| 释义 |
▪ I. blanket, n.|ˈblæŋkɪt|
Forms: 4 blenket, 4–6 blankette, 5–7 blankett, 6–7 blanquet, blanchet, blancket, 3– blanket.
[a. OF. blankete, blanquette blanket, f. blanc white + dim. suffix -ette; see blanchētus, -um in Ducange. Cf. blunket. (The Thomas Blanket to whom gossip attributes the origin of the name, if he really existed, doubtless took his name from the article.)]
†1. A white or undyed woollen stuff used for clothing. Obs.
c1300Beket 1167 Blak was his cope above: his curtel whit blanket. c1420Anturs Arth. xxix, Her belte was of blenket..Beten with besandus, and bocult ful bene. c1440Promp. Parv. 38 Blankett, lawngelle, langellus. [1866Rogers Agric. & Prices I. xxii. 575 Blanket being undyed stuff. Ibid. 576 Blanket, or coarse woollen cloth, was woven at Witney nearly 500 years ago.]
2. a. A large oblong sheet of soft loose woollen cloth, used for the purpose of retaining heat, chiefly as one of the principal coverings of a bed; also for throwing over a horse, and, by primitive peoples or destitute persons, for clothing. tossing in a blanket was a rough irregular mode of punishment.
‘Blankets’ are now also made of cotton, of paper, etc.
1346Test. Ebor. I. (1836) 23, Ij. lintheamina cum uno blanket. 1392Langl. P. Pl. C x. 254 Noþer blankett in hus bed. 1444Test. Ebor. II. (1855) 111 A pair of blankettis. 1597Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, ii. iv. 241 A rascally Slaue, I will tosse the Rogue in a Blanket. 1606Holland Sueton. 17 Annot., A light blanquet or quilt. 1639J. W. tr. Guibert's Char. Physic ii. 66 Three or foure blanchets of Cotton hemmed. 1682Dryden Mac. Fl. 42 The like was ne'er in Epsom blankets tost. 1711Budgell Spect. No. 150 ⁋3 Had Tully himself pronounced one of his Orations with a Blanket about his Shoulders. 1713Steele Guardian No. 72 (1756) I. 319, I have..more than once seen the discipline of the blanket administred to the offenders. 1876Jevons Logic Prim. 9 People are so accustomed to use blankets to make themselves warm that they are surprised to see blankets used to keep ice cold.
b. fig.
1605Shakes. Macb. i. v. 54 Nor Heauen peepe through the Blanket of the darke, To cry, hold, hold. 1782Wolcott (P. Pindar) Ode R. Acad. v. Wks. 1812 I. 23 The black blanket of Old Mother Night. 1828Carlyle Misc. (1857) I. 215 The blanket of the Night is drawn asunder.
c. A large number of bombs dropped to cover a wide area.
1944Flight 22 June 661/2 A blanket of bombs is dropped to smother the whole of the area.
d. Nuclear Engin. (See quot. 1960.)
1955S. Visner in Reactor Handbk.: Engin. iv. 533 The conversion ratio increases with decreasing core diameter owing to increasing neutron leakage from the core to the blanket. 1960Gloss. Atomic Terms (H.M.S.O.) 7 Blanket, fertile material put round a reactor core to breed new fuel, e.g. thorium becomes uranium by absorption of spare neutrons.
3. Phrases.
a. a wet blanket: a person or thing that throws a damper over anything, as a wet blanket smothers fire. born on the wrong side of the blanket: said of an illegitimate child; also (on) the right side of the blanket.
1771Smollett Humph. Cl. II. 185 (D.) I didn't come on the wrong side of the blanket, girl. 1815Scott Guy M. I. 83 (D.) ‘Frank Kennedy,’ he said, ‘was a gentleman, though on the wrong side of the blanket.’ 1830Galt Lawrie T. iii. xiii. (1849) 128, I have never felt such a wet blanket before or syne. 1842Marryat P. Keene II. i. 100 The Captain marrying and having children on the right side of the blanket as they call it. 1879H. Spencer Data of Ethics xi. §72. 194 He [a melancholy man] is called a wet blanket. 1919D. Ashford Young Visiters (1951) v. 34 An old friend of mine not quite the right side of the blanket as they say.
b. on the blanket (slang): applied to supporters of the Irish Republican cause held in the Maze prison (near Belfast) and elsewhere, who wear blankets instead of prison clothes, as a form of protest against being treated as a criminal rather than as a political prisoner. Cf. dirty protest s.v. dirty a. 6 b.
