| 释义 |
rootle, v.|ˈruːt(ə)l|
Also dial. routle.
[f. root v.2 + -le. See also rookle v.]
1. intr. To root or grub; transf. to poke about. Also const. about, round.
1809Batchelor Anal. Eng. Lang. 141 Rootle, to dig up roots like swine. 1854A. E. Baker Northampt. Gloss. I. 181 How them children are rootling about! 1865F. Boyle Dyaks of Borneo 22 The backs of the pigs rootling among the débris almost brush the flooring. 1899Contemp. Rev. Dec. 795 A pug, rootling about among the ivy, startled out a great fat rabbit. 1917Kipling Diversity of Creatures 261 There's a tin of cocoa in my study somewhere... Rootle round till you find it. 1929V. Woolf Room of One's Own i. 14 The chapel itself was marsh too, where the grasses waved and the swine rootled. 1936A. Christie Cards on Table ix. 85 I'll leave you my keys and..you can rootle to your heart's content. 1943Theology xlvi. 159 It is coming to be seen that he [sc. Nietzsche] rootled about in the subsoil of the modern mind to the profit of few things so much as the Christian Faith. 1959Elizabethan Apr. 10/2 We rootled among the debris for something to eat. 1964P. White Burnt Ones 203 On the way, as she rootled after the lovely little lighter, I was relieved to see her bag was still stuffed with notes. 1977Zigzag Apr. 43/3 He rootled about under the stairs and found an unopened Christmas present bottle of Glenfiddich.
2. trans. To root or grub up; to rout out. Also transf.
1863Mrs. Gaskell Sylvia's L. xxiii, A misdoubt me if there were a felly there as would ha' thought o' routling out yon wasps' nest. 1885Fishing I. 415 Rootling up the sand and gravel for his livelihood. 1889Jessopp Coming of Friars 242 The litter of pigs that were rootling up the beech-nuts in the woods. 1945D. Rees Cambridge Murders xiii. 135 He set one or two members of his staff to rootle out the past histories of all the people whose names had been mentioned. 1955M. E. B. Banks Commando Climber x. 189 Their [sc. the reindeers'] disappearance has been attributed to a late autumn thaw..which covered their winter pasture with a crust of ice that prevented them rootling out their fodder. 1978New Scientist 20 July 171/2 Pigs which rootle out the eggs and eat the vulnerable young. |