| 释义 |
big-head
Also big head, bighead.
[big a. 3.]
1. Any of certain diseases of cattle, horses, sheep, etc., characterized by swelling of the head. orig. U.S.
1805Lancaster (Pa.) Intelligencer 3 Dec. Advt. (Th.), A Brown Steer, having ‘what they call the Big Head’. 1868Rep. Iowa Agric. Soc. 1867 130, I have not lost but two of the bovine species..; one in 1861 had big head or jaw. 1888in Farmer Americanisms. 1955Gaiger & Davies Vet. Path. & Bacteriol. (ed. 4) xxxvii. 711 The condition [sc. osteofibrosis] is also known..in England, as ‘big head’.
2. U.S. and Austral. A popular name for various fish having large heads (see quots.).
1820C. S. Rafinesque Schmaltz Ichth. Ohiensis 49 Vulgar names, Chub, Big-mouth, and Big-head. 1889Cent. Dict., Bighead, a local name of a Californian species of sculpin, Scorpænichthys marmoratus, a fish of the family Cottidæ. 1909Ibid. Suppl., Bighead, a fish, Eleotris nudiceps, of the family Gobiidæ. [Australia.]
3. fig. ‘Swelled head’; an inflated opinion of oneself; conceit, arrogance. U.S. colloq.
1850H. C. Lewis Louisiana ‘Swamp Doctor’ 157 Pride..lets human nature die of the big-head before common sense can bleed freely. 1857B. Young in Jrnl. Discourses IV. 69/2 They need to be careful, or they will have the ‘big head’, and become as dead..as old pumpkins. 1896Congress. Rec. Mar. 3030/2 [Such] men holding subordinate places in the government of the U.S. to-day..have got the ‘big head’ and got it bad. 1902G. H. Lorimer Lett. Self-Made Merchant 226 A boss with a case of big-head will fill an office full of sore heads.
b. A conceited or arrogant person. colloq.
[1846Warsaw (Ill.) Signal 6 Feb. 3/1 A certain Jack-mormon of Hancock county, we won't call him big-head, (but the Saints used to) is in the habit of shaving the hair off his forehead, in order to give it an intellectual appearance. 1863W. Stokes tr. Creation of World 107 in Trans. Philol. Soc. 1864, The Father's anger hath gone with me For slaying Abel (the) big-head.] 1932J. Cary Aissa Saved 106 He is simply a fool, a conceited bighead who thinks he knows better than the oldest and most experienced men in the whole country. 1955E. Blishen Roaring Boys iv. 238 Saying..‘This man was a bighead,’ in baffled parody of Shakespeare's funeral speeches.
4. (A person wearing) a large and grotesque mask covering the head.
1895Roberts & Morton Adv. vi. 73 Everybody gagged, even the supers and the big-heads. 1933P. Godfrey Back-Stage iv. 53 ‘You 'ad real pantos—..'Arliquinades, and a chorus of Big 'Eads.’ From the litter of the bygone he produces a specimen ‘Big Head’. It is a fantastic object nearly three feet high. |