1977New Statesman 30 Sept. 439 (heading) The men on the blanket. 1978Economist 19 Aug. 15 The boys on the blanket have never won the same support beyond their immediate circle of friends and families that those who were interned could rely on. 1979Guardian 23 Jan. 7/1 Provisional IRA prisoners..are ‘on the blanket’, refusing to wear clothes, wash, or slop out their cells. 1979An Phoblacht 29 Sept. 2/3 The latest organisation in Co. Meath to come out in support of the prisoners on the blanket in H-Block is the Meath County Board of the G.A.A. 1982M. Wallace Brit. Govt. in N. Irel. viii. 158 The first prisoner had gone ‘on the blanket’ in September 1976, refusing to wear prison clothing.
4. Printing. A woollen cloth used to cover the platten, so as to deaden and equalize its pressure.
1824J. Johnson Typogr. II. 648 The blankets must be of fine broad-cloth, or kerseymere. 1846Print. Apparatus Amat. 11 The platten is therefore covered with a piece of thick woollen cloth called the blanket.
5. (See quot.)
1816C. James Milit. Dict. (ed. 4) 53 Blankets, combustible things made of coarse paper steeped in a solution of salt-petre, which, when dry, are again dipt in a composition of tallow, resin, and sulphur. Used only in fire-ships.
6. transf. A layer of blubber in whales.
1885Wood in Longm. Mag. V. 548 The layer of blubber..called by whalers the ‘blanket.’
7. a. attrib. and Comb., as blanket-bag, blanket-cloth, blanket-making, blanket-tossing; etc.; blanket-hidden, blanket-tossed, blanket-wrapped adjs.; blanket bath, the washing of an invalid in bed; blanket bog (see quot.); blanket coat N. Amer. (see quot. 1872); blanket finish, a finish of a race in which the contestants are so close together that they could be covered with a blanket; blanket fish U.S. (see quot.); blanket flower, popular name of the Gaillardia; † blanket-love, illicit amours; blanket overcoat U.S. = blanket coat; blanket pack, a pedestrian traveller's kit with his blanket rolled about it; blanket-piece = blanket n. 6; blanket-roll Mil. (U.S.), a soldier's equipment of blanket and kit made into a roll for use on active service; blanket shawl, a thick woollen shawl; blanket sheet U.S., a newspaper in folio form; also attrib.; blanket-sluice; (see quot.) blanket stitch, a buttonhole stitch worked on the edge of a blanket or other material too thick to be hemmed; hence blanket-stitched a., sewn with a blanket stitch. blanket-weed (see quots.).
1856Kane Arct. Exp. I. xvi. 193 Skins and *blanket-bags.
1917A. M. Ashdown Compl. Syst. Nursing ii. 11 Points to bear in mind when giving a *blanket bath. 1962C. Watson Hopjoy was Here xvi. 180 An ambulent case, no bed pans or blanket baths.
1939A. G. Tansley Brit. Islands xxxiv. 676 Where the rainfall is high and the air so constantly moist that bog is the climatic formation, not necessarily arising in fen basins but covering the land continuously except on steep slopes and outcrops of rocks. This is the third type of bog met with in the British Isles and may be called *blanket bog, because it covers the whole land surface like a blanket.
1520Sir R. Elyot Will in Elyot Gov. (1883) App. A, *Blanket cloth for blankettes.
1761A. Henry Trav. & Adv. Canada (1901) iii. 35 A molton, or *blanket coat. 1775Pennsylvania Even. Post 31 Oct. 497/1 Our people had taken from the regulars some blanket coats. 1872Schele de Vere Americanisms 194 Mackinaw blankets..being very thick and well made,..served not only for beds but also for overcoats, which were called Blanket-Coats.
c1683(Title of Ballad) A true description of *Blanket Fair upon the river Thames in the time of the Great Frost.
[1793Sporting Mag. II. 52/1 Of the nineteen [race-horses] that started, the judge could only place the first four, for not only those, but four or five others, might have been nearly covered with a blanket. ]1934Webster s.v., A *blanket finish. 1960Times 1 Sept. 4/3 Black was beaten by a hairsbreadth in a blanket finish for the silver and bronze medals.
1870Amer. Naturalist IV. 597 Large numbers of ‘*blanket fish’ (a species of Thymallus) were to be seen ascending the small rivers.
1879T. Meehan Native Flowers of U.S. II. 182 In the settled parts of Texas..the Gaillardia is known as the ‘*Blanket-flower’. 1884W. Miller Dict. Eng. Plants 14/2 Blanket flower, blunt-toothed. Gaillardia amblyodon [etc.]. 1963Oxf. Bk. Garden Flowers 146/2 Gaillardia,..they are sometimes called ‘blanket flower’ because the margins of the petals are like the edging of a blanket.
1903Kipling Five Nations 131 The funerals through the market (*Blanket-hidden bodies).
1649G. Daniel Trinarch., Rich. II, ccxvi, Such *Blanket-Love.
1857Ruskin Pol. Econ. Art i. 72 It is *blanket-making and tailoring we must set people to work at.
