| 释义 |
blue coat, ˈblue-coat
1. a. Formerly the dress of servants and the lower orders; hence of almoners and charity children.
c1600Distr. Emperor i. i. in Bullen O. Pl. III. 169 Thou that has worne thy selfe and a blewe coate To equall thryddbareness. 1628Earle Microcosm. liv. 117 His antient beginning was a blue coat, since a livery.
b. A bluish colour of the coat in deer at a certain period.
1870Amer. Naturalist IV. 190 The spike-horn was shot just as deer were attaining the ‘blue coat’.
2. a. One who wears a blue coat; e.g. an almsman, a beadle; a blue-coated soldier or sailor; a policeman.
1593Shakes. 1 Hen. VI, i. iii. 47 Draw men..Blew Coats to Tawny Coats. 1598E. Guilpin Skial. (1878) 52 A..swaggering blew-coate at an ale-house doore. 1608Dekker Belman Lond. Wks. 1885 III. 149 This counterfeit Blew⁓coate, running in all haste for his masters cloake-bag. 1699Bentley Phal. 222 That the fame..could so soon reach Phalaris's ear in his Castle through his Guard of Blue⁓coats. a1852Mayhew Lond. Labour (1861) II. 369/1, I thinks them Chartists are a weak-minded set..a hundred o' them would run away from one blue-coat. 1862Sat. Rev. 8 Feb. 159 The admiral..became..gracious and condescending to his brother bluecoats. 1875Chicago Tribune 29 Aug. 5/4 One of the blue coats would attempt to put back the crowd. 1932J. Farrell Young Lonigan (1936) iv. §2. 74 No cop could think that he was going to get away with pushing his son. And he told the damn bluecoat that..he'd punch him all over the corner.
b. attrib. (for quot. 1821 cf. blue-stocking.)
a1653G. Daniel Idyll v. 115 In Blue-Coat Philosophy. a1704T. Brown Pleas. Ep. Wks. 1730 I. 110 The blue coat infantry. 1821Byron Juan iv. cix, The blue-coat misses of a coterie.
c. A soldier in the Federal army during the Civil War. U.S.
1865G. W. Nichols Story Gt. March xxiii. 154 So we jogged on for awhile, and then..we descried a blue coat and a white-eared mule approaching. 1879Tourgée Fool's Err. xxi. 122 But only wait until the States are restored and the ‘Blue Coats’ are out of the way.
3. (More fully Blue coat Blue-coat boy, Blue coat girl): A scholar of a charity school wearing the almoner's blue coat. Of these schools there are many in England; the most noted being Christ's Hospital in London, whose uniform is a long dark blue gown fastened at the waist with a belt, and bright yellow stockings. So attrib., as in Blue-coat Hall, Blue coat Hospital.
1665Pepys Diary 1 June, We..saw all the funeral; which was with the blue-coat boys and old men, all the Aldermen, and Lord Mayor. 1691Wood Ath. Oxon. I. /164 Among the blew coats in Ch. Ch. Hospital. 1695Pepys Let. 20 Sept. (1926) I. 110 Two wealthy citizens are lately dead, and left their estates, one to a Blewcoat-Boy and the other to a Blew-Coat-Girl in Christ's Hospital. 1701De Foe True-born Eng. i. (1703) 13 From Blewcoat Hospitals. 1711Lond. Gaz. No. 4920/3 A General Meeting..will be held at Blue-coat-Hall in Christ's-Hospital. 1861Nicholson Annals of Kendal 195 The Blue Coat School and Hospital..The advancement of the Charity and maintenance of the blue-coat boys. 1894Daily News 30 Mar. 5/1 To many..the notion of a Bluecoat ‘girl’ will be somewhat strange. It appears, nevertheless, that the Hertford establishment now shelters no fewer than 112 scholars of that sex. |