| 释义 |
calabash|ˈkæləbæʃ|
Forms: 6 calabaza, 7 callebass, 7–8 calabass(e, cali-, callabash, (?) 7–9 calabosh, 8 calobash, callebasse, 8– calabash.
[a. F. calebasse, calabace, Cotgr.) ad. Sp. calabaça, calabaza gourd, pumpkin = Cat. carabassa, mod.Pr. carabasso, calebasso, carbasso, Sicil. caravazza. The ultimate source was perh. the Persian kharbuz, or kharbuza, also kharpuza, and kharbūza, ‘melon’, generally ‘marsh-melon’, occasionally ‘water-melon’, whence Arabic khirbiz ‘melon’, and kirbiz ‘pumpkin, gourd’; also Turk. qārpūz, Albanian and mod.Gr. καρποῦζι, καρβοῦζι; also through Tartar kharpuz, karpus, in Slavonic langs., Serb. karpuza, Pol. † harbuz, † garbuz, † karbuz, arbuz, Little Russ. harbuz, Russ. arbuz (Miklosich). The Pers. word is explained as f. khar large, coarse, and buza, puza, odoriferous fruit. The Sicilian form may be from Arabic; but actual evidence is wanting.]
1. A name given to various gourds or pumpkins, the shell of which is used for holding liquids, etc.
[1596Raleigh Disc. Guiana (1887) 32 He also called for his calabaza or gourds of the gold beads. (Though explained as a ‘gourd’, this was probably the tree calabash, sense 2.)] 1658Evelyn Fr. Gard. (1675) 44 Their fruit resembling a gourd or callebass. a1813A. Wilson Foresters, Clustering grapes were seen, With ponderous calabashes hung between. 1866Livingstone Jrnl. vii. (1873) I. 181 The manured space is planted with pumpkins and calabashes.
2. The fruit of the calabash tree (see 7) of America, the shell of which is used for household utensils, water-bottles, kettles, musical instruments, etc.; it is round or oval, and so hard externally as even to be used in boiling liquids over a fire. Also short for calabash-tree.
1596[see 1]. 1657R. Ligon Barbadoes 14 High and loftie trees, as the..Fistula, Calibash, Cherry. 1699L. Wafer Voy. (1729) 321 The Calabash grows up and down among the boughs, as our apples do. 1750G. Hughes Barbados 116 The fruit called calabashes are of two sorts. 1828W. Irving Columbus I. 159 The calabashes of the Indians..were produced on stately trees of the size of elms.
3. The hollow shell of either of the preceding, used as a vessel.
1657R. Ligon Barbadoes 15 With either of them a naturall Pitcher, a Calibash upon their arme. 1681R. Knox Hist. Ceylon 162 Two Calabasses to fetch Water. 1699W. Dampier Voy. II. ii. 115 Their Furniture is but mean, viz. Earthern Pots to boil their Maiz in, and abundance of Callabashes. 1746Lond. Mag. 323 Water presented..in a copious Calabash. 1836Macgillivray Humboldt's Trav. vi. 84 Baling out the water with a calabash. 1866Engel Nat. Mus. viii. 285 A stringed instrument of the guitar kind, the body of which was a calabash.
b. This vessel full of anything.
1679A Paradox (Harl. Misc. 1753) I. 258 They will not give you a Calabash of Milk for it. 1843Carlyle Past & Pr. (1858) 234 One small calabash of rice. 1875Lubbock Orig. Civiliz. vi. 280 Calabashes of wine.
4. A similar vessel or utensil of other material.
1772–84Cook Voy. (1790) IV. 1377 Calibashes made of reeds, so closely wrought as to be water-tight. 1851H. Melville Whale xix. 104 Nothing about the silver calabash he spat into.
5. sweet calabash, the edible fruit of Passiflora maliformis.
1840Penny Cycl. XVII. 304/1 P. maliformis bears what is called the sweet calabash. 1866Treas. Bot. 851.
6. ‘A humorous name for the head’ Bartlett Dict. Amer. [Cf. Pg. cabaça = calabaça with cabeça head.]
7. attrib. and Comb., as calabashful; calabash fruit = sense 2; calabash gourd, the bottle-gourd (Lagenaria vulgaris) = sense 1; calabash-nutmeg, Monodora Myristica; calabash-tree, a tree (Crescentia Cujete) native to tropical America and the West Indies, bearing the large oval or globular fruit called calabash (sense 2); also a name of the baobab tree.
1707Sloane Jamaica I. p. xvi, Horses feed on *Calabash fruit in dry times.
1824W. J. Burchell Trav. II. 587 The *calabash gourd is much cultivated for the sake of its shell.
1866Treas. Bot. II. 752/1 Called..*Calabash Nutmegs from the entire fruit resembling a small calabash.
1737Miller Gard. Dict. (ed. 3) The *Calabash-Tree..grows to a considerable Height in the warmer Parts of America, where it produces a very large Fruit. 1796Stedman Surinam II. xx. 115 The gourd or callebasse tree procures them cups. 1816Keith Phys. Bot. I. 50. |