| 释义 |
skulduggery orig. U.S.
Also 9 scullduggery; skullduggery.
[altered f. sculduddery.]
Underhand dealing, roguish intrigue or machination, trickery.
1867A. D. Richardson Beyond Mississippi xi. 134 From Minnesota had been imported the mysterious term ‘scull-duggery’, used to signify political or other trickery. 1890N. & Q. Ser. vii. X. 224/1 Some two or three years ago one of the New York papers..announced that a missionary on the Congo intended to return to America and blow up the whole scullduggery; meaning, apparently, to expose the false pretences on which money had been collected for the mission. 1892Boston (Mass.) Jrnl. 7 Nov. 7/4 Unfounded Charges of Skulduggery. 1893Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch 22 Dec., The United States Courts..are now very busy affixing the penalties for violations of the national banking laws and for general skulduggery in the management of the institutions. 1911H. Quick Yellowstone Nights ix. 239 It began to look to me like Hen was up to some skulduggery. 1929M. A. Gill Underworld Slang 11/1 Skull duggery, dirty work. 1936H. Hagedorn Brookings iii. 49 America at..its worst in financiering, political machination and the skullduggery of the stock market. 1949J. Steinbeck Russian Jrnl. ix. 215 The political skulduggery of the Kremlin. 1957A. Grimble Return to Islands vii. 130 Disgraceful stories of all the skulduggeries he had got away with by suborning government officials. 1962D. Francis Dead Cert ix. 108 The skulduggery that goes on in respectable little old Brighton. 1980Times 3 Jan. 10/2 Watergate was such a sensational piece of skulduggery.
Hence [as back-formation] ˈskuldug v. trans., to extract by trickery. nonce-wd.
1936W. Faulkner Absalom, Absalom! vi. 178 This Faustus who..skuldugged a hundred miles of land out of a poor ignorant Indian. |