| 释义 |
short time
Also (attrib.) short-time.
[f. short a. + time n.]
1. The state or condition of working less than the regular number of hours per day or of days per week. Also attrib. and quasi-advb.
1848W. Fagan O'Connell II. 561 A supporter of ‘short time’ work for children in the Factories. 1861J. S. Mill Let. 1 Mar. (1910) I. 245 The equality, if not superiority,..of the short-time pupils. 1861J. Ward Diary 16 Nov. in J. Burnett Useful Toil (1974) i. 80 The manufacturing districts..are all running short time through the scarcity of cotton. 1864R. A. Arnold Hist. Cotton Famine iii. 84 Short time means short wages. 1906Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 1 Jan. 13/2 Disorderly scenes were witnessed recently in Newcastle-on-Tyne..owing to an intimation that fifty [employees] would be put on short time. 1930Economist 22 Feb. 411/1 Several watchmaking factories are working short time. 1955Times 14 May 5/6 Three years ago more than 80,000 textile and clothing workers were flung out of work, and thousands more were on short time. 1961Ann. Reg. 1960 p. xix, Unemployment was at a low level but in the latter half of the year there was much short-time working particularly in the motor-car industry. 1978P. Bailey Leisure & Class in Victorian England iv. 80 In the early 1870s{ddd}the success of the Short Time agitation encouraged further campaigns to cut working hours.
2. slang. A brief visit to a prostitute; a brief sojourn in a hotel for sexual purposes. Also attrib.
1937Partridge Dict. Slang 763/1 Short time, a visit to a prostitute for one copulation only. 1939G. Greene Confidential Agent i. ii. 48 It's no bother. It's the ‘short times’ that are the bother. In and out three times in a night. 1961R. Seth Anat. Spying ii. 30 Ninety-five per cent of any ship's company, as soon as they are able to get ashore,..make straight for the nearest bar for a ‘quick one’, and then on to the nearest brothel for what is known in the jargon as ‘a short time’. 1971Guardian 8 July 3/1 Miles of girlie bars, short time hotels. 1979J. Wainwright Take Murder i. 23 Three hours. Not the proverbial ‘short time’... It means a bed somewhere. |