1822J. A. Quitman Let. 16 Jan. in J. F. H. Claiborne Life J.A.Q. (1860) I. iv. 72 In winter coarse shoes and *blanket overcoats.
1920Chambers's Jrnl. Apr. 220/1 Only one small tin of corned beef remained in his *blanket-pack.
1851H. Melville Moby Dick II. xxv. 181 The longer upper strip, called a *blanket-piece. 1854Chambers's Jrnl. I. 54 The strip of blubber thus in course of separation is about four feet in length, and is called a blanket-piece. 1868H. C. Johnson Argent. Alps 113 Learning we had no beef, he ordered a fine ‘blanket piece’ to be cut off the entire side of the animal.
1891Harper's Mag. June 8/1 His bridle hand is raised by the *blanket roll. 1899Scribner's Mag. XXV. 27/1 These men..were..making ready to disembark, carrying their blanket-rolls and rifles with them.
1837Southern Lit. Messenger III. 660 The *blanket shawls with their varied coloring looked pretty and comfortable.
1839Boston Wkly. Mag. 2 Feb. 175 [The] Baltimore Athenæum..is a *blanket sheet, very well executed. 1870A. Maverick Raymond & N.Y. Press 36 The heavy, old-fashioned, ‘blanket sheet’ newspaper.
1881Raymond Mining Gloss., *Blanket-sluices, sluices in which coarse blankets are laid, to catch the fine but heavy particles of gold, amalgam, etc., in the slime passing over them.
1880L. Higgin Handbk. Embroidery iii. 23 *Blanket stitch is used for working the edges of table-covers, mantel valances, blankets, etc... It is simply a button-hole stitch. 1882Caulfeild & Saward Dict. Needlework, Blanket Stitch, used in crewel work and other embroideries for edging woollen, linen, and silk materials, and for forming ornamental lines. It is a variety of button-hole worked wide apart in long loops. 1960House & Garden May 113/1 The quilt..is in a soft lime green..with a blanket-stitched edge.
1881A. J. Duffield Don Quixote I. 374 The *blanket-tossed Squire. Ibid. 369 Never a word did he say of the blanket tossing.
1711Lond. Gaz. No. 4862/7 Her Majesty..hath been..pleased to Incorporate the *Blanket Weavers.
1879G. Fennell in Cassell's Techn. Educ. IV. 153 Weeds are often..troublesome in tanks or ponds..particularly the green filmy weed Cladophera, known as ‘*blanket-weed.’
1923D. H. Lawrence Birds, Beasts & Flowers 197 Mountains *blanket-wrapped Round a white hearth of desert.
b. Used attrib., (a) to designate American Indians who use the blanket as a garment, remaining in a primitive state of civilization and keeping tenaciously to their old tribal customs.
1859Bartlett Dict. Amer. (ed. 2), Blanket-Indian, a wild Indian, whose principal article of dress is the blanket. 1866Rep. Indian Affairs (U.S.) 173 There is..great ignorance concerning the location of the prairie or blanket tribes. 1891M. E. Ryan Told in Hills iii. iii. 166 You should hear her talking Chinook to a blanket brave. 1906Atlantic Monthly Mar. 328/2 Only 26,000 blanket Indians are left in the United States.
(b) Similarly in South Africa to designate Africans who wear a blanket; hence, by extension, blanket vote, the vote of such Africans.
1892Mitford 'Tween Snow & Fire xxxvi, There were a few muttered jeers about..getting into the Assembly on the strength of ‘blanket votes’. 1904Daily Chron. 13 May 3/3 The ‘compound’ system is essentially degrading even for ‘blanket’ Kaffirs.
c. Used adjectivally in the sense: covering or including all, or a number of, cases, contingencies, requirements, things, etc.; all-embracing; indiscriminate. orig. U.S.
1886Rep. Sec. U.S. Treasury I. p. xli, Suitable annual appropriations..require no blanket-clause to justify or cover them. 1896Congress. Rec. May 4783 Messrs. Morgan & Co. had given a blanket bid to cover the whole amount... Under the terms of the blanket bid, which covered all bids [etc.]. 1908W. James Let. 2 Jan. (1920) II. 300 The general blanket-word pragmatism covers so many different opinions. 1926Mind XXXV. 251 The German habit of ascribing everything to ‘Vorstellungen’, and using this vague and futile blanket-term to cover all the manifestations of mind. 1930M. Mead Growing up in New Guinea xvi. 277 Once we lose faith in the blanket formula of education..we can turn our attention to the vital matter of developing individuals. 1933Brit. Jrnl. Psychol. Oct. 161 Observers..generalize and agglomerate under a few ‘blanket’ epithets the immense complexities and inconsistencies of behaviour. 1935Economist 13 Apr. 848/1 The..Appropriations Bill..is virtually a blanket authorisation for the President to expend {pstlg}5,000 millions for any purposes which he considers desirable. 1949‘G. Orwell’ 1984 305 Countless other words such as honour, justice, morality..had simply ceased to exist. A few blanket words covered them, and, in covering them, abolished them. 1951Ann. Reg. 1950 68 With..the ‘blanket-powers’ under regulation 55, the country would approach the Reichstag method of government by order.
