| 释义 |
pooh-pooh, v.|puːˈpuː|
[f. prec. int.]
trans. To express contempt or disdain for; to make light of, dismiss as unworthy of notice.
1827J. W. Croker Diary Feb. (1884) I. xii. 365 Peel pooh-poohed that difficulty. 1840Barham Ingol. Leg. Ser. i. Leech of Folkest. (1877) 376 An old gentleman..was deservedly pooh-pooh'd down. 1850Kingsley Alt. Locke xxxii, [They] pooh-poohed away every attempt at further enlargement of the suffrage. 1854Huxley in Life (1900) I. viii. 119 A stipend..between {pstlg}800 and {pstlg}1200 a year is not to be pooh-poohed. 1893Times 22 Apr., Mr. Gladstone cannot pooh-pooh difficulties in Committee. 1926[see à la phr. c]. 1957Observer 29 Sept. 13/4 It is one thing to pooh-pooh the final scene as melodrama..and quite another thing to remain detached as Salome lies, on your own fireside, intoxicated with passion. 1962Hovering Craft & Hydrofoil Nov. 20/2 A few years ago most of us would have pooh-poohed the idea of a modern version of Jules Verne's atom-powered ‘Nautilus’, which has since become a reality several times over. 1971Petticoat 24 July 39/1 If he refuses, or pooh-poohs your concern, go to a new family doctor, and try again. 1977New Yorker 27 June 30/3 My companion pooh-poohed the mishap and bade me choose an apéritif.
Hence pooh-ˈpooher, pooh-ˈpoohist; pooh-ˈpoohing vbl. n. and ppl. a.; pooh-ˈpoohingly adv., in a dismissive or contemptuous manner, pooh-ˈpoohy a. (nonce), inclined to pooh-pooh.
1841Dickens Let. 2 Apr. (1969) II. 249 The pooh-poohers and Lord Burleighs have it hollow, all the world through. 1855Thackeray Newcomes xxv, Slatter..was..silenced by the unanimous pooh-poohing of the assembly. 1861W. H. W[hite] in Rec. Astro-meteorol. Soc. No. i. 13, I mean the Pooh-poohists. These objectors..rear high their crests on the announcement of any novelty in practical science. 1862Furnivall Let. to Sub-editors N.E. Dict. 4, I believe that more roots will prove to be imsons than is supposed by pooh-poohers of the bow-wow theory. 1876H. Parry Diary in C. L. Graves Hubert Parry (1926) I. 169 Before the performance I met Otto Goldschmidt, and he was rather pooh-poohy about it. 1898W. James Coll. Ess. & Rev. (1920) 423 Concerning this question, at any rate, the positivists and pooh-poohers of metaphysics are in the wrong. 1906Sladen Lovers Japan iv, I had not the courage to tell her pooh-poohing uncle so. 1911G. B. Shaw Doctor's Dilemma p. lvii, The moment his practice is tracked down to its source in human passion there is a great and quite sincere poohpoohing..from the mass of the public. 1939Joyce Finnegans Wake iii. 498 The poohpooher old bossloose, with his arthurious clayroses..busted to the wurld at large. 1956Poohpooingly [see Borrovian n. and a.]. 1959Economist 7 Feb. 490/1 For all his pooh-poohing of ‘sentimentalism’, he admitted that he never heard ‘God Save the Queen’..without feeling tears in his eyes. |