| 释义 |
▪ I. calf1|kɑːf|
Forms: 1 cealf, celf, cælf, 2 Kentish chalf, 3 kelf, 3–5 kalf, 3– calf, (5 calffe), 6 caulf, Kentish chawlfe, 8 calve; (Sc. 6–9 cawf, 9 cauf). Pl. calves: 1 cealfru, calfru, calfur, cealfas, 4 calveren, calvys, 4–5 calfis, 7 calfes, 4– calves. (The genit. sing., esp. in comb., was frequently calves.)
[Common Teut.: OWS. cealf (pl. cealfru), OMercian cælf (pl. calferu, calfur), ONorthumbrian cælf, cęlf, correspond to OS. and MDu. calf (Du. kalf), OHG. chalb (MHG. kalp, kalb-, mod.G. kalb):—OTeut. *kalboz, -iz neut. In later WS. the word was often masc. (pl. cealfas) = ON. kálfr; in Goth. only the fem. kalbô (δάµαλις) = OHG. chalba, mod.G. kalbe female calf, is recorded.]
1. The young of any bovine animal, esp. of the domestic cow. ‘Calf is applied to all young cattle until they attain one year old, when they are year-olds or yearlings' (Stephens Bk. Farm I. 179).
in calf, with calf (said of the cow): pregnant. golden calf: the idol set up by Aaron, and the similar images set up by Jeroboam; sometimes proverbially with reference to the ‘worship’ of wealth. ‘the calves of our lips’ (a doubtful transl. of a difficult Heb. passage, in Hos. xiv. 2 where the LXX and Peschito have ‘fruit’) is occas. quoted in the sense of ‘an offering of praise’.
a800Corpus Gl. 2144 (O.E.T.) Vitulus, cælf; vitula, cucælf. c1000ælfric Exod. xxxii. 4 Þa nam he þæt gold and ᵹet an cealf and hiᵹ cwædon Israhel þis ys þin God. c1000Ags. Gosp. Luke xv. 27 Þin fæder of-sloh an fæt celf [c 1160 Hatton G. chalf]. a1225Ancr. R. 138 Hit regibbeð anon, ase uet kelf and idel. c1230Hali Meid. 37 Hire calf sukeð. c1250Gen. & Ex. 1013 Kalues fleis, and flures bred. a1300Cursor M. 6503 Þair gold in tresur gadrid þai samen A goldin calf þar-of þai blu. a1340Hampole Psalter xxi[i]. 11 Many calfis has vmgifen me; fat bulles me has vmseged. c1371Wyclif Begg. Friers (1608) 12 Priests..wenten to calveren of gold. 1382― Hosea xiv. 2 We shuln ȝeelde the calues of our lippis [= Vulg. vitulos, lxx καρπόν]. c1400Mandeville ix. 105 Calveren of gold. 1483Cath. Angl. 51 With Calfe, fetosus. 1534MS. Acc. St. John's Hosp. Canterb., Off y⊇ cat' of cristchurch for a chawlfe, iijs. iiijd. 1539Taverner Erasm. Prov. (1552) 10 He that hath borne a calfe, shall also beare a bull. 1562J. Heywood Prov. & Epigr. (1867) 48 As wise as Waltam's calfe. 1607Topsell Four-f. Beasts 89 A tail almost as long as a calves. 1629J. Cole Of Death 105 Before we can offer unto God with a good conscience, the calves of our lips. 1671Milton P.R. iii. 416 They..fell off From God to worship Calves. 1727Swift Modest Prop. Wks. 1755 II. ii. 66 Their mears in foal, their cows in calf. 1861T. Martin Horace's Odes ii. v. 80 Your heifer bounding in play With the young calves.
b. to slip (cast) the calf: to suffer abortion; said of the cow, also (humorously) of women (obs.)
1664Pepys Diary 19 Sept., Fraizer is so great with..all the ladies at court, in helping to slip their calfes when there is occasion. 1842–71Stephens Bk. of Farm I. 178 A cow that suffers abortion slips her calf.
c. transf. Applied to human beings: A stupid fellow, a dolt; sometimes a meek inoffensive person. Also as a term of endearment. Essex calf: a nickname for a native of that county.
a1553Udall Royster D. ii. iv. in Hazl. Dodsley III. 94 You great calf, ye should have more wit, so ye should. 1611Shakes. Wint. T. i. ii. 126 How now (you wanton Calfe) Art thou my Calfe? 1627Drayton Nymphid. (1631) 171 Some silly doting brainless calfe. 1711Steele Spect. No. 113 ⁋3, I cried, like a Captivated Calf as I was. 1719D'Urfey Pills IV. 43 It prov'd an Essex Calf. 1865Punch 20 Apr., An Essex calf of the first magnitude.
