| 释义 |
shoo-fly, phr. and n. U.S.|ˈʃuːflaɪ|
Also shoofly, shoo fly.
[f. shoo int.1 + fly v.1 and n.1]
A. phr. A catch phrase, popularized by a song, used as an exclamation of annoyance. Obs.
1867Chicago Republican 24 July 8/1 [Baseball] players invariably say ‘Shoo-fly’, when they make a miss. 1889Farmer Americanisms 484/2 Shoo! fly! don't bother me! An exclamation of impatience is shoo and fly are both common ejaculations in country districts when driving wandering fowls or cattle from gardens etc., to legitimate pastures... The full phrase is now familiarly colloquial. 1919Mencken Amer. Lang. 311 Shoo-fly afflicted the American people for at least two years, and ‘I don't think’ and aber nit quite as long.
B. n.
†1. A device or structure intended to afford protection from flies. Obs.
1879Glendale (Montana) Atlantis 28 Dec. 4/4 A Dutchman drove rapidly along Main Street, with a new shoo-fly attached to his wagon, making forty flips a second and striking back and forth with the vigor of a hewgag. 1896J. Ralph Dixie iv. 126 In many cases they order great pavilions like giant nests built around their trees, and..they call them ‘shoo-flies’, a name utterly without significance in that connection.
2. A policeman, usu. in plain clothes, whose duty is to watch and report on other policemen. slang.
1877Daily Graphic May 1 A ‘shoofly’ is the term applied by a policeman to another officer who is detailed to watch him. 1903H. Hapgood Autobiogr. Thief (1904) xii. 265, I was gathered in to make a reputation for those two shoo-flies. 1931Detective Fiction Weekly 27 June 790/2 A force of ‘shoo flies’—roundsmen in civilian clothes—were sent out regularly from headquarters to sweep into a precinct and look over the men. 1952Sun (Baltimore) 10 May (B ed.) 2/2 Evans said he spent eighteen months on ‘shoo-fly duty’—on the chief inspector's squad that worked out of headquarters keeping other policemen in line and honest. 1980‘E. McBain’ Ghosts vii. 127 ‘You want a beer?.. Officially I'm still on duty, but fuck it.’ ‘Shooflies are heavy around the holidays.’
3. A rocking horse in which the seat is placed between two rockers representing the animal. Freq. attrib. as shoo-fly rocker.
1887Chicago Tribune 27 Nov. 16/7 (Advt.), Shoo fly hobby horse, 75 c. 1895Montgomery Ward Catal. Spring & Summer 563/2 Shoo-fly rockers... Shoo-fly 12 × 40 inches; painted and dappled. 1947Chicago Tribune 30 Dec. 15/1 The Teaneck, N.J., library has installed something called a shoo-fly, an enclosed rocker in which little Elmer..can rock his head off.
4. A temporary railway track constructed for use while the main track is obstructed or under repair. Also transf. (see quot. 1907).
1905N.Y. Even. Post 29 July 1 The Southern Pacific Company's ‘shoo-fly’ around the tracks now submerged will be completed in a few days. 1907Dialect Notes III. 249 Shoo-fly, n., suburban railway train. 1929Macon (Georgia) Tel. 2 July, There comes into Macon every morning on the Eatonton Shoo Fly a very old white woman named Mary Loring. 1937Highway Mag. Jan. 9/1 Beginning in the spring of 1936 the railroad built two temporary ‘shoo fly’ tracks about 75 feet west of the existing tracks. 1961Washington Post 17 Feb. b4 (caption) Workers on top of a construction train adjust the overhead wires for a bypass—or ‘Shoo-fly’ in railroad parlance—of the main railroad tracks serving the area to the south of Washington.
5. Printing. In some flat-bed presses, a set of narrow strips which lift the edge of the sheet off the cylinder ready for delivery. Also shoofly finger.
1908Inland Printer XL. 551/2 Where the delivery construction uses shoo-fly fingers to give the forward edge of the sheet a lift as it passes out onto the delivery, the proper setting of these fingers or shoo-flies, as they are usually called, is of prime importance. 1927E. St. John Pract. Hints Presswork ii. 10 When farthest open the shoofly fingers should be five-sixteenth of an inch away from the drawsheet. 1962Theory & Practice of Presswork (U.S. Govt. Printing Office) (rev. ed.) xxviii. 170 The shooflies, stripper fingers, and tape delivery have all been eliminated on the newer chain-delivery Miehle presses.
6. In needlework, a traditional patchwork design.
1931R. S. McKim One Hundred & One Patchwork Patterns 84/1 As shoo fly is one of the simplest of old-fashioned patchworks, both to cut and to piece, it would be a good choice for one on which a little girl could learn sewing. 1977E. Y. Wood Amer. Patchwork Quilts 15 Four-patch designs are here, such as the classic ‘Shoo Fly’.
7. attrib. and Comb.
a. In various unspecified senses.
1870North Alabamian & Times (Tuscumbia, Alabama) 21 Apr. 2/7 The gentlemen can gratify their taste by ornamenting themselves with the latest style of ‘Shoo Fly’ Hats. 1886M. B. Buckley Diary Tour in Amer. viii. 223 There were ‘Shoo fly neckties’ and ‘Shoo fly hats’. 1891O. Wister Jrnl. 17 June (1958) 106 That's a terrible plain woman Hank's got. All driven and dried up. Looks like a picture on one of these shoo-fly boxes. 1897Sears, Roebuck Catal. 35/3 Shoo-fly flasks..½ pints..pints..quarts. 1946C. Richter Fields 278 Huldah had gone with Amy MacMahon, a red shoofly ribbon low on both their necks.
b. shoo-fly pie, a rich tart made of molasses baked in a pastry case with a crumble topping; shoo-fly plant, a large annual herb, Nicandra physalodes, belonging to the family Solanaceæ, native to Peru, and bearing pale blue flowers followed by berries enclosed in the enlarged calyx.
1935Esquire Dec. 200/1 ‘Shoo-fly pie’—a brown-and-white crumb-cake, faintly spiced. 1971Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 9 July 3/4 The pair is helping their father sell shoo-fly Pie and other Pennsylvania items. 1979United States 1980/81 (Penguin Travel Guides) 48 Vermont cheese and maple syrup,..and shoofly pie and pretzels in the Pennsylvania Dutch country are all specialties of their respective regions.
[1902L. H. Bailey Cycl. Amer. Hort. IV. 1664/1 Shoo-fly plant. A name proposed by one seedsman for Physalis.] 1949L. H. Bailey Man. Cultivated Plants (ed. 2) 871 N[icandra] Physalodes..Apple-of-Peru, Shoo-fly Plant. 1973Times 20 Oct. 16/7 Left-over seeds thrown out for the birds from special mixtures..are responsible for appearances of casual weeds like..the Apple of Peru, or ‘shoo-fly plant’, and its pale blue flowers that are succeeded by swollen, green berry-enclosing lanterns. |