| 释义 |
big chill, n. colloq. (orig. and chiefly N. Amer.).
Brit. |ˌbɪg ˈtʃɪl|, U.S. |ˌbɪg ˈtʃɪl|
Forms: also with capital initials.
[‹ big adj. + chill n.
In sense 2, influenced by the title of the U.S. film The Big Chill (1983), which depicts a group of estranged college friends reunited in autumn for the funeral of a contemporary, and consequently reassessing their adult lives against the revived memory of adolescent idealism.]
1. A spell of extremely cold weather. Also: a geological period of very cold conditions; a glacial period.
1911Syracuse (N.Y.) Herald 13 Nov. 18/1 Big chill in Cleveland. 1948Ogden (Utah) Standard-Examiner 9 Dec. 1/2 The mercury skidded to 20 below zero in Montana and Wyoming today and the big chill—coldest of the season—is heading towards the central states. 1993Gazette (Montreal) 27 Dec. a1 Big chill descends on city. Blackouts left thousands of families shivering in the dark..as Montrealers braced for the coldest weather on record in nearly seven years. 1997Equinox Feb. 18/1 Earth scientists have been at a loss to explain a mysterious 1,300-year winter that stalled the glacial retreat of the last ice age... The cause of the big chill, known as the Younger Dryas, is unknown.
2. Freq. with the.
a. A numbing and depressing sensation or influence on the feelings, a damper; (also) a state of affairs causing loss of confidence or resolve. Cf. chill n. 4a, chill n. 3b.
1943N.Y. Times 4 Aug. 21/1 One trick the present Yankees have inherited from their predecessors is the art of putting a big chill on hot opposition. 1948Wall St. Jrnl. 24 Mar. 16/4 Final big chill to red-hot plans of 106 business and industrial leaders for a $53 million Sesquicentennial Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1953 was administered March 12 by the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce. 1983N.Y. Times 22 Nov. c14 Aren't we all..getting a bit tired of watching 60's-style students as they beat a hasty retreat into the big chill of the middle-class mainstream? 1986J. Viorst Necessary Losses xi. 167 Growing up is not the death of all that's swell and sweet. Growing up need not be the Big Chill. 1993S. Callahan in R. M. Baird & S. E. Rosenbaum Ethics of Abortion x. 116 Pragmatic failures of a pro-choice feminist position..are, in fact, causing disaffection among young women. Middleaged pro-choice feminists blamed ‘the big chill’ on the general conservative backlash. 1999Electronic Engin. Times (Electronic ed.) 28 Feb. Aside from the big chill caused by the recession and resulting weak sales of consumer electronics, the companies are suffering from a range of problems.
b. Death; mortality.
1987Campus Voice Spring 48/3 Sky divers routinely flirt with death, but increasing numbers of people claim to have come closer to the Big Chill than any daredevil has. 1999Philadelphia Inquirer 26 Sept. g8/2 Call it Heaven, the Pure Land, Firdaws, the Other Side, or olam-haba, 82 percent of adult Americans today believe some aspect of them will endure beyond their own big chill. 2003R. Lacey Street Bible 53 You won't snuff out a life, stop someone's clock, blow anyone away, bump anyone off, dole out the big chill. |