2. ellipt. Leather made from the hide or skin of a calf. (More fully calf-leather; see 7.)
1727Swift Furth. Acc. E. Curll Wks. 1755 III. i. 156 As to the report of my poor husband's stealing o'calf, it is really groundless, for he always binds in sheep. 1879Print. Trades Jrnl. xxviii. 9 The material used is Calf. 1879in Cassell's Techn. Educ. IV. 88 Calf is..prepared by the process called by tanners ‘tawing’.
3. The young of other animals; as of deer, the elephant, the whale.
1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xviii. xxx. (1495) 793 The hynde etyth of the herbe Dragancia to be delyuerde of her calffe the more eesely. 1486Bk. St. Albans E j b, Ye shall hym [a hart] a Calfe . call at the fyrst yere. 1597Return fr. Parnass. ii. ii. v. 887 Your Hart is the first yeare a Calfe, the second yeare a Brochet. 1725Dudley in Phil. Trans. XXXIII. 260 The Calf, or young Whale, has been found perfectly form'd in the Cow, when not above seventeen Inches long. 1860Tennent Ceylon II. 397 An elephant, which had been captured by Mr. Cripps, dropped a female calf. 1875‘Stonehenge’ Brit. Sports i. xi. xi. §2. 155 The hounds also by their tongues indicate..the presence, if any, of a calf with the hind. 1884Jefferies Red Deer iv. 63 The young of the..tall red deer are called calves.
4. sea-calf, a popular name of the seal, esp. Calocephalus vitulinus (or Phoca vitulina).
c1613Chapman Odyss. iv. (R.) In sholes the sea calues came. a1711Ken Hymnar. Poet. Wks. 1721 III. 182 The Calves Marine, who on firm Ground Are wont to take a Sleep profound. 1841Penny Cycl. XXI. 161/2 The vulgar name is sea-calf, and on that account the male is called the bull, and the female the cow. 1853Kane Grinnell Exp. xxvii. 221 Some overgrown Greenland calves..Very strange are these seal.
5. transf.
a. A small island lying close to a larger one. [ON. kálfr; known in Eng. only in ‘The Calf of Man’.]
1833J. Gorton Topogr. Dict. I. 347 Calf of Man..An island, situated off the south-west extremity of the Isle of Man. 1860H. Marryat Jutland I. vii. 91 The early North⁓men often named these small islands calves. 18..Backwell Isle Man Guide 60 Beyond..lies the Calf of Man..The Calf..contains about 600 superficial acres of land.
6. An iceberg detached from a coast glacier; a fragment of ice detached from an iceberg or floe.
1818Edin. Rev. XXX. 18 The fragments of ice, which the seamen term calves. 1853Kane Grinnell Exp. xlii. (1856) 395 The interposition of floating fragments or calves. Ibid. xliii. 401 Calves..fragments of tables..which have been forced down by pressure, and afterward..have been liberated again from the floe and find their way upward wherever an opening permits.
7. Comb.
a. Obvious and general, as calf-brains, calf-flesh, calf-guts, calf-head, calf-house, calf-leather, calf-pen, calf-whale, calf-worship; calf-like adj. and adv. (For parts of the animal the genit. calf's, calves', is now usual.)
c1600Distracted Emp. i. i. in O. Pl. (1884) III. 181 You love the cubboarde Wherein your *calves brayns are lockt up for breakfast.
a1300Cursor M. 2714 He..þam fedd wit *calf flesse [Trin. MS. calues flesshe]. c1425Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 661 Caro uitulina, calfflesche.
1611Shakes. Cymb. ii. iii. 34 It is a voyce in her eares which..*Calues-guts, nor the voyce of vnpaued Eunuch to boot, can neuer amend.
1769Mrs. Raffald Eng. Housekpr. (1778) 87 To dress a *Calf's Head Surprise. 1813Moore Post Bag iii. 34 The dish..Was, what old Mother Glasse calls, ‘a calf's-head surprised’! 1823― Fab., Holy Alliance ii. 91 A Duke, of birth sublime..(Some calf-head, ugly from all time).
1807Vancouver Agric. Devon (1813) 472 *Calves-house, 22 feet by 16, with their pens. 1879in Cassell's Techn. Educ. IV. 416/2 The calf-house..should be a roomy, well-ventilated building.
1726Amherst Terræ Fil. xxxviii. 200 Dress'd in a suit of *calve's-leather cloaths.
1610Shakes. Temp. iv. i. 179 *Calfe-like, they my lowing follow'd.
1856Farmer's Mag. Jan. 86 Have the *calf-pens opening into the cowshed for convenience of suckling.
1829Marryat F. Mildmay xiii, I was going to swim to the *calf whale.
