| 释义 |
corky, a.|ˈkɔːkɪ|
[f. cork n.1 + -y. The fig. uses appear to be the earlier.]
1. a. Having the nature or character of cork; cork-like.
1756C. Lucas Ess. Waters III. 38 Of a more corky texture. 1836Macgillivray tr. Humboldt's Trav. xxvi. 393 Corky asbestus. 1874Cooke Fungi (1875) 24 The greater number of species are leathery or corky. 1884Bower & Scott De Bary's Phaner. 563 The thick corky layers of Quercus Suber. 1887All Year Round 14 May 394 The sombre water way on which they [boats] ride with a corky buoyancy.
b. corky scab = potato scab (potato n. 7). Austral.
1911D. McAlpine Handbk. Fungus Dis. Potato in Australia iv. 78 (heading) ‘Corky’, Powdery or Spongospora Scab. 1933Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Dec. 28/3 Corky scab appears in its mild form as rough scabs or small conical pimples on the skin of the tuber, but when more severe the flesh of the potato is destroyed and a canker-like appearance supervenes. 1943Coast to Coast 1942 34 The farm had failed with Corky Scab on the potatoes.
†2. fig. Dry and stiff, withered, sapless. Obs.
1603Harsnet Pop. Impost. 23 To teach an old corkie woman to writhe, tumble, curuet, and fetch her Morice gamboles. 1605Shakes. Lear iii. vii. 29 Binde fast his corky armes.
3. fig. Light, trifling, frivolous; buoyant, lively, springy; hence, skittish, ticklish, restive. colloq.
1601? Marston Pasquil & Kath. i. 324 That same perpetuall grin, That leades his corkie jest, to make them sinke Into the eares of his deriders. 1631Weever Anc. Fun. Mon. 54 Inuenting, out of their owne corkie braines, a new certaine no-forme of Liturgie. 1661Sir H. Vane's Politics 2 Churles of a light and corky humour. 1746E. Carter in Pennington Mem. (1808) I. 136 Before they are half over I grow so restless and corky, I am ready to fly out of the window. 1782Sir J. Sinclair Observ. Scot. Dialect 100 Corky, airy, brisk. 1862C. Bede College Life 24 He's rather corky at the best of times; what will he be now? 1862Mrs. H. Wood Mrs. Halib. ii. xxi, ‘They be getting corky at the beer-shops, now-a-days, and won't give no trust.’ 1872O. W. Holmes Poet Breakf.-t. iv. (1885) 89 They felt so ‘corky’ it was hard to keep them down. 1875‘Stonehenge’ Brit. Sports ii. i. v. §5. 438 If the horse seems light and corky.
4. Having acquired a flavour of cork; = corked 4.
1889Cent. Dict. s.v., A corky flavor. 1925F. S. Fitzgerald Great Gatsby (1926) i. 15 My second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. 1967New Statesman 15 Dec. 860/2 We should say corky to describe an ‘off-odour’.
5. Comb., as corky-brained, corky-headed adjs. (cf. sense 3, and cork-brained s.v. cork n.1 11 d).
a1700B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Corky-brain'd Fellow, silly, foolish. 1787Burns Brigs of Ayr 170 Staumrel, corky-headed, graceless Gentry. 1825–79Jamieson Sc. Dict. Corky-headit, light-headed, giddy. Roxb. |