| 释义 |
clumsy, a.|ˈklʌmzɪ|
Also 6 clumbsie, 6–8 clumsie, 6–7 clomsey.
[Appears in writers c 1600; not used by Shakespeare; not in Florio, Cotgrave, Bullokar, Cockeram, Blount, Phillips (1696), nor in Cocker 1704. Marston's use of it (among other ‘wild outlandish terms’) was ridiculed by Ben Jonson in Poetaster v. i., where Crispinus (i.e. Marston) is made to speak of ‘clumsie chilblain'd judgment’. App. f. clumse v. + -y: cf. drowsy, bousy; but it is to be noted that at Lund, in Sweden, klumsi(g) is used in the primary sense ‘benumbed with cold’, and also with the same signification as our ‘clumsy’. Cf. klumsen under clumse a.]
†1. Benumbed or stiffened with cold. Obs.
1600Holland Livy xxi. lvi. 425 The Carthaginians..returned into the campe so clumsie and frozen [ita torpentes gelu]. a1601? Marston Pasquil & Kath. ii. 136 Clumsie judgements, chilblain'd gowtie wits. 1602― Antonio's Rev. Prol., The rawish danke of clumsie winter ramps the fluent summers raine.
2. Acting or moving as if benumbed: heavy and awkward in motion or action; ungainly, unhandy; wanting in dexterity or grace.
1597–8Bp. Hall Sat. i. iii. 42 When each base clowne his clumbsie fist doth bruise. 1691Ray Creation ii. (1704) 375 Apt to be moulded..even by clumsie fingers. 1727Swift Gulliver iii. ii. 189 In the common actions and behaviour of life, I have not seen a more clumsy, aukward, and unhandy people. 1784Cowper Task i. 18 Invention..Dull in design, and clumsy to perform. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) IV. 63, I am very clumsy at these processes of division and enumeration.
3. fig. Applied to actions and products of clumsy hands: Ill-contrived, awkward.
1681Dryden Abs. & Achit. ii, In clumsy verse, unlick'd, unpointed. 1710Swift Jrnl. to Stella 9 Sept., The great men making me their clumsy apologies, etc. 1828D'Israeli Chas. I, I. ii. 11 A clumsy forgery. 1875Stubbs Const. Hist. III. xviii. 229 By such a clumsy expedient.
4. a. Rudely constructed; of awkward, ungainly or ungraceful shape; inelegant, unwieldy.
a1763Shenstone Poems Wks. 1764 I. 229 The clumsy shape, the frightful mien..Of that grim brute yclep'd a bear. a1788Mrs. Delany Life & Corr. (1861) III. 515 A fine young woman altogether; rather a little clumsy, but fine complexion, teeth, and nails. 1884W. C. Smith Kildrostan 88 Your wet ropes And clumsy oars..give blisters first and then a horny hand. 1888Lady 25 Oct. 374/1 The boots..are a trifle clumsy.
†b. clumsy cleat: on a whaling vessel (see quots.). U.S. colloq. Obs.
1851Melville Moby Dick i. i. 290 Clumsy cleat, as it is sometimes called, the horizontal piece in the boat's bow for bracing the knee against. 1874C. M. Scammon Marine Mammals 224 About three feet from the stern is the ‘clumsy-cleet’, a stout thwart with a rounded notch on the after side, in which the officer or boat-steerer braces himself by one leg against the violent motion of the boat, caused by..the efforts of the whale while being ‘worked upon’.
5. Comb.
1768–74Tucker Lt. Nat. (1852) I. 288 Our clumsy-fisted imagination. |