| 释义 |
small time, small-time, n. and a. (phr.) orig. and chiefly U.S.
[small a.]
A. n. Theatr. (See quot. 1926.) Also transf.
1910Variety 30 Apr. 9/4 Acts on the ‘small time’ of any merit or quality will not play in the houses calling for ‘five shows daily’. 1917Wodehouse Man with Two Left Feet 38 He's booked me in the small time at thirty-five dollars a week. 1926Amer. Speech I. 436/2 Small time, the lower salaried circuits or where acts must work three or more times a day. 1960B. Keaton My Wonderful World of Slapstick v. 88 Rather than play the small time, other big-time acts preferred not to work. 1977B. Langley Death Stalk ix. 103 Small-time hoodlums looked very much alike. Perhaps it was that streak..of uniformity which kept them in the small-time.
B. adj. Of or pertaining to second-rate vaudeville; gen. operating on a small scale, second-rate, unimportant, insignificant.
1910Variety 30 Apr. 9/4 The Hartford Opera House has been taken under a five-year lease by S. Z. Poli who will operate it as a ‘small time’ vaudeville house. 1921A. G. Empey Madonna of Hills iii. 24 She had been given a ‘tryout’ before a booking agency, and had made good to the extent of working in ‘small time’ vaudeville. 1934Punch 7 Mar. 280/2 He lumbered, mined and starved in Canada; he became an itinerant ‘small-time’ wrestler and pugilist all over the United States. 1938Wodehouse Code of Woosters xiii. 278 Sidney Carton..was small-time stuff compared with you, Bertie. 1940R. Chandler Farewell, my Lovely xxxii. 244 You think I'm a small time private dick trying to push ten times his own weight. 1949‘J. Tey’ Brat Farrar xv. 139 Timber..was a deliberate and intelligent rogue... There was nothing small-time about Timber. 1961John o' London's 5 Jan. 22/2 A gang of big-time smugglers want to eliminate the small-time hero. 1968P. Oliver Screening Blues iv. 130 The words [of a blues song] were gauche but revealing of the anxieties of the small-time player. 1976P. R. White Planning for Public Transport x. 204 Many economists expert in the finer points of judging small-time savings, or the effect of taxation in determining net resource costs, have only the haziest idea of costs. 1977I. Shaw Beggarman, Thief iii. viii. 307 Do you intend to be a small-time tennis pro..all your life?
Hence small-timer, (a) a small-time theatre (rare); (b) a small-time operator, an insignificant person.
1910Variety 30 Apr. 9/4 S. Z. Poli..will operate it as a ‘small time’ vaudeville house, under the booking direction of J. J. Clancy, and in conjunction with the other Poli ‘small timers’. 1935A. J. Pollock Underworld Speaks 109/1 Small timer, a person who doesn't amount to much; a piker. 1950Sport 24–30 Mar. 21/4 The small-timer is now not only demanding protection from the Guild but a rightful place in boxing affairs. 1959R. Simons Houseboat Killings viii. 90 She was a small timer when I met 'er... Then she got so 'igh and mighty she wouldn't speak to me. 1976‘Trevanian’ Main (1977) x. 189 A couple of small⁓timers..who make their money by ‘laundering’ men for the American organized-crime market. |