| 释义 |
corbie Sc.|ˈkɔːbɪ|
Also 5–9 corby, 6 corbe.
[f. OF. corb, or its derivs. corbin, corbel: in Sc. the ending seems to be assimilated to the hypocoristic -y, -ie, in Robbie, Sandie, etc.]
1. A raven; also, often, the carrion crow.
c1450Henryson Tale of Dog 15 Schir Corbie Ravin wes maid Apparitour. 1513Douglas æneis xii. Prol. 174 Quhill corby gaspyt for the fervent heyt. 1637–50Row Hist. Kirk (1842) 60 A corbie wes sitting on the houses top, crying, Croup, Croup, Croup. 1820Blackw. Mag. VI. 568 In quest of..the Corbie, the Glede, and the Hawk.
b. Also corbie-crow.
a1811Leyden Lord Soulis, Nothing I wot he saw, Save a pyot upon a turret that sat, And beside it a corbie craw. 1837MacGillivray Brit. Birds I. 498. 1837 R. Dunn Ornith. Ork. & Shet. 81.
2. corbie messenger: one who returns too late, or not at all: in allusion to the raven in Gen. viii. 7. (Cf. corbin quot. 1300.)
a1455Holland Houlate lxiii, How Corby messinger..Thow ischit out of Noyes ark..Taryit as a tratour, and brocht na tythingis. c1610Sir J. Melvil Mem. (1683) 170 (Jam.) His Majesty alledging that I was Corbie's Messenger. 1637–50Row Hist. Kirk (1842) 448 He proved Corbie messenger (as it is in the proverb) to his master the Pope; for he himselfe..wes converted to the trueth; and..became one of the Reformers. 1822Hogg Perils of Man II. 91 (Jam.), I wadna like that we were trowed to be corbie messengers.
3. Comb. corbie-gable, a gable having corbie-steps; corbie-steps, projections in the form of steps on the sloping sides of a gable; occurring in old houses in Scotland, the north of England, and on the Continent.[This term appears in Jamieson's Dict., 1808, as a modern Sc. vernacular name, with the synonym cat-steps (also G. katzentreppe); another form, not given by Jamieson, is craw- or crow-steps, used in the south of Scotland. These names have app. no literary history, and are evidently popular designations, meaning steps such as only a perching or climbing animal, like a crow or cat, could get at or use. Jamieson, however, offered the conjecture that corbie-steps might be a corruption of ‘corbel-steps’ (of the existence of which he had no evidence whatever), and this merely fictitious form has been adopted in some Dictionaries, etc.] 1808Jamieson, Corbie-steps, the projections of the stones, on the slanting part of a gable, resembling steps of stairs. 1851Turner Dom. Archit. I. i. 24 Gable ends..are not unfrequently drawn with corbie-steps. 1853Ibid. II. 25 That corbie-gables should be so common in Scotland is readily accounted for. 1888Freeman in Jrnl. Archæol. Institute XLV. 16 The slope of the aisles is cut into two stages so as to give the whole rather the air of great corbie-steps. |