| 释义 |
catawampous, a. slang (chiefly U.S.).|kætəˈwɒmpəs|
Also cataˈwamptious |-ʃəs|.
[A humorous formation, the origin of which is lost: the first part of the word was perhaps suggested by catamount, or ? by words in Gr. κατα-.]
Fierce, unsparing, destructive. Also, askew, awry. (A high-sounding word with no very definite meaning.)
1840Spirit of Times 25 Jan. 561/2 Him is done up—used up catawampous—kicked up into eberlasting hoki! 1844[see chaw v. 3]. 1856Househ. Words XIII. 148 It had fallen a victim to the jaws of deadly alligator, or catawampous panther. 1885‘C. E. Craddock’ Prophet Gt. Smoky Mts. ix. 153 She got me plumb catawampus. 1889― Broomsedge Cove iii. 44 But it's a powerful differ ter please this man an' not git that one set catawampus. 1917L. M. Montgomery Anne's House of Dreams xxxvi. 308 Dear me, everything has gone catawampus with me this week.
Hence cataˈwampus n., a bogy, a fierce imaginary animal; cataˈwampously, cataˈwamptiously adv., ‘fiercely, eagerly. To be catawamptiously chawed up is to be completely demolished, utterly defeated’ (Bartlett Dict. Amer.).
1843‘R. Carlton’ New Purchase I. xxviii. 265 The tother one what got most sker'd is a sort of catawampus (spiteful). 1852Lytton My Novel in Blackw. Mag. LXXI. 434 To be catawampously champed up [ed. 1853 chawed up] by a mercenary selfish cormorant of a capitalist. 1857F. Douglass Speech (Bartlett) To take to our heels before three hundred thousand slaveholders, for fear of being catawamptiously chawed up? 1874M. Collins Frances I. 162 The catawampuses you see about harvest time—they fly quite pretty in the air, but, O my gracious, don't they sting! 1893Yonge & Coleridge Strolling Players xvii. 145 Classes had better..swallow each other, like the crocodile and the catawampus. |