1650Fuller Pisgah v. v. 152 *Calfe-worship..continued in the kingdome of Israel. 1860Pusey Min. Proph. 82 He [Jeroboam] would have calf-worship to be the only worship of God.
b. Special combinations: calf-bed, a cow's matrix (dial.); also (humorous) parturition (of a cow), cf. child-bed; calf-bound a. (Bookbinding), bound in calf (cf. 2); calf-country, calf-ground (Sc.), the place of one's birth or early life; † calf-haulm (see quot.); calf-kill, a heath plant (Kalmia latifolia) injurious to cattle eating it; cf. ‘lambkill’ = K. angustifolia; calf knee, popular name for the malformation called genu valgum, or knock-knee; calf-land = calf-country; calf-lea (Sc.), ‘infield ground, one year under natural grass’ (Jamieson); calf-lick (dial.), a tuft of hair on the forehead which will not lie smoothly and evenly; a cowlick, a ‘feather’; † calf-lolly (? nonce-wd.), a stupid calf; calf-love, romantic attachment or affection between a boy and a girl; calf-lymph, vaccine lymph obtained direct from the animal; calf's-teeth n. pl., milk teeth; calf-time, the period of youth; calf-trundle (dial.), ‘the entrails of a calf; fig. applied to the ruffle of a shirt, or flounces of a gown’ (Halliwell); calf-ward (Sc.), a small field or enclosure for calves. Also calf's-foot, calf-skin, calves'-snout.
1822Southey Lett. (1856) III. 305 Your uncle Tom has lost a cow, in *calf-bed.
1831Blackw. Mag. Sept. 561 That, I believe, is his *calf-country.
1884Illust. Lond. News 21 June 606/2 We'll go and take a look at my *calf-ground.
1741Compl. Fam.-Piece iii. 486 A Cow that strains in Calving, when their *Calf-haulm, Udder, or Bag, will come down and swell as much as a blown Bladder. 1765Dickson Agric. xiii. 109 When it is only two or three years old, it is called, in some parts of the country, calf-lea.
1708Motteux Rabelais iv. lxvii, I was..a *Calf-lolly, a Doddipole.
1823Galt Entail I. xxxii. 284, I made a *calf-love marriage. 1863Mrs. Gaskell Sylvia's L. II. 104 It's a girl's fancy—Just a kind o' calf-love—let it go by.
1884Christian World 5 June 417/4 Any doctor can procure *calf-lymph for his patients.
1688R. Holme Armoury ii. 173/2 A *Calf Ride [is] a place made of Boughs..in which the Calf is kept whilst he is sucking.
1599Porter Angry Wom. Abingd. (1841) 88 Ere your *calues teeth were out, you thought it long.
1822Scott Nigel ix, Where have you been spending your *calf-time?
1785Burns Dr. Hornbook xxiii, His braw *calf-ward whare gowans grew.
▪ II. calf2|kɑːf|
Also 4 caalf, 5–7 calfe, 7 calue.
[app. a. ON. kálfi of unknown origin; adoption from Ir., Gael. calpa leg, calf of the leg, has been conjectured.]
1. The fleshy hinder part of the shank of the leg, formed by the bellies of muscles which move the foot.
c1325Gloss. W. de Biblesw. in Wright Voc. 148 La jambe, the caalf. c1386Chaucer Prol. 592, fful longe were his legges and ful lene ylyk a staf ther was no calf ysene. c1440Promp. Parv. 58 Calfe of a legge, sura. c1450Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 678 Hic musculus, the calfe of the lege. 1541R. Copland Guydon's Quest. Chirurg., The calfe ouer the leg mouyng the fote and ancle. 1588Shakes. L.L.L. v. ii. 645 His legge is too big for Hector. More Calfe certaine. 1794–6E. Darwin Zoon. (1801) I. 58 The contraction of the calf of the leg in the cramp. 1848Thackeray Van. Fair xxxvii, A handsome person and calves.
b. transf. The corresponding part of a stocking.
a1659Cleveland Pet. Poem 55 My Stocking-calves..Are paradiz'd as naked as my Nock. 1777Sheridan Trip Scarb. i. ii, The calves of these stockings are thickened a little too much.
2. Applied to the corresponding part of the arm containing the belly of the triceps muscle.
1860O. W. Holmes Elsie V. (1887) 33 The triceps..furnishes the calf of the upper arm.
3. calf-length a. (of a garment, boots, etc.) reaching down to, or up to, the calf of the leg.
1965G. McInnes Road to Gundagai ix. 143 Turning up..in a calf-length white motoring coat. 1967Harper's Bazaar Sept. 60/1 New calf-length skirt for the country. 1968Ottawa Jrnl. 24 June 17/5 Sue Ellen..started down the aisle in white calf-length boots. 1969J. Gardner Founder Member vii. 115 A pair of heavy calf-length stockings.
▪ III. calf(e
obs. form of calve v. |