| 释义 |
ˈslaughter-house
[slaughter n.]
1. a. A house or place where animals are killed for food.
c1374in Scriptores Tres (Surtees) App. p. cxli, Primo Lardariam, quæ vocatur Sclauterhus. 1441–2Durh. Acc. Rolls (Surtees) 79 Pro cust. boum gros. apud le Slauther-house. 1471–2Ibid. (Surtees) 93 Pro una magna corda pro le Slaughterhous. 1535in W. H. Turner Select. Rec. Oxford (1880) 133 The bochers..shall have the voyde grounde..to make a sklautter housse. 1593Shakes. 2 Hen. VI, iv. iii. 6 They fell before thee like Sheepe and Oxen, & thou behaued'st thy selfe, as if thou hadst beene in thine owne Slaughter-house. 1675Brooks Golden Key Wks. 1867 V. 340 A lamb..goeth as quietly to the shambles or the slaughter-house as if it were going to the fold. 1709Steele Tatler No. 21 ⁋13 The Second is a Butcher's Daughter and sometimes brings a Quarter of Mutton from the Slaughter-house. 1811Sporting Mag. XXXVII. 86 The butchers men who work in the slaughter-houses. 1860Emerson Conduct of Life Wks. (Bohn) II. 310 You have just dined, and, however scrupulously the slaughter-house is concealed.., there is complicity.
fig.1819Scott Ivanhoe xxvi, Permit him to go freely about his task of preparing these Saxon hogs for the slaughter-house. 1894Drummond Ascent of Man 25 The world has been held up to us as one great..slaughter-house resounding with the cries of a ceaseless agony.
b. attrib., as slaughter-house style, slaughter-house talk.
1850H. Martineau Hist. Peace II. vi. viii. 576 The rise of Young Ireland, with its political ignorance, its slaughter-house talk, and its bullying boasts. 1854Emerson Lett. & Soc. Aims, Immortality Wks. (Bohn) III. 279 Where there is depravity there is a slaughter-house style of thinking.
2. transf.
a. A place or scene in which persons are killed or slaughtered.
1578T. N. tr. Conq. W. India 103 [They] beganne openly to say Cortes meant to carrie them to the slaughter house. 1597Middleton Wisdom of Solomon viii. 15 A reign, not blood, An empire, not a slaughter-house of lives. 1646Trapp Expos. John x. 40 Jerusalem was then as Rome is now, the saints' slaughter house. 1673Stillingfl. Serm. v. 86 Those whose malice goes beyond their power, and want only enough of that to make the whole World a Slaughter-house. 1790R. Merry Laurel of Liberty (ed. 2) 24 Yet, haughty France, my verse could never claim, For deeds that suit the slaughter-house of fame. 1814Scott Ld. of Isles ii. xv, This ancient fortress of my race Shall be..No slaughter-house for shipwreck'd guest. 1868Tennyson Lucretius 84 The lust of blood That makes a steaming slaughter-house of Rome.
fig.1797Godwin Enquirer i. iii. 17 It is the great slaughter-house of genius and of mind. 1918[see cutting-room s.v. cutting vbl. n. 10].
b. A house injurious to health.
1899Atlantic Monthly LXXXIII. 769/1 Rear tenements, to the number of nearly 100, have been condemned as ‘slaughter houses’, with good reason.
†3. A part of a fortification. Obs.
1552Edw. VI Jrnl. (Roxb.) 439 It was agreed the wall shuld stond, and tow slaughter houses to be made upon to skowre the utter cutiners. Ibid., Another walle within that, with tow other slaughter houses, and a rampere within that again.
4. slang.
a. (See quot.)
1809Sporting Mag. XXXIII. 73 The houses called by sharpers Slaughter-Houses, are those where persons are uniformly employed by the proprietors to affect to play at hazard for large sums of money.
b. A shop where goods are bought from small makers at very low prices. Also attrib.
1851Mayhew Lond. Lab. I. 333 This was owing to..the unwillingness of the small master to carry it to another slaughter-house in the rain. 1861Ibid. III. 233 A special race of employers, known by the significant name of ‘slaughter-house men’.
c. A cheap brothel.
1928E. Sutton tr. Londres' Road to Buenos Ayres vii. 55 She had got into a slaughter-house at two dollars instead of five. 1962W. Faulkner Reivers viii. 164 Both of you get to hell back to that slaughterhouse. |