| 释义 |
blue tongue, blue-tongue
1. [Afrikaans bloutong.] A virus disease affecting horses and sheep, in which the tongue becomes swollen and blue. orig. S. Afr.
1863J. S. Dobie S. Afr. Jrnl. 19 Apr. (1945) 86 Blue tongue here also (which is a swelling of the tongue and lips which prevents the poor beast from eating). 1887Rider Haggard Jess viii, It's a beautiful veldt..no horse sickness, no blue-tongue. 1905Nature 4 Sept. 502/2 Catarrhal Fever of Sheep: Blue Tongue. 1963Times 22 Apr. 2/6 Blue tongue, though it exists no nearer to the United Kingdom than Spain and Portugal, is so feared in Australia that it has led to a ban on all livestock imports from Britain. 1966New Scientist 3 Nov. 250/3 The most serious potential threat is probably from the bluetongue virus to which Merinos are highly susceptible.
2. An Australian lizard of the genus Tiliqua, belonging to the family Scincidæ.
1883F. McCoy Zool. Victoria I. viii. 15 These Lizards are very sluggish, so that the popular name ‘Sleepy Lizard’ as well as ‘Blue-tongue’ comes to be applied to both. 1904Daily Chron. 28 Jan. 6/2 The ‘Australian Blue-Tongue’ is a..lizard, with a curious habit of thrusting forth a long tongue as bright as turquoise blue. 1963E. Worrell Reptiles of Australia 34 The best-known lizards are the Bluetongue group (Tiliqua).
b. = roustabout 2. Austral. slang.
1943in Baker Austral. Slang (ed. 3) 12. 1955 G. Bowen Wool Away! 157 The poor old rouseabout... Australians sometimes call this hand a ‘blue tongue’.
Hence blue-tongued a., having a blue tongue; blue-tongued lizard = 2 above.
1883F. McCoy Zool. Victoria I. viii. 13 Cyclodus Gigas... The Northern Blue-tongued Lizard. 1887Ibid. II. 120 ‘Blue-tongued Lizard’ or ‘Sleepy Lizard’. |