Add:[7.] [a.] blanket man, blanket prisoner, blanket protest (see on the blanket, sense 3 b above).
1978Guardian 22 Apr. 15/5 The condition of the ‘*blanket men’ has received little publicity. 1978New Statesman 15 Dec. 813/3 Cases of four *blanket prisoners are already speeding through the..procedures employed by the [European] Commission [of Human Rights]. 1982U. O'Connor in B. Sands Skylark sing your Lonely Song 12 His description of his companions in the *blanket protest has a stark reality that no photograph could reproduce. 1986Blanket protest [see H-block s.v. H 2].
[4.] For def. read: Printing. A layer of cloth or other soft material placed between the type and the impressing surface so as to deaden and equalize the pressure exerted; later also used in offset printing to designate the surface which receives the inked image from the plate. (Earlier and later examples.)
1683–4J. Moxon Mech. Exerc. Printing II. 369 Blankets. Woollen Cloath, or White Bays, to lay between the Tympans. 1890W. J. Gordon Foundry 221 (Rotary Press) It was customary to work entirely with soft packing—that is to say, with a thick blanket or cloth between the impression cylinder and the paper. 1894Amer. Dict. Printing & Bookmaking 48/1 Blanket, any yielding substance used between the type and the impression plate or cylinder to soften or render the pressure even. It may be of paper, cloth or india-rubber. 1936Mencken Amer. Lang. (ed. 4) vi. 261 In England, it appeared, stereotypers' blankets were called packing. 1963Kenneison & Spilman Dict. Printing 19 Blanket, the packing used on the impression cylinder of a printing machine. It may consist of cloth, rubber or paper used in various ways. The rubber covering to the printing cylinder of an offset machine is often referred to as the blanket. 1988Artist's & Illustrator's Mag. Feb. 46/1 The edges of the plates must be filed in order that during printing they do not cut the paper or the press blankets.
▪ II. ˈblanket, v.
Pa. tense and pple. -eted.
[f. the n.]
1. trans. To cover with or as with a blanket.
1605Shakes. Lear ii. iii. 10 My face Ile grime with filth, Blanket my loines, elfe all my haires in knots. 1865Parkman Champlain i. (1875) 194 The rocks, the shores, the pine-trees..all alike were blanketed in snow. 1875Tennyson Q. Mary iii. ii. 122 Blanketed In ever-closing fog. 1884Roe in Harper's Mag. Feb. 452/2 The horses were sheltered as well as possible, and heavily blanketed. 1895Kipling 2nd Jungle Bk. 198 The face of the water was blanketed with wild bees buzzing sullenly and stinging all they found. 1910J. Simon in Times 11 Oct. 10/2 It was a free country,..and he had no intention to blanket his opinion. 1962Economist 3 Nov. 456/1 The energetic campaign..with which Mr Kennedy was blanketing the country.
2. a. Yachting. To cover a yacht with the sail of another passing to windward; to take the wind out of the sails of. Also fig.
1884G. C. Davies Norfolk Broads xxv. 191 It is difficult to pass to leeward while blanketed by the sail of a yacht to windward. 1900Ade More Fables (1902) 44 She had her Upper Rigging set, and was trying to Blanket everything on the Street. 1923Weekly Dispatch 1 Apr. 2 Lord Curzon's chief ambition has been to become Prime Minister, and he has been known to complain to his intimates that he has always been blanketed by Arthur Balfour, who was just a little ahead of him.
b. To exclude (a radio signal) from reception by the use of a stronger signal. Const. out.
1938Nation 12 Mar. 301/1 The blanketing out of American broadcasts to South America by Berlin and Rome. 1952Economist 26 July 235/1 The Soviet Union had just extended its jamming operations to blanket not only BBC programmes in Russian but also those in Polish and Finnish.
3. To toss in a blanket (as a rough punishment.)
1609B. Jonson Sil. Wom. v. iv. (1616) 595 Wee'll haue our men blanket 'hem i' the hall. 1634Heywood Maidenh. lost iii. Wks. 1874 IV. 143, I would tosse him, I would blanket him i' th' Ayre, and make him cut an Italian caper in the Clouds. 1867Cornh. Mag. Apr. 455 The memorable inn..where Sancho was blanketed.
4. To supply with blankets; to furnish with blankets.
1874Contemp. Rev. XXIII. 466 Schemes of clothing and blanketing whole districts. 1899Daily News 21 July 8/6 The beds are amply blanketed hammocks.
▪ III. blanket, a.
see blonket, blunket. |