| 释义 |
caboose|kəˈbuːs|
Also cam-, can-, coboose.
[Identical with Du. kabuis, kombuis, earlier Du. combûse, cabûse, MLG. kabhûse (whence mod.G. kabuse), also F. cambuse ‘app. introduced into the navy about the middle of the 18th c.’ (Littré). The original lang. was perh. LG.; but the history and etymology are altogether obscure.]
1. a. ‘The cook-room or kitchen of merchantmen on deck; a diminutive substitute for the galley of a man-of-war. It is generally furnished with cast-iron apparatus for cooking’ (Smyth Sailor's Word-bk.).
1769Falconer Dict. Marine (1789), Coboose, a sort of box or house to cover the chimney of some merchant-ships. It somewhat resembles a centry-box, and generally stands against the barricade on the fore part of the quarter-deck. 1805N. York Chron. in Naval Chron. XIII. 122 William Cameron drifted aboard on the canboose. 1805Duncan Marin. Chron. IV. 70 A sea broke..and swept away the caboose and all its utensils from the deck. 1833M. Scott Tom Cringle (1862) 6 Fishing boats at anchor, all with their tiny cabooses. 1844Regul. & Ord. Army 341 A sentry is constantly to be placed at the cooking-place or caboose. 1879Farrar St. Paul II. 375 The caboose and utensils must long ago have been washed overboard.
b. A cooking-oven or fireplace erected on land.
1859Autobiog. Beggar-boy 93 The man..requested me to put his pannikin on the caboose fire. 1882Harper's Mag. Feb. 331 Outside are ‘cambooses’ for preparing fish in the open air. 1883Century Mag. XXVI. 550 The lawn is studded with cabooses.
2. U.S. A van or car on a freight train used by workmen or the men in charge. Also attrib.
1861H. Dawson Remin. Life Locomotive Engineer 90 Another midnight ride in the ‘Caboose’ of a freight train. 1862Ashcroft's Railway Directory 76 No. of Caboose Cars [on the Central Railroad of New Jersey], 6. 1881Chicago Times 18 June, The caboose of the construction train, containing workmen and several boys. 1884Dakota paper Jan., Four cars and a caboose running down the track. 1903New York Even. Post 25 Aug., The rest of the crew..saw from the caboose windows the bodies..lying along the tracks.
3. a. A hut or poor dwelling. Chiefly N. Amer.
1839Congress. Globe 15 Feb. App. 343/1 We have a postmaster in our village..and in his little caboose of a post office I found electioneering interferences. 1874V. Pyke Adv. G. W. Pratt (1890) i. iii. 13 It's a darned wrong thing to allow in your caboose, mister. 1916G. Parker World for Sale xxiv. 308 ‘He's been lying drunk at Gautry's caboose ever since yesterday morning..’ ‘Gautry's tavern—that joint.’
b. A mobile hut or bunk-house, moved on wheels or runners. Canad.
1912E. Ferguson Open Trails 106 In the later winter one sees..a caboose on a sled, heading for the Peace River district or for some point up north. This is a comfortable way of travelling, and on arriving at his claim the homesteader shifts the caboose to the ground and uses it for a house. 1954A. M. Bezanson Sodbusters invade Peace xiv. 90 Our honeymoon trip was to be made in a caboose—a part-lumber part-canvas house built on a farm sleigh.
c. = calaboose. slang (orig. U.S.).
1865Republican Banner (Nashville, Tenn.) 12 Oct. 3/2 The ‘caboose’ is neatly packed with ‘pickled’ offenders of municipal law. 1929F. C. Bowen Sea Slang 21 Caboose... On shore it meant prison. 1939These are our Lives (U.S.) 346 If they put me in the caboose for cruelty to roaches and water bugs. |