| 释义 |
big one, n. colloq.
Brit. |ˈbɪg wʌn|, U.S. |ˈbɪg wən|
Forms: also (esp. in sense 3) with capital initial(s).
[‹ big adj. + one n.]
1. orig. and chiefly U.S. A large sum of money, esp. one thousand (occas. one million) dollars or (Brit.) pounds; a note of large denomination. Also (usu. pl.): one dollar or (Brit.) one pound.
1863T. Taylor Ticket-of-leave Man i. 17 Now to plant the big 'un. 1908K. McGaffey Sorrows of Show Girl 237 Wilbur's got the wise guys so leary..they naturally slip him a big one every time they get the chance. 1970T. Southern Blue Movie 52 ‘Three big ones baby!’.. ‘Three million!’ 1989N.Y. Woman Oct. 44/2 We suggest answering only two calls: from the lottery saying you've just won 50 million big ones. Or from Mel Gibson. 1993Empire Aug. 123/2 Paperback, Bloomsbury, {pstlg}20.00. Hardly a snip at 20 big ones, this is nevertheless something of a must-buy. 2001Sunday Times (Nexis) 19 Aug. Detailing how a top-spending client ripped through 80 big ones in a weekend is apt to appear indelicate.
2. orig. U.S. With the. Something regarded as important and decisive, or as the most significant, substantial, or influential of its kind; esp. a factor, event, opportunity, etc., of great potential or consequence.
1924D. Hammett Nightmare Town in Argosy All-Story Weekly 27 Dec. 521/2 We made booze and shipped it out... Then we got the real idea—the big one! We kept on making the hooch; but we got the big idea going for our own profit. 1976M. Apple Oranging of Amer. 50 You'll roll up in an ancient scroll, grow earlocks, and say, ‘This is the big one, the one I've been waiting for.’ 1985M. Sachs Fat Girl i. 6 Oh, I went around with a girl in my sophomore year. She was the big one in my life. 1994Face Sept. 77/3 US Vogue remains The Big One (commercially, at least). 2001New Yorker 20 Jan. 95/1 Emboldened by his success..the young British director has gone for the big one: Babylonian budget, sweeping locations, dazzling deployment of multiple cameras.
3. Chiefly U.S. Freq. with the.
a. A war, originally spec. the Second World War (1939–45), now freq. a prospective nuclear war. Hence: a major military incursion or assault.
In quot. 1972: the atomic bomb.
1960G. Bluestone Private World Cully Powers iii. 47 Back in the Big One. 1983R. Eilert For Self & Country x. 182, I had one of those people tell me that the wounds were much worse in the big one. Can you believe it? 1991B. MacArthur Despatches from Gulf War 184 ‘We were all geared up for the Big One,’ said a staff sergeant with the Queen's Own Highlanders. 1993Harper's Mag. Jan. 22/2 The dream of all-out nuclear war faded... Let's face it: the ‘big one’ isn't coming. There will be no Armageddon.
b. A major disaster, spec. a (prospective) large-scale earthquake.
1978Economist 21 Jan. 68/3 Registering a magnitude of 7 on the Richter scale..and..making the Japanese capital's 12m inhabitants wonder what will happen when the big one comes. 1980J. Henderson in G. McLauchlan Acid Test (1981) 192 ‘This is an earthquake.’.. In Napier, the gravedigger..leaping out [of a newly dug grave] to avoid burial in The Big One. 1997Escape Mar.–Apr. 81 Floods, landslides and monsoons are all listed alphabetically by country, and you can even e-mail your own sitrep (situation report) if, say, you're unlucky enough to be at the quake's epicentre when The Big One hits San Francisco. 2000N.Y. Times 30 Oct. a4/1 No one seems to blink at minimum—and oddly precise—estimates of 6,717 people killed and more than 300,000 structures destroyed, mostly by fire, if the Big One hits. |