 94 Pokertables piled with new silver dollars. 1977Times 29 Aug. 6/2 Batesy was an old hand at marshalling her clients, bringing together seven to make up a full poker table.
▪ V. poker, n.5
a kind of duck: see pochard.
▪ VI. ˈpoker, v.
[f. poker n.1]
1. trans.
a. To use a poker to; to poke, stir, or strike with a poker.
b. poker up: To stiffen up, or make as stiff as a poker. nonce-uses.
1787F. Burney Diary 19 June, I thought you had been too good-natured..to poker the people in the King's-house! 1806–7J. Beresford Miseries Hum. Life (1826) xx. xxv. 254 Portraits..of your host's family all pinched and pokered up in the incredible costumes of their several centuries.
2. To draw in or adorn with poker-work.
1897Daily News 2 June 5/2 The Duchess..had executed several kid sachets in pokerwork, and her daughter, Princess Alice of Albany, had pokered a wooden stand. c1900W. D. Thompson Poker Work 12 Illustration of various articles which have been pokered by accomplished designers and artists.
3. trans. Of a verger, etc.: to escort (a church dignitary) ceremoniously. Cf. poker n.1 3 b.
1924C. Lang Let. in R. C. D. Jasper G. Bell, Bishop of Chichester (1967) iii. 36, I shall feel more free to laugh when I see you clothed in apron and gaiters and being pokered at Canterbury. 1975Theology LXXV. 260 Hamling was also verger, and did all the old establishment things like pokering the preacher to the pulpit, and generally gave the services tone.
Hence ˈpokering vbl. n. (also attrib.).
1880J. Lomas Alkali Trade 21 In..the ‘front’ plate, are placed..the working door, pokering door, and means for getting at the grates. |