| 释义 |
ˈrabbit's foot
Also rabbit-foot.
[rabbit n.1 4.]
1. The foot of a rabbit carried to bring luck; also transf. Phr. to work the rabbit('s)-foot (U.S.), to cheat, to trick.
1879L. Hearn Amer. Miscell. (1924) I. 185 After the girl told that [ghost] story, Banjo Jim seldom passed along the row at night without a rabbit's foot in the breast pocket of his woolen shirt. 1902W. N. Harben Abner Daniel 309 Pole worked the rabbit-foot on them back there. 1922Sunset Dec. 10/2 Presently the word went round that I was a ‘rabbit's foot’—a bringer of good luck—and the gamblers began to give me money to place for them. 1948Salt Lake Tribune 17 Dec. 34/6 A dimestore rabbit's foot paid off with one of 1948's biggest football surprises and landed his team in the Delta bowl. 1972C. Weston Poor, Poor Ophelia (1973) viii. 45 Don't you know a charm when you see one? This is my rabbit's foot.
2. Special combs.: rabbit('s) foot (clover) = hare's foot 1; rabbit's foot (fern) U.S., an epiphytic fern, Polypodium aureum, native to tropical America and cultivated elsewhere as a house plant; rabbit('s) foot grass, an annual grass, Polypogon monspeliensis, distinguished by soft hairs on its flower-head, native to Europe and widely naturalized elsewhere.
1817A. Eaton Man. Bot. 84 Trifolium..arvense (field clover, or *rabbit-foot) heads cylindric. 1850S. F. Cooper Rural Hours 125 The downy ‘rabbit-foot’, or ‘stone-clover’, the common red variety..[is] introduced. 1878H. M. Jackson Bits of Travel at Home 186 [There grows] Rabbit's foot, May-weed, shepherd's purse. 1884Miller Bot. Dict., Trifolium arvense, Hare's foot Clover or Trefoil, Rabbit-foot, of N. America. 1889Cent. Dict. s.v. Clover. Other species, mostly weeds of little value, are the yellow or hop clover,..the stone, hare's-foot, or rabbit-foot clover. 1954Amer. Speech XXIX. 15 Trifolium arvense, a cosmopolitan woolly-headed clover,..is known in America both as the rabbitfoot (clover) and hare's-foot (clover)... Rabbitfoot clover is the commonest designation in the United States, whereas hare's-foot is the usual British term. 1968Peterson & McKenny Field Guide to Wildflowers N. Amer. 246 Rabbit's-foot Clover... The soft silky foliage and the fuzzy, grayish-pink heads of bloom are unmistakable. 1972G. Beine Land of Coyote 90 These are rattle boxes, and there, some rabbitsfoot clover.
1951E. Graham My Window looks down East vii. 63 The *rabbit's foot fern and all the other green things looked so radiant and fresh. 1964F. G. Foster Gardener's Fern Bk. 182 Golden Polypody... Commonly called ‘rabbit's-foot’ fern. Actually, the ‘rabbit's foot’ is a colorful orange-brown or white, scaly rhizome. 1973J. L. Faust N.Y. Times Bk. House Plants 107 Ferns..best for indoors are..coarse-leaved polypody..and rabbit's-foot.
1935A. S. Hitchcock Man. Grasses U.S. 350 Polypogon monspeliensis..*Rabbitfoot Grass. 1954C. E. Hubbard Grasses 285 Annual Beard-grass. Polypogon monspeliensis... Known in N. America as ‘Rabbitfoot Grass’. 1968F. W. Gould Grass Systematics v. 172 Most common and widespread is..rabbitfoot grass, present in moist areas along streams. 1973Times 20 Oct. 16/7 Upright ‘rabbits’ [sic] foot’, cock-spur or barnyard grasses have been common. |